Effects of Structural, Phonemic, and Semantic Orienting Tasks on Cued and Free Recall of Words: An Independent Test

Abstract

A recent reformation of the depth of processing hypothesis concerning verbal memory identifies two major determinants of memory for words: the nature of input processing performed, and the elaboration of that processing. The elaboration hypothesis was tested by exposing 36 subjects to 24 words and requiring subjects to perform a structural task, a phonemic task, or a semantic task on the words in an incidental orienting procedure. Half of the subjects then were asked for free recall, and the other half were cued for recall by supplying information concerning the input task performed on each word and the outcome of the input task decision process. The principal results showed that cuing did not significantly aid recall, while both the input task variable and the input decision variable (yes or no answer to the orienting question) did yield significant results. Examination of significant interactions showed that cuing does aid retrieval of semantically encoded items, particularly when the input decision outcome is positive. The results are interpreted to mean that elaboration of encoding may occur at deeper levels of processing, but not at shallow levels, as in the structural input task.