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Effects of divided attention in

the word-fragment completion
task with unique and multiple
solutions
a b
Pietro Spataro , Neil Mulligan & Clelia Rossi-Arnaud
a
a
University Sapienza, Rome, Italy
b
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Published online: 30 Mar 2009.
To cite this article: Pietro Spataro , Neil Mulligan & Clelia Rossi-Arnaud (2010)
Effects of divided attention in the word-fragment completion task with unique and
multiple solutions, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 22:1, 18-45, DOI:
10.1080/09541440802685979
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440802685979
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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
2010, 22 (1), 1845
Effects of divided attention in the word-fragment

completion task with unique and multiple solutions
Pietro Spataro
Neil Mulligan
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Clelia Rossi-Arnaud
The Identification-Production Hypothesis predicts that the effect of divided

attention (DA) at encoding should be larger when priming tasks involve divergent
search processes through many different competitors, because they are supposed to
place heavier attentional demands on frontal lobe functions (Gabrieli, Vaidya, Stone
et al., 1999). This hypothesis was tested in two experiments using the Word Fragment
Completion (WFC) task with unique solutions (which relies on convergent lexical
search towards single appropriate representations: the identification version of the
WFC) or multiple solutions (which implies a competition between equally plausible
responses: the production version of the WFC). In Experiment 1 the two versions of
the completion task were found to be equally unaffected by the imposition of a
short-term memory load at encoding. In Experiment 2 the reduction of target words’
study time (from 2.5 to 1 s), and the use of a blocked (rather than mixed) design,
significantly diminished the level of priming in the DA condition: However, contrary
to the predictions, the degree of impairment was not greater for multiple-solution
fragments. Results are in line with recent failures to support the identification
production hypothesis in normal adults (Geraci, 2006; Prull, 2004).
Keywords: Attention; Identificationproduction hypothesis; Implicit memory;

Word fragment completion.
Over the last 30 years, a great deal of research has been devoted to the study
of implicit memory (Mulligan & Brown, 2003; Roediger & McDermott, 1993;
Correspondence should be addressed to Pietro Spataro, Department of Psychology, University

Sapienza, Via dei Marsi 78, Rome 00185, Italy. E-mail: pietro.spataro@uniroma1.it
The authors would like to thank Paola Pazzano and Tania Bagaglia for their help in data
collection.
# 2009 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/ecp DOI: 10.1080/09541440802685979
DIVIDED ATTENTION AND FRAGMENT COMPLETION 19
Schacter, 1987). Implicit tests assess experience-induced changes in perfor-

mance that are not mediated by awareness or intention (Richardson-Klavehn
& Bjork, 1988; Stone, Ladd, Vaidya, & Gabrieli, 1998), and are typically
measured via repetition priming, an increase in the speed or accuracy of
processing studied items relative to new items (Gabrieli et al., 1999). Much of
this research has been guided by two theoretical frameworks: (1) the Transfer-
Appropriate-Processing (TAP) Theory (Morris, Bransford, & Franks, 1977;
Roediger, 1990; Roediger, Weldon, & Challis, 1989), and, more recently, (2)
the Identification-Production Distinction (Barnhardt, 2005; Gabrieli et al.,
1999; Prull, 2004; Vaidya et al., 1997). The present experiments were designed
to test these accounts of implicit memory by investigating the role of divided
attention at encoding on the word fragment completion task with unique and
multiple solutions.
The Transfer-Appropriate-Processing framework focuses on the type of
processing accomplished on the stimuli. The TAP theory predicts that the
efficiency of memory performance will depend on the extent to which
encoding processes are reengaged at the time of retrieval, and makes a
distinction between two classes of cognitive processes: perceptual processes,
which rely on the analysis of surface-level features, and conceptual processes,
based on the analysis of meaning. Many implicit tasks can be classified as
perceptual, because they involve the identification or completion of
degraded cues, like word fragments or incomplete pictures. In contrast,
implicit tests like semantic association or the generation of category
exemplars can be conceived as primarily conceptual, because they require
the retrieval of semantic information. The TAP view argues that dissocia-
tions are to be expected between perceptual and conceptual implicit tests.
Substantial support for this distinction has been found, with conceptual
priming generally sensitive to manipulations of semantic encoding and
insensitive to perceptual study manipulations, and perceptual priming
typically exhibiting the opposite pattern (for review, see Mulligan, 2003;
Roediger & McDermott, 1993).
Despite its substantial success, the perceptualconceptual distinction has
been recently challenged by another distinction, that between identification
and production priming (Gabrieli et al., 1999). Identification tasks (e.g.,
perceptual identification, lexical decision, etc.) involve search processes that
converge on a single appropriate response or representation in memory
(Prull, 2004): Participants are required to identify target items, verify their
attributes, or classify them into semantic categories. Identification priming
can involve entire stimuli presented normally (such as in tasks of word
naming), or degraded or masked forms of the stimuli (such as in word/
picture fragment completion or in masked identification): in all of these
cases, participants attempt to identify the cue or some feature of it
(Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998; Gabrieli et al., 1999). In contrast, production
20 SPATARO, MULLIGAN, ROSSI-ARNAUD
tasks (e.g., word-stem completion, category exemplar generation) are those

