The benefits and costs of prior exposure: a large-scale study of interference effects in stimulus identification

The effects of proactive and retroactive interference arising from incidental learning were examined in reference to identity priming. The main aim was to determine whether these effects would be modulated by phenomenological awareness. In an incidental surface task, subjects processed 2 lists of orthographically similar or dissimilar words. At test, they were asked to select or generate words that completed test cues and then indicate whether they recognized the words as studied. The test cues were either studied or nonstudied words. Interference was conceptualized as response competition arising from the orthographically similar words subjects encountered at study. Studying orthographically similar words had negative effects on identity priming. When the test required word generation, these interference effects appeared to be modulated by subjects' awareness of the test cues as studied words. These results add a new perspective to the account of interference as response competition according to which the richness of test cues plays a significant role in shaping the effects of interference.