Context effects in auditory implicit memory.
The context effect in implicit memory is the finding that presentation of words in meaningful context reduces or eliminates repetition priming compared to words presented in isolation. Virtually all of the research on the context effect has been conducted in the visual modality but preliminary results raise the question of whether context effects are less likely in auditory priming. Context effects in the auditory modality were systematically examined in five experiments using the auditory implicit tests of word-fragment and word-stem completion. The first three experiments revealed the classical context effect in auditory priming: Words heard in isolation produced substantial priming, whereas there was little priming for the words heard in meaningful passages. Experiments 4 and 5 revealed that a meaningful context is not required for the context effect to be obtained: Words presented in an unrelated audio stream produced less priming than words presented individually and no more priming than words presented in meaningful passages. Although context effects are often explained in terms of the transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) framework, the present results are better explained by Masson and MacLeod's (2000) reduced-individuation hypothesis.
Besken
Miri
M
Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599–3270, USA. mbesken@email.unc.edu
Mulligan
Neil W
NW
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D012660:Semantics; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities; D014825:Vocabulary