Word Fragment Completion Research Articles

Guessing Bias for Negative Words in Individuals with High Trait Anxiety

Individuals with high trait anxiety show a tendency toward spontaneous generation of negative events. This study evaluated the relationship between guessing bias and trait anxiety in a word-fragment completion task without a study phase. College students (N=96) were asked to complete the word fragments in the absence of the study phase. Their guessing bias was calculated by subtracting the proportion of completion of neutral words from the proportion of completion of negative words. The results showed that the guessing bias was affected by trait anxiety, but not by dysphoria. Students who were higher in trait anxiety completed more negative words than neutral words.

The Medial Temporal Lobe Supports Conceptual Implicit Memory

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is generally thought to be critical for explicit, but not implicit, memory. Here, we demonstrate that the perirhinal cortex (PRc), within the MTL, plays a role in conceptually-driven implicit memory. Amnesic patients with MTL lesions that converged on the left PRc exhibited deficits on two conceptual implicit tasks (i.e., exemplar generation and semantic decision). A separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in healthy subjects indicated that PRc activation during encoding of words was predictive of subsequent exemplar generation. Moreover, across subjects, the magnitude of the fMRI and behavioral conceptual priming effects were directly related. Additionally, the PRc region implicated in the fMRI study was the same region of maximal lesion overlap in the patients with impaired conceptual priming. These patient and imaging results converge to suggest that the PRc plays a critical role in conceptual implicit memory, and possibly conceptual processing in general.

Odour‐based context reinstatement effects with indirect measures of memory: The curious case of rosemary

Previous studies examining environmental context-dependent memory (ECDM) effects using indirect measures of memory have produced inconsistent findings. We report three experiments that examined ECDM in an indirect memory paradigm (word-fragment completion) using ambient odours as environmental contexts. Expt 1 manipulated the odour present at learning and testing (rosemary or lemon) to produce reinstated-context or switched-context conditions. Reinstating rosemary led to a striking ECDM effect, indicating that indirect memory testing can be sensitive to ECDM manipulations. Odour ratings also indicated that rosemary induced a more unpleasant mood in participants than lemon. Expt 2 assessed the influence on indirect retrieval of odour-based mood induction as well as odour distinctiveness, and indicated that rosemary's capacity to promote ECDM effects appears to arise from an additive combination of its unpleasantness-inducing properties and its distinctiveness. Expt 3 partially supported these proposals. Overall, our findings indicate that some odours are capable of producing ECDM effects using indirect testing procedures. Moreover, it appears that it is the inherent proprieties of odours on dimensions such as unpleasantness and distinctiveness that mediate the emergence of ECDM effects, thereby explaining the particular potency of rosemary's mnemonic influence when it is reinstated.

Age differences in the automatic accessibility of emotional words from semantic memory

Using a speeded word fragment completion task, we assessed age differences in the automatic accessibility of emotional versus neutral words from semantic memory. Participants were instructed to complete a series of single-solution word fragments as quickly as possible. The results demonstrate that older adults are biased against accessing both positive and negative words relative to neutral words, whereas young adults are biased against accessing positive words only. These findings suggest an arousal-based accessibility bias favouring neutral stimuli in older adults coupled with a valence-based bias accessing negative and neutral stimuli for young adults.

Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of memory blocking and priming during a word fragment test

Exposure to orthographically similar words impairs the ability to complete word fragments (e.g., Smith and Tindell, 1997), providing evidence that retrieval has been blocked (the Memory Block Effect or MBE). Two studies measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the neural correlates of priming and blocking. The behavioral data in both experiments revealed that exposure to blocking words decreased fragment completions, increased intrusions (i.e., attempts to complete fragments using a blocking word), and slowed response times relative to control fragments. The ERPs in Experiment 1 indicate that priming and blocking begin during the early stages of lexical processing because lexical-related ERP amplitudes (N200) were larger than the control condition. A negative, frontal ERP emerged approximately 500 ms after fragment onset and was attenuated for blocking and primed fragments, which suggests that it reflects executive processes that govern solving fragments. Experiment 2 replicated these effects and revealed that both N200 and the late, negative ERP amplitudes varied according to whether or not the fragments were completed, which indicates that these ERPs reflect lexical activation and blocking processes. Collectively, the data suggest that blocking and priming begin to influence word fragment completion during early lexical processing and blocking impedes a normal memory search.

