Effects of exact repetition and conceptual repetition on free recall and primed word-fragment completion.

Abstract

Experiments are reported in which effects of repeating words exactly (e.g., elephant, elephant) or repeating some meaningful aspect--a synonym (pachyderm), an associate (tusk), or a category coordinate (hippopotamus)--were examined on free recall and word-fragment completion. In free recall, large effects of both exact repetition and conceptual repetition were found; the magnitude of the latter was about half that of the former. In contrast, in primed word-fragment completion, repetition effects were rather small and there was no evidence of indirect (or conceptual) priming. Also, presentation of synonyms, associates, and coordinates in isolation failed to prime word-fragment completion. The results provide further evidence that the basis of primed word-fragment completion is different from that of free recall; the former seems to have a perceptual (or perhaps lexical) basis, whereas the latter relies more on meaningful processing.