Psychopathology

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It may be assumed that a high Hits minus False alarms rate implies an effective implicit memory. This is because this rate has taken into account of all four possible outcomes: Hits, misses, false alarms and correct rejection. The following patterns of data emerged: (a) Both letter encoding and rhyme encoding produce better implicit memory, as demonstrated on a visually oriented implicit learning test (stem completion task), than semantic encoding when the target word was presented after the question. (b) Letter encoding produce better implicit memory than phonological perceptive encoding or semantic encoding when the target word appears before the question. (c) More effective implicit memory is produced when target words were presented after the question (case 1) than if it was presented before (case 2).
The fact that visual perceptive encoding (by letter) produces more effective implicit memory may be explained with reference to the Transfer Appropriate Processing theory (TAP). According to this theory, “different kinds of processing lead learners to acquire different kinds of information about a stimulus”. (Eysenck and Keane, p138) For example, “storing semantic information is essentially irrelevant when the memory test requires the identification of words rhyming with list words”. One would expect visually encoded information in the learning phase to assist in an implicit test of visually oriented format (such as stem completion task), and this was indeed illustrated in the data. Phonological perceptive encoding (by rhyme) would be expected to yield a similar level of implicit memory as semantic due to the apparent lack of TAP. However, the level of implicit learning illustrated in case 1 may indeed be explained by the TAP theory. It may be assumed that subjects will try to pronounce the few letters presented in the stem completion task before attempting the task. If this is the case, it would then be evident from the data...