in which retrieval cues do not define unique solutions, but only delimit a
class of possible answers. Production tests are said to involve a competition
for the response, and therefore to rely on divergent search processes through
the lexical store, followed by a selection mechanism that chooses a single
entry (Barnhardt, 2005). Support for this theory was initially derived from a
series of experiments by Gabrieli and colleagues (Fleischman et al., 2000;
Gabrieli et al., 1999; Vaidya et al., 1997).
In relation to the effects of DA on implicit memory, a brief survey of the
literature reveals that many experimental findings can be reasonably explained

by these two distinctions (conceptualperceptual and identificationproduc-
tion), but neither fully accounts for the entire set of results. The TAP view
suggests that conceptual priming, reliant on semantic elaboration at encoding,
should be sensitive to study manipulations of attention whereas perceptual
priming, reliant on more automatic perceptual encoding processes, should be
little affected by study-phase division of attention (see Mulligan & Hartman,
1996). Initial studies supported this view, reporting that DA at encoding
reduced priming on conceptual implicit tasks (Gabrieli et al., 1999; Light,
Prull, & Kennison, 2000; Mulligan, 1997, 1998; Mulligan & Hartman, 1996;
Mulligan & Stone, 1999; Schmitter-Edgecombe, 1999), but had little effect on
perceptual implicit tasks (Clarys, Isingrini, & Haerty, 2000; Mulligan, 1998;
Mulligan & Hartman, 1996; Mulligan & Peterson, 2008; Parkin, Reid, &
Russo, 1990; Parkin & Russo, 1990; Schmitter-Edgecombe, 1996).
However, subsequent research raised questions with the TAP analysis.
Several papers have reported a significant decrease in the DA condition with
word-stem completion (Clarys et al., 2000; Gabrieli et al., 1999; Horton,
Wilson, Vonk, Kirby, & Nielsen, 2005; Wolters & Prinsen, 1997; but for
negative results see Baques, Saiz, & Bowers, 2004), rapid naming (Light &
Prull, 1995), and perceptual identification (Mulligan, 2002, 2003; Mulligan &
Hornstein, 2000), typically regarded as perceptual tasks. In other cases, DA
failed to impact priming on the conceptual tests of category exemplar
generation (Baques et al., 2004; Isingrini, Vazou, & Leroy, 1995; Schmitter-
Edgecombe, 1996) and category verification (Light et al., 2000; Mulligan &
Peterson, 2008). This pattern of results is difficult to reconcile with the TAP
account, but also with the identificationproduction distinction (because
perceptual identification is often affected by DA, whereas word-stem
completion and category exemplars generation tasks are sometimes
preserved).
In summary, both frameworks are unable to handle all the results obtained
in literature: It appears that the consequences of DA are not completely
accounted for by absolute differences in the nature of the tasks, but instead
vary according to the specific materials or experimental conditions employed
(for a clear example see: Mulligan & Stone, 1999).
In the present experiments, the identificationproduction distinction was

