Motivation and Positional Cues in Incidental Learning

Abstract

In two parallel experiments, 6 groups of Ss learned 3 arrangements of relevant-irrelevant material: direct spatial contiguity, consistent spatial separation and randomly arranged spatial separation. Each group learned a single list under 1 of 2 levels of incentive-oriented motivation. In Exp. 1 relevant-irrelevant separation was 1 in.; in Exp. II, ¼ in. There was a significant increase in intentional learning in Exp. I with the introduction of incentive; Exp. II showed no effect of the incentive. Both experiments showed a decline in incidental learning with spatial separation, with a greater decline for the 1-in. separation than for the ¼-in. No effect of motivation appeared in the data for incidental recall, suggesting a change in the characteristics of the motivation involved. Specifically, it seemed possible that the incentive might interact with task difficulty to create an emotional situation.