Measuring Implicit Traits in Organizational Research: Development of an Indirect Measure of Employee Implicit Self-Concept

Values, attitudes, and goals are often automatically activated, yet organizational research has relied predominantly on techniques that measure these phenomena at explicit or conscious levels. In this study, the authors validated an indirect measure designed to assess employee self-concept at implicit levels. Because self-concept is believed to operate primarily at implicit levels, it was hypothesized that an indirect measure would be an effective predictor of work criteria. The criteria examined were task performance, citizenship and counterproductive behavior, and the quality of supervisor—subordinate relations. Consistent with predictions, the indirect measure—a word fragment completion task—contributed more to the prediction of criteria than the direct measure— self-report survey items with summated rating scales. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the use of indirect measures in applied settings.

Effects of divided attention in the word-fragment completion task with unique and multiple solutions

The Identification-Production Hypothesis predicts that the effect of divided attention (DA) at encoding should be larger when priming tasks involve divergent search processes through many different competitors, because they are supposed to place heavier attentional demands on frontal lobe functions (Gabrieli, Vaidya, Stone et al., 1999). This hypothesis was tested in two experiments using the Word Fragment Completion (WFC) task with unique solutions (which relies on convergent lexical search towards single appropriate representations: the identification version of the WFC) or multiple solutions (which implies a competition between equally plausible responses: the production version of the WFC). In Experiment 1 the two versions of the completion task were found to be equally unaffected by the imposition of a short-term memory load at encoding. In Experiment 2 the reduction of target words’ study time (from 2.5 to 1 s), and the use of a blocked (rather than mixed) design, significantly diminished the level of priming in the DA condition: However, contrary to the predictions, the degree of impairment was not greater for multiple-solution fragments. Results are in line with recent failures to support the identification–production hypothesis in normal adults (Geraci, 2006; Prull, 2004).

単語完成課題における環境的文脈依存効果に及ぼす保持期間の影響

The effect of environmental context on performance on a word-fragment completion task, as an implicit memory task, was investigated by varying the retention interval between the encoding and retrieval sessions. In two experiments, 40 to-be-remembered items were presented incidentally to participants before they engaged in a word fragment task. The retention interval was one week in Experiment 1 and 10 minutes in Experiment 2. Except for an environmental context cue of odor, the environmental contexts of the encoding and retrieval sessions in both experiments were different. Reinstatement of the environmental context cue of odor facilitated performance in Experiment 1 only. This result suggests that when the effectiveness of item cues such as word fragments is reduced by a long retention interval, the environmental cues can facilitate performance in word-fragment task.

Priming Letters by Colors: Evidence for the Bidirectionality of Grapheme–Color Synesthesia

In synesthesia, stimulation of one sensory modality leads to a percept in another nonstimulated modality, for example, graphemes trigger an additional color percept in grapheme-color synesthesia, which encompasses the variants letter-color and digit-color synesthesia. Until recently, it was assumed that synesthesia occurs strictly unidirectional: Although the perception of a letter induces a color percept in letter-color synesthetes, they typically do not report that colors trigger the percept of a letter. Recent data on number processing in synesthesia suggest, however, that colors can implicitly elicit numerical representations in digit-color synesthetes, thereby questioning unidirectional models of synesthesia. Using a word fragment completion paradigm in 10 letter-color synesthetes, we show here for the first time that colors can implicitly influence lexical search. Our data provide strong support for a bidirectional nature of grapheme-color synesthesia and, in general, may allude to the mechanisms of cross-modality interactions in the human brain.

