Evidence for multiple mechanisms of conceptual priming on implicit memory tests.

Abstract

The authors examined effects of encoding manipulations on 4 conceptual-implicit memory tasks: word-cued association, category-cued association, category verification, and abstract/concrete classification. Study-phase conceptual elaboration enhanced priming for word-cued association with weakly associated words (Experiment 3), and for category-cued association with high- and low-dominance exemplars (Experiments 4 and 5), but did not enhance priming for word-cued association with strongly associated words (Experiments 1 and 2), for category verification with high- and low-dominance exemplars (Experiment 5), or for abstract/concrete classification (Experiment 7). Forms of priming that were unaffected by conceptual elaboration were not mediated by perceptual processes because they were unaffected by study-test modality changes (Experiments 6 and 8). The dissociative effects of conceptual elaboration on conceptual-implicit tasks suggest that at least 2 dissociable mechanisms mediate conceptual priming.

Experiencing a word can prime its accessibility and its associative connections to related words

“…The main issue in the present paper is not whether priming effects occur because they have been observed under a wide variety of conditions in the free-association procedure (e.g., Cramer, 1968;Fox, 1968;Nelson, Schreiber, & Holley, 1992;Storms, 1958;Vaidya et al, 1997;Weldon & Coyote, 1996;Zeelenberg, Shiffrin, & Raaijmakers, 1999).…”

“…In general, variables that affect target accessibility should also affect the magnitude of observed priming effects. For example, level-of-processing manipulations have shown that semantic processing focused on the target during study increases the magnitude of priming effects relative to processing that focuses on the nonsemantic features of the target (Vaidya et al, 1997;Weldon & Coyote, 1996).…”

Implicit memory for novel conceptual associations in amnesia

“…Both of these tasks require analysis of stimulus meaning and are, therefore, considered to be conceptual in nature; yet they also differ in their response demands (generation vs. classification). It has been suggested in the context of studies of single-item priming that generation and classification tasks may be mediated by distinct conceptual-priming mechanisms (Vaidya et al, 1997). This suggestion is supported by evidence from studies of normal cognition (Vaidya et al, 1997), as well as by studies of neuropsychological populations (Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998).…”

“…It has been suggested in the context of studies of single-item priming that generation and classification tasks may be mediated by distinct conceptual-priming mechanisms (Vaidya et al, 1997). This suggestion is supported by evidence from studies of normal cognition (Vaidya et al, 1997), as well as by studies of neuropsychological populations (Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998). Because it is possible that associative priming in these two types of tasks also depends on distinct priming mechanisms, the present study included both a generation task and a classification task in order to assess the status of conceptual associative priming in amnesia.…”

Capturing conceptual implicit memory: The time it takes to produce an association

“…Consider the standard word association test of conceptual implicit memory (e.g., Vaidya et al, 1997). The materials are associatively related stimulus-response pairs (e.g., broom-closet).…”