Paired Associate Learning Revisited: Paradigm for Assessing Ease of Learning and Transfer of Command Mnemonics

Abstract

The present study investigated the use of a classic laboratory paradigm, paired-associate (PA) learning, to assess the ease of learning and transfer of command mnemonics. This paradigm was applied to the ease of learning text editing command language where the stimulus was a command (e.g., Delete Block) and the response was the keystroke sequence associated with that command (e.g., ^DB). Two types of command keystroke sequences were employed; meaningful (M) abbreviations which were mnemonically related to command names (e.g., Delete Block = ^DB), and nonmeaningful (MN) abbreviations which are not mnemonically related to command names (e.g., Delete Block = ^LK). There was evidence for differential transfer only for the average number correct measure but not the trials-to-criterion-measure. For both first and second list learning, it took significantly fewer trials to criterion to learn the M than NM keystroke sequences. The present results point toward the use of the PA paradigm to standardize the ease of learning of command languages in software usability testing. It may be concluded that the trials-to-criterion measure and the average number correct measrues are sufficiently senstive metrics to differentiate ease of learning good from bad command mnemonics.