Implicit memory for new associations : an interactive process approach
Date
1990
Authors
Micco, Angela
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Abstract
Three experiments that examined the role of data driven and conceptually driven processes in implicit memory for new associations found that associative priming reflected episodic memory for the procedures that were used to interpret an item's visual pattern at study. Cue-target pairs were studied and the proportion of targets that were produced on a word stem completion task was higher when the stem was paired with a cue that had been associated with different target at study. This context effect emerged following both semantic relational processing and a non-semantic copying task suggesting a role for integral processing in associative priming. Data driven processing did not contribute independently to associative priming as a context effect failed to emerge when the cue words were orthographically similar to the study cue. In addition, when the visual pattern was held constant at study and test, a context effect emerged as more targets were produced as completions when the original interpretation of the cue's visual pattern was reinstated at test than when the interpretation was altered. In all three experiments, word stem completion performance was optimally facilitated when both the context word's visual pattern and the conceptual interpretation of the pattern were reinstated at test, thus suggesting that associative priming was contingent upon reprocessing the interaction of the data driven and conceptually driven operations that were applied at study.