A STRATEGIC ACCOUNT OF THE CUE-DEPRECIATION EFFECT

A word fragment is less likely to be completed if it is presented incr ementally (R _ _ _ _ _ _ P, R _ _ _ _ R _ P, R _ I _ _ R _ P, R _ I _ _ R O P) than if it is presented all at once (e.g., R _ I _ _ R O P). This phenomenon is known as the cue-depreciation effect. The present s tudy examined the role of strategies in this phenomenon. The magnitude of the cue-depreciation effect was increased when subjects were asked to adopt a passive generation approach to word fragment completion. T he current study investigated an extension of Bruner and Potter's (196 4) early hypothesis-generation account of the cue-depreciation effect. Findings demonstrated the influence of completion strategies for a ge neral theory of fragment completion.