Práctica 2.Rappold.hashtroudi.1991

7/23/2019 Prctica 2.Rappold.hashtroudi.1991

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Journal of Experimenta l Psychology:

Learning, Memory, and Cognit ion

1991, Vol. 17, No. I , 103 -114

Copyright 1991 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

D278-7393/91/S3.OO

Does Organization Improve Priming?

Virginia A. Rappold and Shahin Hashtroudi

George Washington Univers i ty

In five experiments, the effects of organization on implicit memory or priming tests were

compared with its effects on the explicit memory tests of free and cued recall. Organization was

manipulated by varying list structure (blocked vs. random presentation of categorized items) and

by instructions. The results showed that organization had parallel effects on the category-

production priming test and free- and cued-recall tests; performance was enhanced by organiza-

tion on both types of

tests.

It was also dem onstrated tha t the effect of organization on priming

was limited to the category-production test and was not obtained with the word-identification

priming test. These results suggest that performance on implicit and explicit memory tests is

similarly affected by experimental manipulations when both types of tests rely on conceptually

driven processing. In addition, performance on two implicit tests is dissociated when one test

relies on conceptually driven processing and the other on data-driven processing.

Recent interest in studying the relations between explicit

{e.g., recall and recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) mem -

ory tests has been motivated by the idea that memory is not

a single unified system but rather consists of several inde-

pendent forms. These forms may be differentially affected by

certain experimental man ipulations and by mem ory disorders

such as amnesia (Cohen Squire, 1980;Tulving, 1983, 1985;

Warrington

W eiskrantz, 1982). Although a few studies have

reported parallel effects of certain experim ental man ipulation s

on imp licit and explicit tests (Blaxton, 1989; Graf

Schacter,

1985;

Jacoby, 1983a; Jacoby & Dallas, 1981 ; Roediger &

Blaxton, 1987b; Roediger, Weldon, & Challis, 1989), the

majority of studies have focused on de mo nstrating differences

rather than similarities between the two types of tests. In

addition, most theoretical accounts of the relations between

implicit and explicit tests have been formulated primarily to

explain the differences between the two types of

tests

(Cohen

& Squire, 1980; Graf & Ma ndler, 1984; Tulving, 1983; see

Schacter, 1987 and Richardson-K lavehn & Bjork, 1988, for

reviews). The purpose of the present experiments was to

explore the similarities as well as the differences between

implicit and explicit tests in their sensitivity to organizational

manipulations.

One recent theo retical framework that suggests certain sim-

ilarities between implicit and explicit tests is the transfer-

appropriate processing framework that emphasizes the dis-

tinction between data-driven and conceptually driven pro-

cesses (Jacoby, 1983b; Roediger Blaxton, 1987b; Roediger,

This research was supported by a Biomedical Research Support

Gran t from th e George Washington University to Shahin Hashtroudi.

We thank Teresa Blaxton, Roddy R oediger, Betsy Parker, Sharon

Mutter, and especially Barbara Schwartz and Sue Ferguson for their

valuable comments on this article. We also thank PeterGraf,Colin

MacLeod, and Daniel Schacter for their helpful suggestions for revi-

sion. We are grateful to Carol Reisen for her help in analyzing the

data and to Sheri Denm ark for her help in testing the subjects.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Shahin Hashtroudi, Department of Psychology, George Washington

University, Washington, D C 20052.

We ldon, & Challis, 1989; see also Johnso n, 1983). According

to this framework, both implicit and explicit memory tests

involve a mixture of data-driven and conceptually driven

processes. Data-driven processes are guided in large part by

the physical features of information, whereas conceptually

driven processes are self-initiated activities that are guided by

subjects' conceptual knowledge and the experimental context.

Typically, implicit tests rely more on data-driven processing,

whereas explicit tests depend on conceptually driven process-

ing. However, the data-driven versus conceptually driven

distinction does not necessarily parallel the implicit/explicit

distinction, because implicit tests may be conceptually driven

and explicit tests may be data driven. Consequently, depend-

ing on the particular tests involved, performance on implicit

tests may be similar to or different from performance on

explicit tests. If one selects a conceptually driven im plicit test

and compares it with a conceptually driven explicit test, then

performance on these tests would be similarly affected by

experimental manipulations. In addition, dissociations in per-

formance between two implicit or two explicit tests may be

observed if one of the tests is conceptually driven and the

other is data driven.