investigated by manipulating the number of possible solutions in the word-
fragment completion task (WFC). The latter, as usually employed (e.g., with
fragments that allow one single solution), can be classified as an identification
test. This is because the correct response relies mostly on the identification of
the perceptual characteristics of the cue (Barnhardt, 2005). Once the
fragment is matched with the unique entry in the mental lexicon that satisfies
the specific arrangement of letters and spaces, and the participants make a
response based on that representation, then the response will be necessarily
correct. If the target word has been previously primed, the outcome of the
lexical search will always be the same representation that was activated in the
study phase. On the contrary, when the fragments are constructed to allow
multiple solutions, the WFC task is thought to become a production task
(Nyberg, Nilsson, & Olofsson, 1994; Olofsson, 1995). This is because in that
condition the correct identification of the pattern of letters and missing
spaces will not guide participants to unique responses; instead, the cue will
match with a large number of lexical entries, any one of which could be used
to make a plausible response. This production stage should be necessarily
followed by a selection process that chooses one single entry: In this
framework, priming is hypothesised to increase the chance that the studied
word will be selected from among the generated alternatives. The same
distinction has been claimed by Barnhardt (2004, 2005) in relation to the
word-stem completion task (WSC). The typical WSC task uses stems that can
be completed with at least 10 words different from the target one, making it a
clear example of production test; however, when the stems are selected to have
only one or few solutions, then the test can be better described as an
identification one.
It should be noted that the identificationproduction distinction, as well as
that between perceptual and conceptual priming, is not absolute nor
unambiguous. Both Fleischman and Gabrieli (1998) and Prull (2004)
outlined that virtually no task is process pure: Depending on experimental
conditions and stimulus materials, any given implicit test can be characterised
as being the result of a mixture of processes. However, the critical point here is
that the latter claim does not prevent us from defining implicit tasks
according to predominant processes. For example, Fleischman and Gabrieli
(1998) suggested that, although both tests require the production of a word,
the WFC with unique solutions may depend relatively more than WSC on the
identification of pattern of letters than on productive processes. In a similar
vein, we propose that identification processes are predominant in the
WFC with unique solutions, whereas production/selection processes are
more critical in the WFC with multiple solutions. That is, if one sees
the identification-production distinction as endpoints of a continuum,
single-solution WFC should be closer to the identification endpoint, whereas

multiple-solution WFC should be closer to the production endpoint.
An important question about the identificationproduction hypothesis is
whether the two types of priming require different amounts of attentional
resources at encoding. Some authors (Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998; Gabrieli
et al., 1999; Geraci, 2006) contended that visual identification priming is
based mainly on perceptual low-level processes guided by posterior occipital
regions of the brain (or by other primary sensory cortices when the modality
of presentation of the stimuli is not visual), whereas production priming
requires the additional involvement of attentional processes guided by frontal

lobes. In particular, Gabrieli and colleagues (1999) suggested that production
priming, given the presence of high response competition, should be more
demanding of study-phase attentional resources relative to identification
priming. In other words, the probability of obtaining full priming (e.g., the
probability of choosing primed items among multiple competitors) in a
production task was supposed to be directly proportional to the degree of
study-phase elaborative processing (see also Vaidya et al., 1997): In this
framework a deeper elaboration of the target words should necessarily lead to
an higher probability of selecting those same words at the time of test.
The two experiments presented here were aimed at testing this study-phase
account of the difference between identification and production priming. If
the hypothesis of Gabrieli and colleagues (1999) is correct (that is, if
production priming demands more attentional resources than identification
priming at encoding), we expected to find that dividing attention at study
should reduce priming in the WFC task when fragments have multiple
solutions, but not when they have unique solutions. This is because the first,
but not the latter, WFC version implied a competition between alternative
solutions: in those conditions the achievement of full priming (e.g., the
presence of a bias towards the selection of primed stimuli) was hypothesised
to require greater attentional resources at the time of the encoding of target
words.
On the contrary, according to the TAP theory no main effect of divided
attention and no interaction between divided attention and fragment type
should be expected, because the WFC is usually classified as a perceptual
implicit task, and thus it is hypothesised to be based mainly on automatic
visual processes, regardless of the number of solutions allowed by the
fragments. Roediger and Blaxton (1987), Roediger, Srinivas, and Weldon
(1989), and Roediger, Weldon, and Challis (1989) suggested to classify
implicit tasks on the basis of the effects produced by at least two experimental
manipulations: (1) the variation of the modality or of the format of
presentation of the stimuli between study and test phases; and (2) the degree
of conceptual elaboration. Perceptual tasks usually show smaller or
nonsignificant priming across different modalities (auditory-visual) or across
different symbolic forms (picture-word), and are unaffected by the level of

