Category Accessibility as Implicit Memory.
Abstract
A person's likelihood of considering an ambiguous behavior a member of a trait category is influenced by earlier exposure to trait-related information. This category accessibility effect is a form of implicit memory: memory because it constitutes an effect of an earlier experience, and implicit because the task is presented as a judgment rather than a memory task, and in fact the effect can occur without the perceiver's awareness of the prior (priming) episode. This paper reports an experiment that puts category accessibility in the context of other types of implicit memory. Subjects studied trait words either by generating them form behavioral instances or simply by reading the traits. They were then tested with two different implicit (category accessibility and word-fragment completion) and one explicit (free recall) memory measures. As predicted, the results showed dissociations among the tests in the effects of the study-task manipulation. The results are interpreted as supporting a procedural memory viewpoint that integrates implicit and explicit memory in a common theoretical framework. Several types of social phenomena may usefully be conceptualized as involving implicit memory.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 06, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA184371
Entities
People
- Eliot R. Smith
- Nyla R. Branscombe
Organizations
- Purdue University