Are awareness questionnaires valid? Investigating the use of posttest questionnaires for assessing awareness in implicit memory tests.
Two experiments--one employing a perceptual implicit memory test and the other a conceptual implicit memory test--investigated the validity of posttest questionnaires for determining the incidence of awareness in implicit memory tests. In both experiments, a condition in which none of the studied words could be used as test responses (i.e., the none-studied condition) was compared with a standard implicit test condition. Results showed that reports of awareness on the posttest questionnaire were much less frequent in the none-studied condition than in the standard condition. This was especially true after deep processing at study. In both experiments, 83% of the participants in the none-studied condition stated they were unaware even though there were strong demands for claiming awareness. Although there was a small bias in the questionnaire (i.e., 17% of the participants in the none-studied condition stated they were aware), overall, there was strong support for the validity of awareness questionnaires.
Barnhardt
Terrence M
TM
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA. tbarnhardt@tamu.edu
Geraci
Lisa
L
D001364:Awareness; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors