IMPLICIT MEMORY FOR NEW ASSOCIATIONS - THE PICTORIAL INFLUENCE

A series of experiments was conducted in order to show that implicit m emory for new associations is not always dependent on semantic integra tive processing during study. The material used in these experiments d iffered from traditional studies that employed pairs of unrelated word s. Instead, targets (words in Exps. 1 and 2 and pictures in Exps. 3 an d 4) were encoded in the context of an unrelated picture. The implicit tests used were word-stern completion (Exps. 1, 2, and 3) and picture -fragment identification (Exp. 4). The explicit test was word-stem cue d recall (Exps. 1, 2, and 3) and picture-fragment cued recall (Exp 4). For implicit tests, context effects were not obtained using words as targets with a non-integrative semantic-elaboration encoding task (Exp . 1). When an integrative semantic-elaboration encoding task was used, a standard context effect emerged (Exp. 2) for implicit memory. Impor tantly, with pictures as targets, context effects appeared without int egrative semantic encoding (Exps. 3 and 4). However, context effects w ere obtained for all conditions of cued recall. Results are discussed with regard to the concept of unitization.