Abstract
Three experiments tested the hypothesis that people can execute focused searches of semantic cases when answering questions about complex facts, such as “the teacher watered the peas, the corn, and the lettuce with the hose.” In Experiment 1, answer time varied mainly with the number of concepts in the relevant or focused case, supporting the hypothesis. Experiment 2 indicated that the irrelevant case undergoes some processing. Experiment 3 confirmed that search in Experiments 1 and 2 focused on semantic cases rather than on taxonomic categories. It is proposed that focused memory search has a high probability of retrieving the relevant case and a low probability of retrieving the irrelevant case. In the latter event, the irrelevant concepts receive full processing.
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This research was supported by Grant A9800 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Councd of Canada. Experiments 1 and 2 were presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, November, 1985. Experiinent 3 was presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, November 1986.
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Singer, M., Parbery, G. & Jakobson, L.S. Focused search of semantic cases in question answering. Mem Cogn 16, 147–157 (1988). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213484
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213484