Abstract
We investigated the influence of distinctive encoding on the Jacoby and Whitehouse (1989) illusion. Subjects studied visually presented words that were associated with either an auditory presentation of the same word (nondistinctive encoding) or a picture of the object (distinctive encoding). In both conditions, words were visually presented on the recognition test, and half were preceded by brief repetition primes. Priming test items increased hits and false alarms in the auditory condition, demonstrating the Jacoby—Whitehouse illusion. This illusion was reduced in the picture condition. In order to test whether this distinctiveness effect was caused by a recollectionbased response strategy (i.e., the distinctiveness heuristic), we minimized recollection-based responding by having subjects make speeded recognition decisions. Contrary to the distinctiveness heuristic hypothesis, speeded responding did not eliminate the distinctiveness effect on the Jacoby—Whitehouse illusion. Picture encoding may reduce this illusion via a shift in preretrieval orientation, as opposed to a postretrieval editing process.
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This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grants AG021369 to D.A.G. and AG08441 to D.L.S. Preliminary analyses of these data were presented at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in 2003 (Vancouver, BC).
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Gallo, D.A., Perlmutter, D.H., Moore, C.D. et al. Distinctive encoding reduces the Jacoby—Whitehouse illusion. Memory & Cognition 36, 461–466 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.461
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.461