Consistent with these assumptions, Blaxton (1989) dem-

onstrated that generating a word to a cue (a conceptually

driven manipulation) improved performance on the explicit

free-recall and semantic cued-recall tests as well as on a test

of general knowledge, a conceptually driven implicit memory

or priming test. In addition, generation did not improve

performance on a data-driven priming test (word-fragment

completion). Similarly, Srinivas and Roediger (1990) showed

that generation and levels of processing (both conceptually

driven m anipulations) enhanced performance on the concep-

tually driven category-production test but not on the data-

driven word-fragment completion test.

The present experiments were designed to further demon-

strate similarities between implicit and explicit tests and dif-

ferences between two implicit tests by varying organization.

Organization refers to the process of grouping and interrelat-

ing items on the basis of comm on properties. The manipula-

tion of organization seems to be an ideal method for varying

conceptually driven processing because organizing items

103


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104 VIRGINIA A. RAPPOLD AND SHAHIN HASHTROUDI

clearly requires self-initiated activities that are guided by

subjects' conceptual knowledge. Typically, categorized or as-

sociatively related word lists are used to induce organization

because the inherent structure of these lists emphasizes the

processing of common features oftheitems (Bousfield, 1953;

Jenkins, M ink, & Russell, 1958). Thus, in a free-recall test, if

a list consists of several instances of taxonomic categories

(e.g., animals, occupations), it will be remembered better than

a list of unrelated words (Hunt & Einstein, 1981). Any vari-

able that promotes the formation of interitem relationships

will enhance recall. For example, blocked presentation of list

items, in which instances of a category are presented adja-

cently at study, increases recall compared with random pre-

sentation (Bower, Clark, Lesgold. & Winzenz, 1969; Cofer,

Bruce.

Reicher, 1966;Dallett. 1964; Ho rton & Cofer, 1975).

It has been well established that categorical organization is

an important d eterminan t of performance on explicit m emory

tests such as free and cued recall (Bousfield, 1953 ; Bower et

al.,

1969; Cofer et a l, 1966; Dallett, 1964; see Tulving &

Donaldson, 1972). However, there have been no studies that

have examined the effects of categorical organization on

implicit m emo ry tests. We compa red th e effects of categorical

organization on the explicit tests of free and cued recall to its

effects on the implicit test of category production. In the

category-production test, after studying a list of items belong-

ing to several taxonomic categories, subjects are presented

with category titles and are asked to produc e the first instances

of the category that come to mind. Some of the category titles

at test refer to instances presented at study (studied categories)

and others do not (unstudied categories). Priming is deter-

mined by comparing the probability of producing instances

from the studied categories to the probability of producing

instances from the unstudied categories(Graf,Shimamura, &

Squire, 1985; Kihlstrom, 1980; Srinivas & Roedigcr, 1990).

Category production is considered an implicit test because

subjects are not asked to deliberately remember category

instances from the study list, but they are simply asked to

produce instances that come to mind.

Category production was selected because it is similar to

implicit memory or priming tests as well as to explicit tests.

On the one hand, category production resembles priming tests

such as word identification, word-stem completion, and par-

tial-word identification in that it is not disrupted by amnesia

(Gardner, Boiler, Moreines, Butters,

1973;

Graf et al., 1985;

Hamann, 1989; Kihlstrom, 1980). On the other hand, cate-

gory production resembles free and cued recall because per-

formance on this test requires conceptual knowledge of tax-

onomic categories. In addition, this test has been shown to

benefit from conceptually driven manipulations such as gen-

eration and levels of processing, and is not affected by data-

driven manipulations such as changes in modality of presen-

tation between study and test (Srinivas & Roediger, 1990).

To the extent that the category-production test involves con-

ceptually driven processing, it should be improved by condi-

tions that encourage organization. Therefore, we expected

parallel effects of organization on category production and

free and cued recall.

We also compared the efTect of organization on category

production with its effect on the word-identification priming

test. Word identification has been shown to be sensitive to

changes in perceptual aspects of

items

and, as such, is consid-

ered to be a data-driven test (Jacoby, 19 83b; Jacoby

Dallas,

1981;

Roedigcr & Blaxton, 1987b; Roedigcr, Wcldon, &

Challis, 1989). In addition, this test is not affected by manip-

ulations that vary conceptually driven processing such as

levels of processing manipulations (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981).

Thus,

we expected that word identification would not be

affected by organization, and that performance on this test

would be dissociated from performance on the category-

production test.

