Abstract
After rating words on one to three of either three highly-correlated dimensions (concreteness, imagery, and categorizability) or three relatively uncorrelated dimensions (concreteness, pleasantness, and number of word features), 48 college students were tested without warning for 48-h delayed recall and recognition of the 36 words. The latter broad-processing group showed significantly better recognition than the former narrow-processing group. Group differences in recall, however, were nonsignificant, and the narrow group was slightly superior on words rated for all three dimensions. The results indicate delayed recognition, if not recall, to be better for words which have been processed more broadly or elaborately. Memory is further suggested to be more closely dependent upon breadth or elaboration than depth of semantic processing.
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Battig, W. F. Rated numbers offeatures for words varying in rated frequency and imagery. Paper presented at the meetings of the Psychonomic Society, November 7, 1975, Denver, Colorado. (Also Tech. Rep. No. 46, Program on Cognitive Factors in Human Learning and Memory, Institute for the Study of Intellectual Behavior, University of Colorado, 1975.)
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This is Publication 68 of the Institute for the Study of Intellectual Behavior, University of Colorado, and was supported by Grant BNS 72-02084 from the National Science Foundation. We thank Lewis O. Harvey, Jr., for making possible the present signal detection (d’) analysis of the present data.
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Battig, W.F., Einstein, G.O. Evidence that broader processing facilitates delayed retention. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 10, 28–30 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333537
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333537