On the status of unconscious memory: Merikle and Reingold (1991) revisited.

Full Abstract

Four experiments are reported that reevaluate P. M. Merikle and E. M. Reingold's (1991) demonstration of unconscious memory:
the greater sensitivity to familiarity (repetition) of an indirect (implicit) memory task than of a comparable direct (explicit) task. At study, participants named the cued member of a pair of visually presented words. At test, new and uncued study words were presented against a background mask. Participants judged whether each word was old or new (direct task) or whether the contrast between the word and the background was high or low (indirect task). Contrary to the original findings, the sensitivity of the indirect task to familiarity never exceeded that of the direct task. These findings pose a challenge to a key pillar of evidence for unconscious influences of memory.Copyright 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

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Author information

Author/s: Berry, Christopher J (CJ); Shanks, David R (DR); Henson, Richard N A (RN);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University College London, London, England. christopher.berry(-atsign-)ucl.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jul; vol 32 (issue 4) : pp 925-34

Dates: Created 2006/07/06; Completed 2006/12/15;

PMID: 16822158, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Awareness
Cues
Female
Humans
Male

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