Accessing the particular from the general: the power of distinctiveness in the context of organization.
Recall is inversely related to the number of items sharing a cue. The limiting case of unique cue-target relationships supports extremely high levels of recall, particularly when the cue is self-generated. This fact is incongruous with the importance assigned to the construct of organization in memory theory. Further, self-generated unique cue-target relationships tend to be idiosyncratic, implying that the power of unique cues should be limited to cases of self-cued memory. The experiments presented here suggest a role for organization that reconciles the fact of unique cue effectiveness with the importance of organization to memory. Two new findings are reported: Unique cue production enhances target encoding; and general cues can access particular encodings. The data are further tribute to the importance of simultaneous organizational and distinctive processing and recommend a new perspective on the function of organization in memory.
Hunt
R R
RR
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro 27412, USA. huntrr@iris.uncg.edu
Smith
R E
RE
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D011930:Reaction Time; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D014706:Verbal Learning