Implicit word activation during prerecognition processing: false recognition and remember/know judgments

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Memory Research

Background:

• Recognition memory for spoken words is sensitive to phonetic similarities between studied items and test words.
• Derived nonwords presented during study lists can elevate false recognition rates for related base words.
• Phonetic overlap, particularly at the beginning of words, influences false recognition more than at the end.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of prerecognition processing in false recognition.
• To differentiate between prerecognition and postrecognition contributions to the nonword effect.
• To examine how semantic relatedness and phonetic activation influence memory judgments.

Main Methods:

• Participants studied lists containing derived nonwords and real words.
• Test words varied in phonetic overlap (initial vs. final phonemes) with studied nonwords.
• Semantically unrelated words, expected to be activated during prerecognition, were used as test items.
• Participants made Remember (R) or Know (K) judgments for test words.

Main Results:

• False recognition increased for words presumed to be activated during prerecognition processing.
• Words with initial phonetic overlap with nonwords showed higher false recognition.
• Remember (R) judgments were high for studied words, while Know (K) judgments dominated false recognitions.
• Test words not activated during postrecognition processing yielded the lowest proportion of R judgments.

Conclusions:

• Prerecognition processing, driven by phonetic activation, significantly contributes to false recognition.
• The distinction between 'remember' and 'know' judgments reflects different levels of memory processing.
• Findings support models where early auditory processing influences subsequent memory recognition accuracy.