A replication of Bransford and Franks’ (1971) “The abstraction of linguistic ideas”

Abstract

Experiment II of Bransford & Frank’s (1971) “The Abstraction of Linguistic Ideas” was replicated in as great a detail as the description of the original procedure would permit. The present results are almost identical to those of Bransford and Franks: Ss frequently reported recognizing new sentences derived from the same complex ideas as sentences heard during acquisition, and their level of confidence in their reports of recognition increased as the complexity of the test sentences increased. These findings enhance Bransford and Franks’s conclusion that Ss integrate complex semantic information as presented in related but nonconsecutively experienced sentences, and do not simply memorize the exact sentences which they have heard. The procedures seem appropriate for use in the investigation of other hypotheses concerning semantic memory. © 1973, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.