Five experiments were conducted to examine the effects of

organization on implicit and explicit tests. In Experiment 1,

we studied the effects of organization on category production

and free a nd cued recall by varying the me thod of presentation

of the items. Study words from a category were presented

either in a blocked order to encourage organization or in a

random order. In Experiment 2. we examined the generality

ofthe effect of organization on category production and free

and cued recall by using both high- and low-frequency in-

stances of categories. In Experiment 3, we manipulated or-

ganization by giving organizational instructions rather than

by varying list structure. In Experiment 4, the time course of

forgetting in category production was compared with that of

free and cued recall. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effect of

method of presentation (blocked vs. random) on category

production was compared with its effect on word identifica-

tion.

Experiment 1

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the effects

of organization on category production and free and cued

recall. One criterion proposed for classifying tests as data- or

conceptually driven is that data-driven tests should not be

affected by manipulations that vary elaborative or concep-

tually driven processing such as organization, whereas con-

ceptually driven tests should benefit from these ma nipulations

(Hashtrou di, Ferguson, Rappold, & Chrosniak, 1988; Roedi-

ger & Blaxton, 1987a, 1987b; Roediger, Weldon, & Challis,

1989). To exam ine wh ether category prod uction benefits from

conceptually driven processing, we used two study conditions

in which organization was varied by changing list structure

(Bower et al., 1969; Cofer et al., 1966). In the first condition,

subjects were presented with categorically related words (e.g.,

eagle, falcon, sparrow) from several different categories (e.g.,

animals, fruits) in a blocked order for study. In the second

condition, the same categorically related words were presented

in a random order. It was expected that the list structure in

the blocked condition would encourage subjects to interrelate

the items actively and to form a unitized memory represen-

tation.

The blocked/random organizational manipulation has

been used widely in free and cued recall, and has been shown

to be effective in improving performance on these explicit

memory tests (e.g., Bower el al., 1969; Cofer et al., 1966;

Dallett, 1964; Ho rton & Cofer, 1975). As with the previous

studies, we expected that blocked presentation would result

in higher recall than random presentation. The comparison

of the effect of method of presentation (blocked vs. random)


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PRIMING AND ORGANIZATION

105

on category production with free- and cued-rccall tests would

indicate whether category production also benefits from or-

ganization.

Method

Subjects.

The subjects were 96 undergraduates from George

Washington University who received course credit for their partici-

pation. Subjects were all tested individually in this experiment and

in all the other experiments reported in this article.

Design and materials.

The design was a 2 x 3 factorial with

method of presentation (blocked and random) and type of test

(category production, free recall, and cued recall) as between-subjects

variables. Sixteen subjects were tested in each condition.

The materials were selected from the Battig and Montague (1969)

norms in accordance with the procedures described in Graf et al.

(1985). From each of the 12 categories (a sport, a fruit, a piece of

furniture, a kitchen utensil, a bird, a color, a four-footed anim al, an

article of

clothing,

a tree, a musical instrument, a part of the human

body, a vegetable), six comm on insta nces

(e.g.,

softball, skiing, boxing,

volleyball, polo, hunting) were selected. These items were not ranked

among the 10 most frequent instances, but each item was listed by at

least 10 subjects in the sample of

400

subjects used in the Battig and

Montague norm ative study. The average rank of the selected instances

was 23.30 (range: 11-48).

Six of the

12

categories were assigned to one list and six to another,

resulting in two lists of 36 items (6 categories of 6 items each).

Subjects heard one of the lists (study list) during the learning phase;

the other list served as a new list at test. Across subjects, each list

served equally often as a study list and as a new list. The two lists

were matched in category potency (Battig & Montague, 1969), that

is,in the num ber of instances produced by subjects in 30

s

for a given

category (List 1,

M

= 8.60; List

2,M =

7.80) and in the average rank

of the items {List 1,

M=

23.08; List 2,

M =

23.42).

Procedure.

At acquisition, a list of36items was presented audi-

torily at a rate of3s per item . Half ofthesubjects heard the instances

of the categories in a random order with the restriction that no 2

items from the same category occurred adjacently. The other half

of

the subjects heard the instances in a blocked order with all the items

from one category occurring adjacently. Subjects were instructed to

learn the list for a later memory test, but the type of test was not

specified.

Immediately after the study list, subjects were given one of the

three different types of tests. In the category-production condition,

subjects were given the 12 category titles one at a time in a random

order. They were asked to produce eight instances for each category

title. Eight instances were required to increase the likelihood that

subjects produce instances other than the most common ones (Graf

et al., 1985). Six of the 12 categories were always from the study list,

and the other 6 were from the list that had not been presented to that

subject (new list). Subjects were instructed to say eight things that

belong to that category as fast as possible.

