The current study investigated the efficacy of Wolpe's original (1954) paradigm of anxiety-relief conditioning. The procedure consisted of administering a mildly aversive electric shock to a subject for several seconds until the subject said the word "Relax," and the shock was terminated. Repeated pairings were claimed by Wolpe to condition physiological relief to the cue word, "Relax," which could then be employed in order to reduce anxiety in various anxiety provoking situations. Since there does not appear to be a generally accepted theoretical rationale to account for the reported efficacy of anxiety-relief conditioning, several theoretical rationales were discussed. In addition, a distinction was made between the anxiety-relief paradigm described by Wolpe (1954) and the aversion-relief paradigm employed by subsequent investigators (Gaupp, Stern, & Galbraith, 1972; Solyom, McClure, Heseltine, Ledwidge, & Solyom, 1972; Thorpe, Schmidt, Brown, & Castell, 1964). It was suggested that this distinction might be used to account for the failure of the current investigation to support the efficacy of anxiety-relief conditioning, as a review of the major study supporting its efficacy (Turnage & Wenrich, 1974) indicated that aversion-relief, rather than anxiety-relief, may have been employed. In the absence of strong supportive evidence for the efficacy of Wolpe's anxiety-relief …

The purpose of this study was to determine whether and to what extent free association following exposure to written material would affect the memory of that material, and whether the effect upon memory would vary with age of the subject. A test of learning (immediate retention) resulted in a significant difference in performance between young and old women--the older learning less. Free association was not found to be significant as a mnemonic aid to either age group, and was compared with characteristics of other more common mnemonics. Suggestions for additional research are discussed.