INVESTIGATING DISSOCIATIONS AMONG MEMORY MEASURES: SUPPORT FOR A TRANSFER APPROPRIATE PROCESSING FRAMEWORK (EPISODIC, SEMANTIC, AMNESIA)

TERESA ANN BLAXTON, Purdue University

Abstract

Of central interest to memory theorists is the finding that different measures of the same information in memory may be uncorrelated, or dissociated, from one another. For instance, although someone is unable to explicitly recognize an item, s/he might be able to show memory for the event by filling in missing letters of a word fragment to form the complete word. The episodic-semantic memory systems distinction (ESMD) holds that tests are dissociated from one another because they tap different memory systems. The transfer appropriate processing principle (TAPP), however, predicts that tasks requiring different types of processing will be differentially affected by study manipulations regardless of memory system. Three experiments tested these contrasting views. Following an initial study phase, subjects performed one of five tasks: free recall; semantic cued recall; recall using graphemic cues; answering general knowledge questions; or word fragment completion. In Experiment 1, free recall, semantic cued recall, and general knowledge task performance were best when target items had been generated rather than read at study, but the reverse was true for fragment completion and graphemic cued recall performance. Similarly, match in presentation modality (Experiment 2) and typography (Experiment 3) between study and test enhanced fragment completion and graphemic cued recall performance but not free recall, semantic cued recall, or general knowledge task performance. Finally, free recall, semantic cued recall, and general knowledge performance were enhanced when subjects formed mental images of item referents at study although this manipulation did not affect the other two tasks as greatly (Experiment 3). The ESMD was not an effective predictor of these results since there were just as many dissociations within a memory system as between systems. For example, although episodic free recall was dissociated from the semantic task of fragment completion, it was also dissociated from episodic graphemic cued recall. In contrast, the results are readily handled by the TAPP in that tasks involving the processing of meaning (free recall, semantic cued recall, and general knowledge) were consistently dissociated from tasks requiring processing of physical features (fragment completion and graphemic cued recall).

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Psychology|Experiments

COinS