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A strategic account of the cue-depreciation effect
1Department of Psychology, Bronfman Science Center, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA. athapar@williams.edu
Abstract:
A word fragment is less likely to be completed if it is presented incrementally (R______P, R____R _ P, R_I__R_P, R_I__R O P) than if it is presented all at once (e.g., R_I__R O P). This phenomenon is known as the cue-depreciation effect. The present study examined the role of strategies in this phenomenon. The magnitude of the cue-depreciation effect was increased when subjects were asked to adopt a passive generation approach to word fragment completion. The current study investigated an extension of Bruner and Potter's (1964) early hypothesis-generation account of the cue-depreciation effect. Findings demonstrated the influence of completion strategies for a general theory of fragment completion.