1

' However, no time limit

was specified. Subjects rarely had difficulty generating eight instan ces.

To familiarize the subjects with the procedure, they were given a

sample category title (a relative) and three examples of that title

(father, brother, and sister) with instructions to produce five more

instances of that category as fast as they could (Graf

et

al., 1985).

In the free-recall condition, subjects were instructed to write down

as many words as they could remember from the study list. They

were given 3 min for recall but most subjects finished faster.

The cued-recall condition differed from the category-production

condition only with respect to instructions. Subjects were given the

12 category titles one at a time, and were told that some of the

categories would refer to words from the study list and others would

not. They were instructed to use the category names as cues to help

recall the words from the study list. Again no time limit

was

specified.

Results andDiscussion

Table

1

shows the p roportion s of responses in the three test

conditions as a function of method of presentation. For the

category-production test, the proportion of category instances

produced from the new list not presented to the subject at

study provides a baseline score. The priming measure is the

difference between the proportion of category instances pro-

duced from the old (study) list and the proportion of instances

produced from the new list. The cued-recall mea sure was also

based on the difference between the proportion of instances

recalled from the study list and the proportion of instances

produced from the new list. However, because subjects very

rarely produced instances for the categories that were not

presented at study, correcting for these items did not change

the cued-recall score. Thus, only the proportion of instances

recalled from the study list (old items) is reported in the tables.

The significance level was set at .05 for all statistical tests

reported in this article. Throughout the article, we report

separate analyses for category production and free- and cued-

recall tests. Because of the scaling differences between cate-

gory-production and recall tests, we prefer the separate anal-

yses to overall analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with test type

as a variable. Nevertheless, to assess directly the effect of test

type, we also briefly report the interactions involving this

variable from the overall ANOVAs. It should be noted that,

in most cases, the results from the overall analyses were

consistent with those of the separate analyses.

Analyses of the category-production test showed that prim-

ing

was

significantly higher in the blocked than in the ra ndom

condition,F(1, 30) -

14.71,

MS

e

=0.008, although significant

priming occurred in both conditions (both fs > 1.75).Clearly,

priming was facilitated by organization.

Blocked presentation also resulted in higher performance

than random presentation in free recall, F(l, 30) = 12.59,

MS

e

= 0.009, and in cued recall, F(\, 30) = 8.73, MS, =

0.014. In addition, in agreement with the results of the sepa-

rate analyses, an overall 2 x 3 ANOVA with presentation

method and test type as variables showed no significant

interaction between these variables,F< 1, thereby suggesting

that organization had similar effects on the three tests.

One explanation for the similar effects of organization on

category production and recall is that category-production

performance is mediated by explicit retrieval. That

is,

subjects

in this condition do not simply attempt to produce the first

Table 1

Experiment

1:

Proportions

of

Responses

in Category

Production, FreeRecall,and Cued

Recall

as a

Function

of

Method of Presentation

Measure

Category production

Old

New

Priming

Free recall

Old

Cued recall

Old

Method

Blocked

.32

.09

.23

.41

.39

of presentation

Random

.20

.10

,10

.29

.27


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106

VIRGINIA A. RAPPOLD AND SHAHIN HASHTROUDI

items that come lo mind, but they deliberately retrieve the

study list at test and consciously recall the items from a given

category. To rule out this explanation, we examined the first

three items produced by subjects in this test. The results

showed that in category production only33%of the first three

items produced at test were on the study list. However, in free

recall 96% of the first three items recalled were on the study

list, and in cued recall 88% were on the study list. It appears

that subjects use different strategies in category production

than in free- and cued-recall tests. If subjects had been using

explicit retrieval strategies, then a large proportion of the first

few items produced at test would have been from the study

list.

It could also be argued that an explicit retrieval strategy

would not be used until a few categories were presented and

subjects caught on to the natu re of the test. If

this

were the

case,

the percentage of words produced from the study list

would increase from the beginning to the end of the test.

