The influence of serial retention and theme identification paradigms on encoding

Abstract

Half the subjects attempted to remember the order of presentation of stimulus lists of words; the other half tried to determine the theme of the words. Encoding features were evaluated with surprise recognition tests. Greater auditory encoding was obtained for the stimulus words in the serial retention condition than for the same words in the theme identification condition. Semantic encoding was only obtained in the theme identification condition. These results were discussed in terms of the flexibility of encoding strategies.

Present address: Personnel & Training Requirements Branch, AFHRL/ASR Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 45433, U.S.A.

Present address: Department of Psychology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 45431, U.S.A.

Notes

Present address: Personnel & Training Requirements Branch, AFHRL/ASR Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 45433, U.S.A.

Present address: Department of Psychology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 45431, U.S.A.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Altman Klein

The authors wish to thank Joseph Dumas for his helpful criticism of the manuscript. Portions of this paper were presented to the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, April 1972.