conceptual elaboration of target words. On the other hand, conceptual
implicit tasks are typically insensitive to differences in perceptual character-
istics between study and test stimuli, and exhibit greater priming following
conceptual elaboration of target words, such as deep (vs. shallow) processing
and generation from semantic cues (vs. reading). Almost all studies that have
used these manipulations to assess the nature of the WFC task concluded
that it can be considered a data-driven test (see, for example, Craik,
Moscovitch, & McDowd, 1994; Rajaram & Roediger, 1993; Roediger,
Weldon, Stadler, & Riegler, 1992). The expectancy that perceptual implicit
tasks like the WFC should be unaffected by decreases of attentional resources
at encoding has been confirmed in four previous experiments that used
unique-solution fragments (Clarys et al., 2000; Mulligan, 1998; Mulligan &
Hartman, 1996; Parkin et al., 1990).
It should be outlined that the design of the present experiments has the
virtue of contrasting production and identification priming within a common
task. Prior studies examined identification and production priming across
different types of tasks (e.g., category verification vs. category generation),
which typically varied on a number of dimensions in addition to the critical
dimension of number of legitimate responses (e.g., type of response, type of
dependent measure, etc.). In the present case, the use of multiple-solution
versus unique fragments allows us to isolate the effects of retrieval
competition while holding constant the type of response, type of dependent
measure, general nature of retrieval cues, etc.
EXPERIMENT 1
A short-term memory load paradigm was used to divide attention during the
encoding phase (e.g., Clarys et al., 2000; Mulligan, 1998). Up to date, the
consequences of DA on the WFC task have always been studied using
fragments with unique solutions (e.g., Mulligan & Hartman, 1996; Parkin
et al., 1990), thus making the WFC an identification task. On the contrary, in
the present experiment fragments were constructed to have either one single
appropriate response or multiple possible solutions: In the latter case WFC is
thought to become a production task.
The manipulation of solution set size has been used in other studies to
assess the effects of test delay and number of presentations of the target word
at encoding (Nyberg et al., 1994; Olofsson, 1995). Surprisingly, results
showed little differences between fragments with unique and multiple
solutions: for example, Olofsson (1995) reported that an increase of the
retention interval up to 24 hours did not produce differential forgetting for
the two types of fragments.
As suggested above, clear-cut predictions can be formulated according to

the two theories considered. The TAP theory predicts no main effect of
divided attention and no interaction between divided attention and fragment
type. Given lexical access to the target words, the values of perceptual
priming should be equal in the FA and DA conditions, irrespective of the type
of fragments employed. On the contrary, according to the identification
production hypothesis, priming with multiple-solution fragments should be
reduced by DA, whereas priming with unique fragments should be
unaffected. In other words, obtaining an interaction between divided
attention and fragment type should provide strong support for the soundness
of the distinction between identification and production priming.
An attentional load of seven was used to assure that the strength of the
manipulation was sufficient to detect subtle effects. The degree of difficulty of
the distractor task can be an important determinant of DA effects in implicit
memory (e.g., Mulligan, 1997; Wolters & Prinsen, 1997). In particular,
Mulligan (1997) applied the short-term memory load paradigm to implicit
and explicit versions of the category-exemplar production task. The
attentional load varied between 0, 1, 3, and 5 items: Results showed that a
mild division of attention (loads of three elements) reduced category-cued
recall but not conceptual priming, whereas a stronger division of attention
(loads of five elements) diminished performance on both tasks and entirely
eliminated conceptual priming. Thus, explicit and implicit memory tests
differ in their sensitivity to the consequences of DA: Comparatively stronger
manipulations are needed to impair implicit rather than explicit tasks (see
also Berry, Henson, & Shanks, 2006; MacDonald & MacLeod, 1998). On the
other hand, it seems unreasonable to employ sequences with more than seven
elements, as participants have trouble retaining more items, yielding no
functional increase in the loads (Mulligan, 1998).
Method
Participants. Thirty undergraduate students (16 females and 14 males)
of the University ‘‘Sapienza’’ of Rome participated voluntarily (mean age
24.8 years; mean education16.8 years).
Design and materials. The experiment used a 22 design in which

