Features of Recognition Tasks in Encoding Specificity: Types of Frequency Associates in Extralist Cue Words and Types of Recognition Tasks

The purpose of the present experiment was to examine the principle of encoding specificity, manipulating recognition tasks.Two variables were operated.The first variable was types of frequency associates, high frequency associates and low frequency associates, respectively.The second variable was three types of recognition tasks.The subjects in Condition I were given free association tasks, having 30 extralist cue words.In Condition II, the subjects were given free associates prepared by the experimenter.In Condition In, free associates generated by the subjects in Condition I were presented to the subjects.The results consonant with the principle of encoding specificity revealed only in Condition I. Other two conditions showed recognition superiority over recall.These results were interpreted as inter-task interference.Recent investigations for the principle of encoding specificity provide results which are both congruent and incongruent with Tulving and Thomson's (1973) data (e.g., Postman, 1975;Santa Lamwers, & 1974;Watkins & Tulving, 1975; Wiseman & Tulving, 1975,1976).Of these investigations, the data which are consistent with the principle of encoding specificity demonstrate the following results: (i) effects of cued recall, (ii) context effects in recognition memory, (iii) recognition failure of recallable words.The condition studying a target word in a specific associative and/or semantic context at input, followed by a change in context at output, results in a low probablity of recall or recognition when it is compared to that maintaining the original input context.The result of recognition failure of recallable words is a phenomenon that can not occur in the so-called two-phase model of recall (Anderson & Bower, 1972;Kintsch, 1970).According to the two-phase model of recall, a recall situation consists of two successive or overlapping stages, one "implicit generation of possible response alternatives" and the other "recognition of one of the generated alternatives as meeting certain criteria of acceptability".From this point of view, as contrasted recall with recognition, the latter is higher than the former.Moreover, it is well known that cue elicits the retrieval of responses (Bahrick, 1970).If cue is successful, the correct