Generation and perceptual implicit memory: Different generation tasks produce different effects on perceptual priming.

The generation manipulation has been critical in delineating differences between implicit and explicit memory. In contrast to past research, the present experiments indicate that generating from a rhyme cue produces as much perceptual priming as does reading. This is demonstrated for 3 visual priming tasks: perceptual identification, word-fragment completion (WFC), and word-stem completion (WSC). This result occurred regardless of the mode of study response (written or spoken) or whether the generation condition was compared with reading words in or out of context. Rhyme generation did not produce priming on the letter height task (Masson & MacLeod, 2002), implying that the effect was not mediated by covert visualization. Nor was the effect due to the mere presence of the rhyme cue. Semantic generation (from definitions) produced a different pattern, exhibiting a reverse generation effect on WFC and WSC but full (read-level) priming on perceptual identification. The present results were not consistent with accounts based on the standard transfer-appropriate processing view, covert visualization, explicit contamination, or conceptual contributions to nominally perceptual tasks.

テストリストにおける学習項目の割合が線画完成課題に及ぼす影響

The ratio of studied to non-studied words on a test list is called the proportion overlap. Fujita (1994) reported that the proportion overlap affected the availability of conceptually driven processing, but not data-driven processing, on a word fragment completion test. In this experiment, we sought to extend the finding of the proportion overlap effect to a non-verbal implicit memory test. Participants previously studied either a list of pictures or words and then were presented with a picture fragment completion task. The proportion of studied items on the test was 20% or 80%. In the picture-study condition, perceptual priming occurred, and the amount of priming was not different between the 20% and 80% conditions. In the word-study condition, however, cross-form priming occurred only in the 80% condition, but not in the 20% condition. These results are consistent with the findings from the word fragment completion test, and suggest the generality of the proportion overlap effect on the data-driven implicit memory test.

Preserved priming but insensitivity to perceptual fluency on recognition judgments in Alzheimer's disease

AbstractBackground: Previous research on Alzheimer's disease (AD) has not yielded a consensus regarding the preservation of automatic memory processes, although there is a consensus that conscious recollection processes are impaired in AD.Methods: In the present study, we examined perceptual specificity effects (PSEs) in word recognition judgments (explicit memory task; Experiment 1) and word fragment completion (implicit memory task; Experiment 2) performed by individuals with mild AD and elderly adults without dementia (controls).Results: In recognition judgments, control subjects, but not individuals with AD, demonstrated PSEs (Experiment 1). In contrast, neither group showed PSEs on word fragment completion and their priming magnitudes were comparable (Experiment 2).Conclusions: The findings suggest that perceptually automatic processes in explicit memory judgments and implicit memory processes are different and that the former are specifically impaired in AD.

Review of Implicit measures of attitudes.