attentional load (zero vs. seven) and fragment type (unique vs. multiple) were
manipulated within subjects.
Study materials consisted of 72 words from six to eight letters in length,
divided in three master lists of 24 items. Within each list, half of the words
were associated with unique fragments; the other half were associated with
non-unique fragments. Four additional words were selected: Two words were
placed at the beginning and at the end of every study list, as primacy and
recency buffers. Mean overall frequencies of the three master lists were
respectively: 102.2, 101.5, and 102.3 occurrences per million according to the
CoLFIS Vocabulary (Laudanna, Thornton, Brown, Burani, & Marconi,
1995).
Two master lists were assigned to FA (0-load) and DA (7-load) conditions;
the words in the third list were used as baseline items during the test phase. Thus,
all study lists contained 52 words (four buffers and 48 targets). Counter-
balancing was applied so that all master lists were rotated through the three
different roles (FA, DA, and baseline) an equal number of times. With the
exception of buffer items, all study trials were randomised for all participants,
producing a mixed list with regard to the attentional manipulation.
The memory test consisted of 80 word fragments. Fragments with
multiple solutions could be completed with a mean of 4.7 words (from a
minimum of 3 to a maximum of 7). All fragments consisted of 3 letters
(when the words were 6 letters in length) or 4 letters (when the words were 7
or 8 letters in length), with underscores in the place of missing letters. To
reduce unwanted variability in the construction of the fragments, three
different fragment patterns were allowed for each length of the solution word
(see Table 1). Eight fragments were used as practice items at the beginning of
the task; for the remaining cues, 48 fragments corresponded to the studied
words (respectively, 24 unique and 24 multiple fragments) and 24 corre-
sponded to new words (again, 12 unique and 12 multiple fragments).
Presentation of the fragments was randomly ordered by the software
SuperLab (Version 4.0). Fragments and words were written with the font
Times New Roman, 72 point, bold.
Procedure. Participants were tested individually. The experiment con-

sisted of a study phase and a single memory test. The study phase was
modelled closely on the procedures of Mulligan (1998) and Clarys et al.
TABLE 1
Method of fragment construction for each word length
Word length Fragment Example
6 X_ X_X_ C_A_I_ CRANIO (skull)

_X _ XX _ _ G _ EN _ IGIENE (hygiene)
X_ _ XX _ F _ _ TT _ FLOTTA (fleet)
7 X_ X_X_X I_P_S_O IMPASTO (mixture)
_X _ XX _ X _ E _ IR _ O DELIRIO (delirium)
X_ _ XX _ X P _ _ EN _ E PARENTE (relative)
8 X_ X_X_X_ T_S_I_R_ TASTIERA (keyboard)
_X _ XX _ X _ _ I _ HI _ M _ RICHIAMO (call)
X_ _ XX _ X _ P _ _ SI _ N _ PENSIONE (pension)
(2000). Each study trial was composed of four events: (1) First, a fixation
point (a cross in the middle of the computer screen) was displayed for
500 ms; (2) next, the digit-letter sequence (for the 7-load condition) or a string
of seven Xs (for the 0-load condition) was presented for 3000 ms: for the
7-load trials participants were told to read the string aloud and retain it in
memory until the recall signal was shown, whereas in the 0-load trials they
had only to answer ‘‘PASS’’; (3) then, the study word was presented for
2500 ms: instructions required to read the word aloud but no reference was
made of a subsequent memory test; (4) finally, the recall signal (three
question marks: ‘‘???’’) appeared, at which point participants recalled, in any

