Abstract
In nearly all reported orienting task studies, the question is asked before the item or items are presented. This paper reports two experiments wherein the question was asked after the item was presented. These experiments found that an orthographic orienting task did not produce poorer retention than a semantic orienting task when (1) the orthographic task was presented in such a way to ensure that the list items would be encoded as units and (2) the test was designed to eliminate the effect of encoding elaboration to positive-response orienting questions. It was concluded that the depth-of-processing effect was composed of two components. One of these is a task-demand component that affects the probability of encoding target items as identifiable units. The second component of processing depth is trace elaboration to positive-response questions. In most experiments, the two components combine to produce better memory performance for targets presented with semantic orienting questions. However, the two components can be examined independently of each other to determine the degree to which each contributes to a particular experimental effect.
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This research was supported by Grant A9638 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada.
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Moeser, S.D. Levels of processing: Qualitative differences or task-demand differences?. Memory & Cognition 11, 316–323 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196978
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196978