Implicit Measures of Attitudes, by Bernd Wittenbrink & Norbert Schwarz (Eds.). The Guilford Press, 2007, 294 pages (ISBN-10: 1-59385-402-1, ISBN-13: 978-1-59385-402-7, US $38.00 Hardcover) Reviewed by STEVEN M. SMITH DOI : 10.1037/0708-5591.49.2.177 Well before the concept of was first articulated by social psychologists, people expended tremendous energy trying to understand and assess people's opinions of many different topics. Almost immediately after the development of formal attitude measures, there was recognition that at times people may be unwilling or unable to express their true attitudes toward certain topics. For example, if a person is asked about potentially embarrassing topics or topics where social desirability factors may play a role, they may misrepresent their attitude. Alternatively, people may simply be unaware of their true opinion on an issue. Thus, in addition to direct or measures of attitudes (e.g., self-report and surveys or interviewbased measures), we have seen the development of more indirect or measures of attitudes. However, because many early implicit measures were cumbersome (such as the Thematic Apperception Test) and/or had reliability or validity issues, explicit measures of attitudes became dominant. Despite the fact that explicit measures provided a cheap, simple, reliable and valid way to assess attitudes, the limitations of these measures remained an issue. With the advent of computerbased testing and other high-tech methodologies, there has been a dramatic resurgence of the use of implicit attitude measures in the last two decades. Thus it is clear that Bernd Wittenbrink and Norbert Schwarz have produced a very timely volume. The stated goals of Wittenbrink and Schwarz's book are to educate the reader about the value of implicit measures of attitudes, as well as to provide a handbook of sorts for the neophyte wanting to learn how to use the variety of implicit attitude measures available. In addition, the editors want to provide a critical assessment of the state of implicit attitude measurement in terms of the very definition of an implicit measure, as well as the general reliability and validity of these measures. Finally, the editors want to provide directions for future research in the area of implicit attitude measurement. As such, Wittenbrink and Schwarz hope that this text will be a resource book for both new graduate students and established researchers in the field. In general, I believe the editors have accomplished their goals. After the editors' introductory chapter, which gives an overview of the development of implicit attitude measurement as well as an overview of the rest of the volume, the book is broken down into two sections: Procedures and Their Implementation and Critical Perspectives. The procedures and implementation section includes chapters on the most popular implicit measures currently in use. Wittenbrink begins by exploring work that has been done on attitude priming; the procedure that initiated the resurgence of implicit attitude measurement in the 1980s and 1990s. The next chapter, authored by Kristin Lane, Mahzarin Banaji, Brian Nosek, and Anthony Greenwald covers the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which is clearly the most popular implicit attitude measurement procedure currently in use. Patrick Vargas, Denise Sekaquaptewa and William von Hippel follow with a chapter on lowtech paper and pencil implicit measures. For me, this chapter was the most pleasantly surprising in the book. It provides many cheap and accessible methods to measure implicit attitudes, and barkens back to the early days of implicit measures, making the distinction between and deliberative measures. Furthermore, the authors describe a number of implicit measures that do not require spontaneous responses (such as Word Fragment Completion, paper and pencil versions of the IAT, and the information error test) which highlights one of the issues surrounding the definition of measures of attitudes. …

Evidence for the DTA hypothesis II: Threatening self-esteem increases death-thought accessibility

Three studies assessed the impact of self-esteem threat on death-thought accessibility (DTA). Increased DTA resulted from three distinct types of self-esteem threat. Studies 1 and 2 employed negative feedback procedures in which participants were told that they scored below average on an intelligence test (Study 1), or that their personality was incongruent for their desired career path (Study 2). In Study 3, participants were led to believe that they would give an ill prepared speech in front of their peers. In Studies 1 and 2 DTA was assessed via reaction times on a lexical decision task, while Study 3 employed a word-fragment completion task. Study 3 demonstrated the DTA buffering effect of fortifying self-esteem via self-affirmation. Discussion focused on general implications for TMT, self-esteem, and mental health.

A Comparison of Implicit Memory Tests in Schizophrenic Patients and Normal Controls

The objective of the current study was to compare the performance of schizophrenic patients and normal controls on implicit memory tests. Two neuropsychological tasks were administered to 29 patients and normal participant samples. The implicit tests were: Word fragment completion and Word production from semantic categories. The priming score was the variable of interest. Priming effects are obtained in normal subjects and schizophrenia patients, regardless of the implicit test used. However, a dissociation in priming between normal and patient groups was observed, depending on the test used. For word fragment test, priming was identical between the two groups. However, for word production, priming obtained in schizophrenics was lower than priming in normal controls. Results confirm a dissociation effect in implicit memory tests. These results could be explained in the context of the Roediger and Blaxton (1987) distinction between data-driven and conceptually-driven processing. This evidence suggests that a complete neuropsychological assessment of memory in schizophrenia should include different kinds of implicit memory tests (procedural, perceptual, and conceptual tasks).

