REPETITION EFFECTS ON WORD-FRAGMENT COMPLETION - THE ROLE OF COMPETITION AMONG RESPONSES

Four experiments examined the effect of spaced repetition of study wor ds on completion of word fragments with only one solution and word fra gments with multiple solutions. Recognition was used as test of explic it memory in the first two experiments. The study words were presented either once or three times. Repetition was found to increase recognit ion memory substantially, and to affect fragment completion performanc e only marginally. This was true for both single- and multiple-solutio n fragments, showing that competition among responses is not critical for the magnitude of the repetition effect in fragment completion. Thi s finding, that the repetition effect is marginal also when the type o f cues provides an occasion for repetition effects to show up, suggest s that the real effect of repetition on perceptual priming is borderli ne. It is proposed that memory from the first presentation eliminates necessary processing of items when they are re-exposed, and that the r epetition effect thereby is reduced.