S. Nicolas et H. Tardieu, THE GENERATION EFFECT IN A WORD-STEM COMPLETION TASK - THE INFLUENCE OF CONCEPTUAL PROCESSES, European journal of cognitive psychology, 8(4), 1996, pp. 405-424
The present experiments were designed with two aims in mind: (1) to st
udy, with perceptual cues, the so-called ''generation effect'' in impl
icit memory as measured by a word-stem completion task, and (2) to stu
dy the influence of perceptual and conceptual processes in such tasks.
In the study phase, subjects wrote down regular (read condition) or i
rregular (generate condition) words presented to them on a sheet of pa
per. In the latter condition, the subjects had to mentally transpose u
nderlined letters (EXAMELP for EXAMPLE). Two tests were administered i
n succession: word-stem completion and recognition. A new procedure wa
s used in the word-stem completion task, whereby the subjects had to p
roduce four nouns that came to mind for each stem. In Experiment 1, th
e results showed an absence of a generation effect and of intentionali
ty when the first word that came to mind in word-stem completion was c
onsidered for analysis, contrary to that observed in recognition. Howe
ver, a generation effect in the word-stem completion task was observed
when the other three words that came to mind were considered. In Expe
riment 2, we attempted to make the generation of words more difficult
by having the subjects mentally transpose four underlined letters. Thi
s manipulation did not affect either word-stem completion or the recog
nition data. The results are interpreted within the framework of the t
ransfer-appropriate processing view advocated by Roediger, Weldon and
Challis (1989).