Prior Knowledge and Recognition

• Published in: The American journal of psychology Vol. 98; no. 3; pp. 379 - 397
• Main Authors: Nelson, Douglas L., Can̄as, José, Casanueva, Diane M., Castan̄o, Dolores
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press 01-01-1985; University of Illinois Press, etc
• Subjects: Association; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Conditioning; Cues; Experimental psychology; Experimentation; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Memory; Memory recall; Normativity; Phonetics; Prior learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Rhyme; Semantic models; Semantics; Word frequency analysis; Human; Cognition; Mnemonic recognition; Language; Language perception; Memory
• ISSN: 0002-9556; 1939-8298
• DOI: 10.2307/1422624

The purpose of this series of experiments was to determine if and when word recognition would depend on the number of related concepts represented in permanent memory. Words defining either large or small rhyme or meaning categories were studied and tested under various conditions. The results indicated that rhyme category size influenced recognition whenever rhyme was emphasized during both study and testing phases. Words belonging to larger rhyme sets were not recognized as well as those belonging to smaller rhyme sets. In contrast, meaning-related set size had no effect on recognition. These and other findings indicate that the breadth of prior knowledge can influence recognition but only under limited conditions that reactivate this knowledge at test.