THE GENERATION EFFECT IN A WORD-STEM COMPLETION TASK - THE INFLUENCE OF CONCEPTUAL PROCESSES

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).