Transfer across modality in perceptual implicit memory

Abstract

We examined whether words studied in one modality (visual or auditory) would prime performance in the opposite modality in five different perceptual implicit memory tests: auditory perceptual identification, auditory stem completion, visual perceptual identification, visual stem completion, and visual fragment completion. Significant transfer across modality was observed in all five tasks. However, a large proportion of the subjects reported using explicit retrieval strategies during the implicit tests. Those subjects who claimed not to have used explicit retrieval processes during the test phase demonstrated transfer across modalities in the stem completion tests and the perceptual identification tests, but not in the fragment completion test. The results indicate that implicit visual word-fragment completion is unique, in the sense that it relies exclusively on perceptual memory processes, whereas the other tasks rely, in part, on nonperceptual memory processes.

False memories lack perceptual detail: Evidence from implicit word-stem completion and perceptual identification tests

“…Only when critical items were directly encoded (Experiment 2B) did we find priming for them in perceptual identification. Manipulating the encoding modality of DRM lists had a predictable effect on priming of list words in each experiment: when the modality matched, greater priming was observed (e.g., Blum & Yonelinas, 2001;Roediger & Blaxton, 1987;Schacter & Graf, 1989;Weldon, 1991). Yet encoding modality never exerted a systematic effect on performance for nonpresented critical items, even in Experiment 1 where critical items were primed above chance levels.…”

The role of explicit memory processes in cross-modal priming: An investigation of stem completion priming in amnesia

“…It remains to be seen whether cross-modal priming in other tasks, such as fragment completion, can be accounted for in a similar way. Blum and Yonelinas (2001) recently provided evidence suggesting that cross-modal priming in fragment completion may be mediated differently from cross-modal priming in stem completion, since only participants who claimed to have used explicit retrieval processes showed cross-modal priming in the fragment completion task. At odds with their data, however, is the f inding of intact cross-modal fragment completion priming in a group of amnesic patients (Vaidya, Gabrieli, Keane, & Monti, 1995; but see Kohler et al, 1997, for evidence of impairment in a single case).…”

The effects of generation on auditory implicit memory

“…Because priming in both the visual and the auditory domains requires at least some modality-specific processes, it cannot be assumed that the processing operations in visual and auditory priming will completely overlap in their function in regard to other critical variables, such as generation. Moreover, the effects of generation on visual implicit tests have been used by the TAP account to classify tests as perceptual or conceptual (Roediger & McDermott, 1993); although auditory priming tests have been described as per-r r ceptual priming tasks (e.g., Blum & Yonelinas, 2001;Loveman et al, 2002), there has been no assessment of their "perceptual" status with this important criterion.…”