Abstract
It has been argued that recent demonstrations of recognition failure of words subsequently recollected contradict the generation-recognition theory of recall. This argument has been countered with the proposal that the various senses of a word are represented in the associative network by separate nodes, so that recognition may fail because of access to the wrong node. A prediction of this modified version of generation-recognition theory is that the probability of recognizing a word can be increased by providing cues to its various senses. Two experiments are described in which comprehensive definitions of the target words were given during a recognition test. These definitions failed to improve recognition, and hence this modified version of generation-recognition theory was not supported.
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References
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This research was supported by the National Research Council of Canada, Grant A8632, to Endel Tulving. The authors thank Endel Tulving for his critical reading of an earlier draft of the paper.
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Watkins, M.J., Park, N.W. Cuing with word senses: A test of generation-recognition theory. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 9, 25–28 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336918
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336918