When do primes go bad? A corpus of orthographically related primes that inhibit fragment completion

The memory block effect (MBE) occurs when orthographically similar words inhibitretrieval. Previous studies have published 55 different stimuli that produce the MBE in word fragment completion. This small number of stimuli constrains experimental designs, presents serious obstacles for using neuroimaging to elucidate neural substrates of blocking, and raises concern that the MBE is limited to a particular group of words. A pool of 315 stimulus words was tested in a traditional MBE paradigm, and the results demonstrated that the MBE generalizes to other stimuli. This study also expands the number of stimuli that produce the MBE because 185 new stimuli produced blocking effects. As a result, the current list of 240 MBE stimuli can be used for word fragment research including cognitive neuroscience investigations of retrieval inhibition. A table of MBE stimuli is available in an archived appendix that can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

The effects of divided attention on auditory priming

Traditional theorizing stresses the importance of attentional state during encoding for later memory, based primarily on research with explicit memory. Recent research has begun to investigate the role of attention in implicit memory but has focused almost exclusively on priming in the visual modality. The present experiments examined the effect of divided attention on auditory implicit memory, using auditory perceptual identification, word-stem completion and word-fragment completion. Participants heard study words under full attention conditions or while simultaneously carrying out a distractor task (the divided attention condition). In Experiment 1, a distractor task with low response frequency failed to disrupt later auditory priming (but diminished explicit memory as assessed with auditory recognition). In Experiment 2, a distractor task with greater response frequency disrupted priming on all three of the auditory priming tasks as well as the explicit test. These results imply that although auditory priming is less reliant on attention than explicit memory, it is still greatly affected by at least some divided-attention manipulations. These results are consistent with research using visual priming tasks and have relevance for hypotheses regarding attention and auditory priming.

Priming index of the Spanish word fragments from the Dasí, Soler, and Ruiz (2004) database

Word-fragment completion is a frequently used test in implicit memory research. A database of 196 Spanish fragments was recently published (Dasí, Soler, & Ruiz, 2004) in which the fragments were described for indices, such as difficulty, familiarity, frequency, number of meanings, and so on (www.psychonomic.org/archive). In this work, a new index, the priming index, is described for the same 196 fragments. This index is calculated for each fragment by subtracting the difficulty index (the proportion of correct completion when the fragment is not studied) from the proportion of correct completion when the fragment is studied, and it means the capacity of an item to be primed. In order to determine whether the new index performs well, we have replicated some important experimental effects, such as priming, frequency, and difficulty. We consider that this index can help researchers to better select stimuli for fragment-completion tasks.

The role of thought suppression in building mental blocks

This research examined the role of thought suppression in the formation of mental blocks. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate a series of creative associates for two target words after initially suppressing a word that was semantically related to one of the two target words. Participants produced fewer responses, and experienced a greater sensation of being mentally blocked, when attempting to produce associates for the target word that was semantically related to the suppressed word. In Experiment 2, participants either thought about or suppressed a series of words prior to completing a word fragment completion task. Each word either corresponded exactly to one of the word fragment solutions (target primes) or resembled one of the solutions but was slightly different in its orthographic properties (negative primes). Participants performed most poorly on the items for which they had initially suppressed negative primes.

Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility.

According to terror management theory, if the cultural worldview protects people from thoughts about death, then weakening this structure should increase death-thought accessibility (DTA). Five studies tested this DTA hypothesis. Study 1 showed that threatening Canadian participants' cultural values (vs. those of another culture) increased DTA on a word-fragment completion task. Study 2 showed that when participants could dismiss the threat, DTA remained low. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 1, but DTA was measured using a lexical decision task. Response latencies to death, negative, and neutral content were measured. Worldview threat increased DTA relative to accessibility for negative and neutral content. Study 4 showed that the DTA effect emerged independently of the arousal of anger or anxiety. Finally, Study 5 demonstrated that participants with a pro-creation (vs. pro-evolution) worldview had higher DTA after reading an anti-creation article. Discussion focused on theoretical implications and directions for further research.