INDUCED AROUSAL AND TIME OF RECALL AS DETERMINANTS OF PAIRED-ASSOCIATE RECALL

High arousal at the time of verbal learning has previously been shown to result in impaired immediate recall and facilitated delayed recall, while low arousal results in the reverse effect. The present experiments, one involving incidental and the other intentional learning, were designed to see whether or not this phenomenon could be brought under experimental control when arousal was manipulated, independent of the learning material, by means of white noise presented at 85 db. Skin‐resistance recordings showed that white noise was effective in inducing arousal. There was a significant interaction between recall interval and arousal, in both types of learning, in the direction predicted by the theory of perseverative consolidation.