order, the sequence of digits and letters (in the 7-load condition) or again said
‘‘PASS’’ (in the 0-load condition).
After the study phase, a distractor task followed for about 10 min:
Participants were required to rate, on a Likert scale, the pleasantness of a
long sequence of images. Lastly, the word-fragment completion task was
given. Each test trial consisted of three events, a fixation point for 500 ms, a
word fragment for a maximum of 12,000 ms (Mulligan, 1998), and a slide
with three stars (‘‘***’’) that remained on the screen until the presentation of
the next trial. Participants were instructed to complete each fragment with
the first appropriate Italian word that came to mind*all nouns, adjectives,
and verbs were accepted, with the exception of proper names and
prepositions.
Immediately after the end of the WFC task, participants responded to
some questions drawn from Bowers and Schacter (1990), intended to probe
the awareness of the studytest relationship (‘‘Did you notice any relation
between the words I showed you earlier and the words produced on the
fragment completion test?’’*answers: YesNo), and the possible use of
explicit strategies (‘‘While doing the fragment completion test, did you
intentionally completed some of the fragments with the words studied in the
earlier list?’’*answers: YesNo).
Results and discussion

All statistical tests were performed with alpha.05. On the awareness
question, six participants (20%) responded that they were completely
unaware of the relation between study and test phases, whereas the remaining
24 (80%) stated they were aware (for similar findings see Rybash and
Osborne, 1991). As concerns retrieval intentionality, almost all participants
(24) claimed never to have made use of explicit strategies.
A t-test demonstrated that the overall proportion of correct completions
was higher for studied than unstudied words (M0.262 vs. M0.147),
t(29)7.264, SEM0.016. This difference was reliable both in the FA
and DA conditions, respectively, t(29)6.237, SEM0.019, and t(29)

5.783, SEM0.018, demonstrating that significant priming occurred in
Experiment 1.
A one-way repeated ANOVA, with fragment type (unique vs. multiple
solution) as within-subjects variable, was conducted on the percentages of
baseline fragments correctly completed. As expected, results revealed that
the effect of fragment type was significant, F(1, 29)26.749, MSE0.363:
The percentage of correct completions was reliably higher for unique
(M0.228) than multiple fragments (M0.072). This difference indicates
that the manipulation of the number of solutions achieved its primary aim:
When target words were unprimed, the probability to be selected among
multiple competitors was greatly reduced.
The same conclusion can be gained trough the analysis of the raw
percentages of correct completions for studied words: A repeated ANOVA
with fragment type as within-subjects factor showed that the main effect of
fragment type was significant, F(1, 29)64.887, MSE0.410. Again the
proportion of correct completions was higher for unique than multiple
fragments (M0.343 vs. M0.181). Thus, the manipulation of the number
of solutions of the fragments had strong effects both on unstudied and
studied items.
For each type of fragment (unique vs. multiple solution), the proportion of
correct completions with unstudied words was subtracted from the proportion
of correct completions with studied words, thus yielding priming values which
are shown in Table 2. A repeated 22 ANOVA with fragment type and
attentional load (0-load vs. 7-load) as within-subjects factors revealed: (1) no
effects of fragment type or attentional load: Priming levels were roughly equal
for unique and multiple fragments (M0.115 vs. M0.108), F(1, 29)B1, and
equal in the FA and DA conditions (M0.117 vs. M0.107), F(1, 29)B1; (2)
no interaction between divided attention and fragment type, F(1, 29)B1. The
same pattern of results held when the data from the six subjects claiming
intentional retrieval from the study phase were removed from the analyses,
F(1, 23)B1 in all cases.
When using the short-term memory load paradigm, it is important to
ascertain if performance in the secondary task was adequate to ensure a
sufficiently strong DA manipulation (Mulligan, 1997, 1998; Wolters & Prinsen,
1997). The mean value of recalled elements in the 7-load condition was
5.47 (SD0.89; minimum3.33, maximum6.67). When the analysis was
limited to the participants whose scores were above the median (Mn5.63;
N15), the effect of attentional load was still nonsignificant, F(1, 14)B1.
Given the low number of unaware participants, no statistical analysis
was performed on this variable; however, it seems important to note that
overall priming was greater for aware (M0.125) than unaware participants
(M0.083).
TABLE 2
Percentages and priming scores on the WFC task in Experiment 1 as a function of
attentional condition and fragment type
Attentional condition
Fragment type 0-load 7-load
Unique solution
Percentage studied 0.344 0.341
Percentage nonstudied 0.227 0.227
Priming 0.117 0.114
Multiple solution
Priming 0.117 0.100
In summary, in the first experiment a short-term memory load imposed at

