| dc.description | Many studies have shown that the manipulation of attention during encoding of information impairs explicit memory but spares implicit memory. This insensitivity of implicit memory to attention manipulation a has been attributed to automatic processes during encoding of information and repetition priming. The presumed automatic mechanisms underlying these findings were examined with a modified Stroop color-word task in a filtering paradigm. Different groups of subjects either read the target words (Read Word condition), named the ink colors of the target words (Name Word Color condition) or named the ink colors of distractor stimuli presented simultaneously above or below a word (Name XX Color condition). Although attention to the presented words was expected to be reduced in the color naming tasks, automatic processing of words was expected in the Name Word Color condition. Whether this automatic processing of words would affect repetition priming was examined by testing with a word fragment completion test in Experiment 1, word stem completion tests in Experiments 2 and 3, and a lexical decision task in Experiment 4. Explicit testing with cued recall using word fragment completion, word stem completion, or recognition was also included. Word reading in Experiments 1-3 consistently produced significantly higher repetition priming and cued recall compared to color naming the words or XXs. In contrast, the lexical decision task in Experiment 4 produced significant repetition priming in all conditions whereas explicit recognition of the target words was highest in the Read Word condition. The results suggest that repetition priming can be affected by manipulating visual directed attention. The effects of this manipulation, however, may vary depending on the particular implicit task used to assess priming. It was concluded, in the light of these results, that automatic processing of to-be-ignored information does not necessarily lead to dissociation between implicit and explicit memory. The view that the manipulation of attention does not affect implicit memory while affecting explicit memory is, thus, in need of revision. | en_US |
