Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

First Advisor

Keith Horton

Advisor Role

Thesis Supervisor

Abstract

Much evidence has been presented in support of the view that deeper levels of processing (DOP) during encoding lead to substantial increases in explicit memory performance. The effects of DOP on implicit memory performance have been much more controversial. We attempted to find evidence to support the idea that deeper processing may influence automatic retrieval processes and that contradictory findings from the process dissociation procedure (PDP) may have resulted from the underestimation of automatic retrieval. This underestimation would result when automatic (A) and conscious retrieval (C) processes are positively correlated rather than independent as the PDP model suggests. We found that the underestimation of A was greater for words encoded semantically than for words encoded nonsemantically as expected, thus explaining the paradoxical finding that A was greater for the nonsemantic items. Therefore, previous findings of invariance in A after depth manipulations may have been artifacts of a bias in the PDP procedure. Our findings support the hypothesis that subjects typically engage in generate recognize retrieval strategies, causing a violation of the independence assumption and leading to a facilatory relationship between A and C.

Convocation Year

1998

Convocation Season

Fall

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