encoding was found to have little effect on the overall accuracy of fragment
completion, replicating previous findings (Clarys et al., 2000; Mulligan,
1998; Mulligan & Hartman, 1996; Parkin et al., 1990). Contrary to the
identificationproduction hypothesis, multiple-solution fragments were un-
affected by DA as were unique-solution fragments. According to the
identificationproduction hypothesis, WFC priming with multiple-solution
fragments was supposed to be more resource demanding for the encoding
processes: As a consequence, DA effects should be larger on the production
version of the WFC task. Results of Experiment 1 provide no support to this
prediction, while they add to other research failing to find differences
between the two types of fragments in relation to the effects of retention
interval and the effects of number of study repetitions (Nyberg et al., 1994;
Olofsson, 1995).
A brief remark is in order concerning the problem of test awareness and
its impact on the DA paradigm. It has long been known that priming
measures can be contaminated by explicit memory processes (Bowers &
Schacter, 1990; Schacter, Bowers, & Booker, 1989): Participants might be
aware that retrieved items are study list words, or might deliberately try to
recall studied words. Thus, the performance in standard implicit tasks could
reflect involuntary aware memory or even voluntary aware memory. Bowers
and Schacter (1990) found that participants classified as involuntary-aware
produced results consistent with those test-unaware, and that participants
claiming intentional retrieval produced greater priming (see also, Mulligan,
2003). Others (Kinoshita, 2001; Mace, 2003a, Mace, 2003b, 2005) have
found that test awareness itself can lead to enhanced repetition priming, but
generally this holds for deeply encoded study items and not for more shallow
encoding. Despite the relatively high number of test-aware participants in
the present experiment, we do not think that explicit retrieval has unduly
contaminated the results for several reasons. First, only a few participants
claimed intentional retrieval. Second, we did not require engagement in deep
or intentional encoding at study. Finally, data from the present experiment
suggest that test-awareness does not mediate the effect of DA: Indeed, if
awareness was necessary to obtain a reduction of the WFC performance,
then we should have found a significant effect in the first experiment,
because almost all participants stated an awareness of the relationship
between study and test phases. Thus, it appears that test-awareness was not
an essential factor for the outcome of the DA manipulation in the present

