Abstract
Effects of the semantic and the syntactic congruity of sentence contexts on free recall were investigated in an incidental memory paradigm using an orienting task. All subjects were required to decide whether each target made sense in its sentence context on the orienting task. The subjects in a fast/quick group were presented each target for 2 sec. and given instructions which emphasized a quick decision. The subjects in the slow/accurate group were presented each target for 10 sec. and given instructions which emphasized the accuracy of the decision. Three types of sentence contexts were provided: semantically and syntactically congruous, semantically incongruous and syntactically congruous, and semantically and syntactically incongruous. For the fast/quick group only the semantic congruity effect was observed. Semantically and syntactically congruous sentence frames led to a better recall than semantically incongruous and syntactically congruous ones. For the slow/accurate group both the semantic congruity effects and the syntactic congruity effects were observed. Semantically incongluous and syntactically congruous sentences led to a better recall than semantically and syntactically incongruous ones. The difference between both types of congruity effects was discussed in terms of the encoding time of the semantic and the syntactic congruities.
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