Word-Pair Encoding Using Similarity and Contrastive Processing

Abstract

Two experiments examined the effects of several kinds of incidental semantic encoding on cued recall through instructions to find similarities or to find differences between pairs of nouns, with and without imagery instructions. Exp. 1 employed concrete and abstract nouns which were related or unrelated in meaning. Processing effects on a subsequent cued recall task occurred only for unrelated concrete items, with finding similarities leading to higher recall. In Exp. 2, two groups of subjects processed unrelated concrete nouns with the same encoding instructions as in Exp. 1. Two additional groups carried out the similarity or contrastive task by forming images containing both items. Again, recall was higher when similarity processing was employed. The addition of imagery instructions affected encoding time but not recall accuracy or response latency. Results suggested that forming a meaningful associative relationship between pair members was the crucial encoding step for successful memory performance.