A grouping interpretation of the modality effect in immediate probed recognition

In a series of experiments on immediate probed recognition for eight 3-digi t numbers, it was shown that if the target modality involved auditory compo nents and the effect of the similarity of the modality of the probe to that of the targets was controlled, unequivocal evidence was obtained for an au ditory superiority effect (modality effect) for hit rates for the final ite ms of the list. Moreover, false-alarm rates were significantly lower follow ing targets with an auditory component than they were following silently se en targets. It is argued that this pattern of hits and false alarms is cons istent with the idea that targets that have an auditory component yield mem ory representations that are better grouped as units than are those for tar gets that are only silently seen; in particular, if a new probe has a first digit that accidentally matches the first digit of a target item, it is mo re likely that the subject will mistakenly identify this new probe as old ( give a false alarm) if the target has only been partially encoded because i t was only silently seen.