Effects of stress on mediated paired-associate learning

A verbal paired-associate experiment with 60 fifth grade children replicated the Wismer & Lipsitt (1964) finding of both proactive facilitation and interference in the same Ss. In addition, it was hypothesized and found that stress, induced simply by the requirement that S exert pressure on a hand dynamometer, interacts with type of word pair, tending to enhance both the facilitation and the interference effects.