The study of human memory and in particular the attempts to distinguish between
different types of memory have benn investigated for the last century.
Philosophy, psychiatry and psychologh have all contributed to this study.
Korsakoff, Freud and Ebbinghaus are among the early contributers. Although their
observations were not always methodological as strict as with current research
they did play a vital role. One critisim of the early work was that there were
few attempts to develope theroetical accounts of the dissociations that they
observed (Schacter, 1989). This is of great importance to the study of implicit
memory. One of the earliest uses of 'implicit' and 'explicit' memory
distinctions in research was by Wiliam McDougall (Outline of psychology, 1924).
This distinction defined 'explicit' memory as involving conscious recollection
of a past event and 'implicit' memory as involving a change in behaviour that is
attriduted to a recent event but contains no conscious recollection or explicit
reference. (Schacter, 1989). Much of the controvacy that surrounds implicit
memory study centeres arround its definition. Whether it defines the pretest
situation or a theoritical construct of the underlying memory process. The main
argument is that if similiar items must share common features if they are to
belong to the same catagory of test or process. " Some ttheorists, for
example, have argued that different manifestations of memory are attributable to
the operation of the distinct memory systems(e.g. Schacter 1989; Squire 1992;
Tulving 1993; Tulving and Schacter 1990). Others argue that these different
manifestations are consistent with a process viewpoint (e.g. Jacoby et al.
1989a; Kolers and Roediger 1984; Roediger 1990; Roediger et al 1989)." From
Richardson-Klavehn (1996). To explicate the positions, a review of the
experimental evidence is necessary. Recently five main areas have informed
research into implicit memory, Schacter (1989).These are savings during
learning, effects of subliminally encoded stimuli, learning and conditioning
without awareness, repetition priming and preserved learning in amnesic
patients. These are reviewed in turn. Savings are the ability to relearn
previously learned material in the absence of any knowledge of the previous
learning situation. Although there is an influence of the previous learning
situation on proformance. The most conclusive evidence for this comes from
Nelson (1978), who has shown savings for items that are neither recalled nor
recognised. Studies have demonstrated implicit memory for subliminal or briefly
exposed stimuli under conditions in which subjects had no explicit memory. An
auditory divided attention task in which homophones were presented on the
unattended channel together with word intended to bias the low frequency
interpretation of the homophone (e.g. taxi - FARE ), Eich (1984). Lewicki (1985)
found that after exposure to adjective -noun pairs, subjects tended to choose
the adjective that they had been exposed to when they were asked about the noun.
Schacter (1989). Learning without awarness has been shown it rule learning
studies. Subjects were shown letter strings from an artifical grammer and were
able to identify grammatically correct strings even though they were not
conscious of the propper rules, Reber (1976) called this implicit learning.
Repetition Priming effects have been characterised by lexical decision, woed
identification and word stem of fragment completion tasks. This area derives
from two distinct and at times The study of human memory and in particular the
attempts to distinguish between different types of memory have benn investigated
for the last century. Philosophy, psychiatry and psychologh have all contributed
to this study. Korsakoff, Freud and Ebbinghaus are among the early contributers.
Although their observations were not always methodological as strict as with
current research they did play a vital role. One critisim of the early work was
that there were few attempts to develope theroetical accounts of the
dissociations that they observed (Schacter, 1989). This is of great importance
to the study of implicit memory. One of the earliest uses of 'implicit' and
'explicit' memory distinctions in research was by Wiliam McDougall (Outline of
psychology, 1924). This distinction defined 'explicit' memory as involving
conscious recollection of a past event and 'implicit' memory as involving a
change in behaviour that is attriduted to a recent event but contains no
conscious recollection or explicit reference. (Schacter, 1989). Much of the
controvacy that surrounds implicit memory study centeres arround its definition.
Whether it defines the pretest situation or a theoritical construct of the
underlying memory process. The main argument is that if similiar items must
share common features if they are to belong to the same catagory of test or
process. " Some ttheorists, for example, have argued that different
manifestations of memory are attributable to the operation of the distinct
memory systems(e.g. Schacter 1989; Squire 1992; Tulving 1993; Tulving and
Schacter 1990). Others argue that these different manifestations are consistent
with a process viewpoint (e.g. Jacoby et al. 1989a; Kolers and Roediger 1984;
Roediger 1990; Roediger et al 1989)." From Richardson-Klavehn (1996). To
explicate the positions, a review of the experimental evidence is necessary.
Recently five main areas have informed research into implicit memory, Schacter
(1989).These are savings during learning, effects of subliminally encoded
stimuli, learning and conditioning without awareness, repetition priming and
preserved learning in amnesic patients. These are reviewed in turn. Savings are
the ability to relearn previously learned material in the absence of any
knowledge of the previous learning situation. Although there is an influence of
the previous learning situation on proformance. The most conclusive evidence for
this comes from Nelson (1978), who has shown savings for items that are neither
recalled nor recognised. Studies have demonstrated implicit memory for
subliminal or briefly exposed stimuli under conditions in which subjects had no
explicit memory. An auditory divided attention task in which homophones were
presented on the unattended channel together with word intended to bias the low
frequency interpretation of the homophone (e.g. taxi - FARE ), Eich (1984).
Lewicki (1985) found that after exposure to adjective -noun pairs, subjects
tended to choose the adjective that they had been exposed to when they were
asked about the noun. Schacter (1989). Learning without awarness has been shown
it rule learning studies. Subjects were shown letter strings from an artifical
grammer and were able to identify grammatically correct strings even though they
were not conscious of the propper rules, Reber (1976) called this implicit
learning. Repetition Priming effects have been characterised by lexical
decision, woed identification and word stem of fragment completion tasks. This
area derives from two distinct and at times.