THE ROLE OF DISTINCTIVE PERCEPTUAL INFORMATION IN MEMORY - STUDIES OFTHE TESTING EFFECT

This paper examines the role of orthographic-to-phonological mapping i n memory. Specifically, we consider the hypothesis that distinctive or thographic-to-phonological mapping (Hirshman and Jackson, in press) me diates the testing effect. We test this hypothesis by examining whethe r manipulations designed to influence the distinctiveness of orthograp hic-to-phonological mapping interact with the testing effect. Consiste nt with our hypothesis, the testing effect is minimized under conditio ns promoting distinctive orthographic-to-phonological mapping. A testi ng effect occurs for regular words presented in a nonsense word contex t or in isolation, but not for regular words presented in an exception word context or for exception words presented in a nonsense word cont ext Further, a control experiment using a levels-of-processing manipul ation demonstrates that these effects are specific to testing. We clos e by presenting a conception of how orthographic-to-phonological mappi ng representations interact with other memory representations during r etrieval. (C) 1997 Academic Press.