Effect of Reverie on Recall of Word Associates

Abstract

It has been considered that amnesia for childhood events may in part be due to differences between the child's and the adult's states of consciousness rather than repression alone. 12 male undergraduates underwent each of 2 experimental conditions, one designed to foster alertness, the other a reverie state. Prior to each experimental condition Ss studied stimulus words, each paired with one of two associates. Half had one associate more typically a child's response and one associate more typically a young adult's response. After each experimental condition S named the first associate he recalled for each stimulus word. As predicted, more child-associates were recalled after the reverie condition than after the alert condition.