Paired Associates Learning Task (PAL)
AKA: PALT
Background
A Paired Associate Learning Task (PALT) is a cognitive memory assessment where a participant learns to associate pairs of items (words, symbols, or locations). During the test, the learner is first presented with the pairs, and later prompted with one half of the pair to recall its matching partner. Invented by psychologist Mary Whiton Calkins in 1894, the technique measures how the brain encodes, retains, and retrieves new associations.
The Millisecond library provides the
- Spatial Associates Learning Task: Uses Visual-Visual Matches (->pairing a symbol with a specific spatial location)
- Verbal Associates Learning Task: Uses Verbal-Verbal matches (->pairing one word with another)
Test Variations
Participants are shown the contents of 6 boxes in the study phase and then identify which box each item belongs in the recall phase. The procedure is based on the publication by Trewartha et al (2014).
A paired associates learning task modeled after the Verbal Paied Associates test in the Wechsler Memory Scale. The procedure is based on the publication by Thiruselvam et al (2015).
References
Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Paired Associates Learning Task (PAL).
Sahakian, B. J., Morris, R. G., Evenden, J. L., Heald, A., Levy, R., Philpot, M., & Robbins, T. W. (1988). A comparative study of visuospatial memory and learning in Alzheimer-type dementia and Parkinson's disease. Brain, 111(3), 695–718.
Talpos, J. C., Winters, B. D., Dias, R., Saksida, L. M., & Bussey, T. J. (2009). A novel touchscreen-automated paired-associate learning (PAL) task sensitive to pharmacological manipulation of the hippocampus: a translational rodent model of cognitive impairments in neurodegenerative disease. Psychopharmacology, 205(1), 157–168.
Trewartha, K.M., Garcia, A., Wolpert, D.M., & Flanagan, J.R. (2014).Fast But Fleeting: Adaptive Motor Learning Processes Associated with Aging and Cognitive Decline.The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(40), 13411–13421.
Thiruselvam, I., Vogt, E.M, & James B. Hoelzle, J.B. (2015). The Interchangeability of CVLT-II and WMS-IV Verbal Paired Associates Scores: A Slightly Different Story. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 30, 248–255.