The Beneficial Effect Of Integration Of New Acquired Words

During the process of learning,individuals need to integrate two(or more)individual items(or features)into an whole representation(i.e.,integrate coding;e.g.,"cup-desk",Creating the scene of the cup is on the desk),which is helpful for the semantic association between items.Much evidence from some studies concerning the integration of acquired words have suggested that the subsequent retention of associative memory is higher in integrated coding condition compared with non-integrated coding condition(e.g.,"cup-desk",The "cup" and "desk" are processed separately),which is termed the beneficial effect of integration.The beneficial effect is accounted mainly for by familiarity-based and recall-bsaed associative memory,and holds stable regardless of the integrated coding methods,experimental materials,and the subject groups.Based on the lifelong learning,individuals often need to integrate acquired words(i.e.,“old words”)with newly acquired words(i.e.,“new words”)— The semantic information of new words can be acquired through context(e.g.,"Fengji: Fengji,a kind of chrysanthemum,is an ornamental flower")— to form a whole representation.However,previous studies have not yet systematically explored whether the beneficial effect of the integration of new words with old words.If so,is the cognitive mechanism of the beneficial effect of the integration of new word pair with old words similar to that of the old word pair? Thus,the present study systematically discusses these scientific problems.The goal of Experiment 1 is to consolidate the experimental paradigm of association memory the integration of old word pair,in which the coding strategy of integrating operations(integrated images coding)was adopted.On the basis of experiment 1,Experiment 2A with the encoding method as a between-subject variable and Experiment 2B with the encoding method as a within-subject variable explores whether there is the beneficial effect of integration of new word pair;Experiment 3 will further explore the cognitive mechanism of the beneficial effect of integration of new word pair in which the inherent characteristics of materials(such as semantic related tasks)was manipulated.The findings are as follows:(1)In the experiment of integration of old-old word pair,the performance of associative recognition is significantly better for integrated images coding than for individual images coding,indicating the beneficial effect of integration of old word pair holds robust.And the familiarity-based and recollection-based associative recognition are higher for integrated images coding than for individual images coding,indicating integration increases the contribution of familiarity and recollection to subsequent associative recognition.(2)In the experiment of integration of old-new word pair,the performance of associative recognition and semantic recall of new words are significantly better for integrated images coding than for individual images coding,indicating there is presence of the beneficial effect in the integration of new word pair.And the recollection-based associative recognition is higher for integrated images coding than for individual images coding,indicating integration increases the contribution of recollection to subsequent associative recognition.(3)In the experiment of the integration of new-old word pair in which the inherent characteristics of materials was used,the performance of associative recognition,semantic recall of new words,and recollection-based associative recognition are significantly better for semantic related tasks than for semantic irrelevant task,indicating integration increases the contribution of recollection to subsequent associative recognition.In conclusion,it is found that integration processing enhances the contribution of familiarity and recollection to subsequent associative recognition of old-old word pair and the contribution of recollection to subsequent associative recognition of new-old word pair.The results suggest that there may be differences in the cognitive mechanism of the beneficial effect between old-old word pair integration and new-old word pair integration.