Perceptual Transfer in Stem-Completion and Fragment-Completion Tests

• Published in: Canadian journal of experimental psychology 1999-09, Vol.53 (3), p.203-219
• Main Authors: HORTON, KEITH D, NASH, BRENDA D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Processes; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Learning; Learning. Memory; Memory; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Studies; Task Complexity; Theory; Transfer (Learning); Visual Memory
• ISSN: 1196-1961; 1878-7290
• DOI: 10.1037/h0087310

The present research was designed to provide a direct test of the transfer-appropriate processing framework as it applies to performance on two implicit memory tasks and also to identify the component processes that are engaged on these memory tasks. The general strategy involved employing study tasks that mimicked (more so than a standard Read condition) the processing that appears to occur during the memory task. Performance on a stem-completion task was not consistently enhanced by a study task in which participants selected potential word endings for the three-letter stems. However, inducing participants to engage in a letter-substitution task during encoding enhanced priming on a fragment-completion test, relative to the standard Read condition. Consistent with the transfer-appropriate processing framework, the letter-substitution task showed evidence of optimizing perceptual priming effects, as additional manipulations of perceptual similarity had no further effect on performance on the implicit test. The data suggest that the Read condition does not induce maximum perceptual processing, as has been suggested previously, whereas a letter-by-letter substitution strategy mimics the processes used to complete word fragments on an implicit test. However, participants may not normally solve word stems by generating possible word endings and then selecting among these alternatives. Les précédentes recherches sur la mémoire implicite ont été fondées sur des conditions standard de lecture pour comparer les effets de manipulations d'essai, la raison étant que ce type de conditions maximisent le traitement perceptif du stimulus et, par ricochet, les résultats à un test de mémoire implicite. Toutefois, selon le modèle de traitement pertinent au transfert, il peut être possible d'accroître la mise en condition en faisant un exercice qui reflète dans une plus grande mesure le processus de traitement utilisé dans le test de mémoire implicite. Les présents travaux de recherche avaient pour but d'évaluer les effets de pareils devoirs et d'identifier par conséquent les processus liés à la composante qui intervient dans des tests semblables. Les participants ont étudié des mots soit (a) dans des conditions de lecture, (b) dans le cadre d'un exercice qui ressemblait à un test de complétion d'un fragment de mot ou (c) de complétion de la racine d'un mot. Pour ce qui est de l'exercice (b), on montrait aux participants des fragments de mot et différentes lettres sous chaq