Cue depreciation: when word fragment completion is undermined by prior exposure to lesser fragments

The ability to think of a previously studied item has often been shown to be impaired when, in one way or another, the extraitem context is changed from study to test. In a series of five experiments, such impairment is induced in a somewhat different way. A fragment (e.g. r-i--rop) of a just-studied word (raindrop) is shown to be less readily completed if it is presented bit by bit (r------p, r----r-p, r-i--r-p, r-i--rop) rather than all at once (Experiments 1, 3, 4, and 5). No such effect is found if the word has not been studied beforehand (Experiments 2, 3, 4, and 5). This pattern of results occurs even when fragments of studied and nonstudied words occur in the same test and under conditions in which subjects cannot tell whether a given fragment is of a studied or nonstudied word (Experiments 4 and 5). In addition, for words that have been studied beforehand, the impairment is shown to increase systematically with the number of steps involved in the presentation of the word fragment (Experiment 3) and also to persist when the time allowed for completion of the final version of the fragment is increased from 4 s to a full minute (Experiment 5).