Thus, we compared the percentage of study w ords produced

for the first two (30%), the middle two (22%), and the last

two (26%) categories at test, for both blocked and random

presentations. An ANOVA on these data showed no main

effect of category position, F (2, 60) = 2.00,M S

e

0.023, and

no interaction of category position with method of presenta-

tion,F


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PRIMING AND ORGANIZATION

107

As in Experiment 1, stimulus m aterials were selected from the

Battig and Montague (1969) norms. Six high-frequency and six low-

frequency instances were selected from the 12 categories used in

Experiment 1. We did not use the three highest and the three lowest

frequency instances to avoid ceiling and floor effects. The lists were

composed of the next six highest and next six lowest instances. The

average rank for the instances was 7.90 (range: 4-15) for the high-

frequency instances and 27.97 (range: 16-45) for the low-frequency

instances.

The pool of

72

high-frequency instances was divided in to two lists

of

36

item s (six categories of

6

items

each).

Similarly, the pool of

low-

frequency items was divided in to two lists of 36 items consisting of

the same six categories as the high-frequency instances but with 6

low-frequency instances for each category. One of the two lists was

used as a study list and the other as a new list at test. Across subjects,

each list served equally often as the study list and the new list. The

two high-frequency lists were matched in the average rank of the

instances (List 1,

M

=8.52; List2,

M =

7.27). The two low-frequency

lists were also matched in the average rank of the instances (List 1,

M

= 27.82; List 2,

M

= 28.10). Category potency was the same as

Experiment 1.

Procedure.

At acquisition , subjects were instructed to try to learn

each word for a later memory test, but the type of test was not

specified.

At test, as in Experiment 1, subjects in the category-production

condition heard 12 randomly presented category titles one at a time

and were asked to produce eight instances for each category (Graf et

al., 1985). Six of the presented categories were from the study list,

and the other six were from the list that had not been presented to

that subject. In cued recall, subjects were given the same titles and

were asked to use these titles as cues to recall the words from the

study

list.

Other procedural

details

of category production, cued recall,

and free recall were the same as those in Experiment 1.

Results andDiscussion

The proportions of responses in the test conditions as a

function of presentation method and frequency of the cate-

gory instances are shown in Table 2. The priming and cued-

recall measures were derived in the same manner as in Ex-

periment 1.

Analyses of category production showed that blocked pre-

sentation led to higher priming than random presentation,

F{\, 44) = 7.65, A/5

e

= 0.010, although priming was signifi-

cant with both methods of presentation (both /s >

1.71).

In

addition, there was no significant difference in category-pro-

duction performance between high-frequency and low-fre-

quency instances of categories, F 1.71).

An examination of Table 2 suggests that the difference in

priming between blocked and random presentations was

slightly greater for low-frequency than for high-frequency

instances. How ever, analyses of the data showed no significant

interaction of method of presentation and instance frequency,

F{\, 44) = 1.00, MS

e

= 0.010. Organization seemed to have

similar effects on the priming of high-frequency and low-

frequency instances of categories.

As with category production, blocked presentation led to

higher performance than random presentation in free recall,

F(l , 44) - 9.51,MS, = 0.009, and in cued recall,F (U44) =

12.76, MS

t

= 0.017. However, unlike priming in category

produ ction, performance was higher with high-frequency than

with low-frequency instances in both free recall,

F(

1, 44) =

23.13,

M S

e

= 0.009, and cued-recall tests,F(\, 44) = 19.06,

MS

e

=0.017. There was no significant interaction of presen-

tation method and instance frequency in either of the recall

tests (both f s < 1).

An overall 2 x 2 x 3 ANOVA with method of presentation,

instance frequency, and test type as variables confirmed the

results of the separate analyses. There was a significant inter-

action of instance frequency and test type,F(2,132) = 6.41,

MS

e

=0.012, indicating that free recall, F (l , 132) = 17.92,

MS

e

= 0.012, and cued recall, F(U 132) = 27.42, MS, =

0.012, were higher with high-frequency than with low-fre-

quency instan ces, but there was no significant difference

Table 2

Experime nt 2: Proportions of

Responses

in Category Production, Free Recall, and Cued

Recall as a F unction of Method of

Presentation

an d

Category

Instance

Frequency

Measure

Method of presentation

Blocked Random

Category production

High-frequency instances

Old

New

Priming

Low-frequency instances

Old

New

Priming

Free recall


Old


Old

Cued recall


Old


Old

57

36

21

28

6

22

.57

.42

.58

.42

.50

.34

.16

.20

.08

.12

47

34

.45

.28


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VIRGINIA A. RAPPOLD AND SHAHIN HASHTROUDI

between the two types of instances in category production, F

Práctica 2.Rappold.hashtroudi.1991

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