Encoding specificity revisited: The role of semantics

Three experiments examined the effects of semantic characteristics of word pairs on memory using the encoding specificity paradigm, The paradigm invol ved four phases: (a) an encoding phase to relate cues and targets, (b) a ph ase in which words were generated to new cues, (c) a phase for recognition of generated targets, and (d) a cued-recall phase using the original encodi ng cues. Encoding pairs were classified a priori as either semantically sim ilar (e.g., alluring-PRETTY, semantically contrasting (e.g., drab-PRETTY), or semantically unrelated (e.g., sore-PRETTY). Generation pairs were classi fied a priori as either semantically similar (e.g., beautiful-PRETTY) or se mantically contrasting (e.g., ugly-PRETTY). For recall, the results showed that both the semantic relations between the encoding cue and target and th e reprovision of the encoding cue at retrieval were important factors, In t he case of recognition, however, both the semantic congruence between the e ncoding and generation contexts and the amount of semantic elaboration prov ided by the encoding context were important factors.