Write a lab report on the effect of “category set” on solution times for anagram puzzles.
Deese (1959) found that an important factor in free recall of verbal materials is the inter-item associative strength (IIAS) within the list to be recalled. IIAS is a measure of the interrelationships among units of a list. High IIAS exists if the units comprising a list tend to evoke each other frequently as associates, whereas IIAS is low if the units of the list seldom elicit one another as associates. When the items within a list are highly inter-associated, free recall is enhanced. The recall of a given word tends to increase total recall by eliciting other related words in the list of high IIAS.
Some investigators (Mayzner & Tresselt, 1958; Safren, 1962) saw a similarity between such verbal recall situations and anagram solution, and as such, they expected similar principles to operate in both situations. Safren (1962) attempted to exhibit this similarity by showing that a “category set” exists in anagram solution as well as in verbal recall (Deese, 1959). A category set may be viewed as a readiness to respond to words belonging to a common class or category (i.e., a group of words with high inter-item associative strength). Thus, a list of anagrams whose solutions belong to a common category might be expected to be solved more readily than a list comprised of unrelated word solutions. For example, all of the solutions to the anagrams in List 4 below (Table 1) are related to “beverages”, “breakfast”, “food”, and “taste”. If a category set comes into play during the course of solving a list, the solution time for the anagrams should be shorter than that for a control group which receives a list of equal length, but made up of unrelated words. Moreover, there should be a decrease in solution time for successive anagrams when subjects solve anagrams made from associatively related words since associations called up by previously solved anagrams will aid the participant in the solution of later problems in the list.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|