experiment.
EXPERIMENT 2
Although the data of Experiment 1 are relevant to the identification
production framework, it should be noted that they provide only negative
evidence: The lack of differences between the two types of fragments might
be partially explained by the general absence of effect of our attentional
manipulation. A more complete analysis requires some positive proof: In
particular, a stronger disconfirmation would come from the demonstration
that multiple- and unique-solution fragments lead to the same amount of
impairment in a condition in which DA significantly reduces priming levels.
To have the maximum possibility of obtaining reliable effects of the atten-
tional manipulation, two factors were modified in Experiment 2: the ex-
posure time of the target words and the type of presentation of the attention
conditions during the encoding phase (mixed vs. blocked).
The importance of the interaction between study time and divided
attention has been highlighted by Ganor-Stern, Seamon, and Carrasco
(1998): Using the possibleimpossible object decision paradigm, they
showed that a DA manipulation (involving a flanking digits procedure)
significantly impaired perceptual priming only when the encoding time of
the drawings was reduced from 5 to 3 s.
In relation to the type of experimental design, compelling data has been
obtained both with implicit and explicit memory. Analysing the levels-of-
processing effects on the WFC task, Challis and Brodbeck (1992) and
Thapar and Greene (1994) demonstrated that a semantic encoding condition
produced more priming relative to a physical condition when the presenta-
tion of the two types of trials was blocked, but not when they were randomly
intermixed in the same list. Among the possible explanations, the authors
proposed that participants might truncate lexical processing in the blocked
list; that is, when participants are repeatedly requested to answer questions
about the presence/absence of single letters, they might stop processing the
words as lexical units. Powerful effects of the type of design were also
obtained by Begg and colleagues (Begg & Roe, 1988; Begg & Snider, 1987) in
the context of a read versus generate manipulation: They found an
advantage of the generate condition on a recognition test only when the
encoding task was manipulated within rather than between subjects. They
concluded that, when the two tasks were mixed in the same list, the
generation of some stimuli inhibited lexical processing of read words,
making participants ‘‘lazy readers’’.
To verify the importance of these two factors, Experiment 1 was
replicated with two major changes: During the encoding phase, words
were shown for 1 s (instead of 2.5 s; for a similar procedure see Gabrieli
et al., 1999), and the presentation of the two attentional conditions
(07 loads) was blocked. In addition, a recognition test followed the indirect
WFC task. To reduce the number of aware subjects, we adopted some of the
expedients recommended by Bowers and Schacter (1990): During the
encoding phase, target words for the WFC were intermixed with other
words whose memory was verified only in the subsequent recognition test;
similarly, at the time of retrieval, fragments corresponding to the studied
words were intermixed with a higher number of filler fragments (in this
second experiment the ratio of target to filler fragments was equal to 2:3,
whereas in the first experiment it was 2:1).
The selection of the words from Experiment 1 was aimed at reducing as far
as possible the difference between the baseline percentages of completion for
unique- and multiple-solution fragments. The results of Experiment 1 showed
that priming was equal for the two types of fragments; however, Vaidya et al.
(1997) suggested that more elaboration at encoding is necessary to obtain full
priming on implicit production tasks. Thus, one would expect an asymmetry
in the effects of study: A single brief encounter with the target words should
enhance priming more for unique than multiple-solution fragments (that is,
more for the identification than the production version of the WFC). The
failure to confirm this expectancy in Experiment 1 could be accounted for by
the high difference in the baseline levels of completion: Removing this
discrepancy will allow us to address this issue more thoroughly.
The main theoretical predictions were the same as in Experiment 1.
Support for the identificationproduction hypothesis would be again
provided by the achievement of a reliable interaction between fragment
type and divided attention: A significant DA effect was expected with
multiple-solutions fragments, but not with unique-solutions fragments. On
the contrary, according to the TAP theory, the two modifications should not
change the resilience of the WFC task, because lexical access continued to be
warranted by the overt articulation of the target words in the encoding
phase.
Method
Participants. Thirty-two undergraduate students (18 females and 14
males) of the University ‘‘Sapienza’’ of Rome participated voluntarily (mean
age24.2 years; mean education16.8 years).
Design and materials. A 22 design was again used, with fragment type
and attentional load as within-subjects variables. Study materials consisted of
48 words used in Experiment 1. All words were from 6 to 8 letters in length,
and were divided in four sublists of 12 items. Within each sublist, half of the
words were associated with unique fragments; the other half were associated
with nonunique fragments. Thirty pilot participants produced baseline
completion proportions of between 0.180 and 0.200 for the four lists.
Frequencies of the sublists were comparable to those in Experiment 1,
ranging between 105.1 and 110.5 occurrences per million according to the
CoLFIS vocabulary (Laudanna et al., 1995). Sixteen additional words were
selected: Two words were placed at the beginning and at the end of each study
list, as primacy and recency buffers; the remaining 12 words were presented
during the encoding phase along with the target words for the WFC (equally
divided between the 07 load conditions), but were tested only in the
successive recognition task.
The four sublists were counterbalanced across the attentional conditions,
so that they were assigned to the 0-load and 7-load conditions an equal
number of times. Thus, a complete study list contained a total of 40 words:
four buffers, 24 words to be tested on both the WFC and recognition tasks,
and 12 words tested only on the recognition test. Presentation of the
attentional conditions was blocked, and the order of the blocks was
counterbalanced across participants.
The WFC task consisted of 60 word fragments: 24 fragments corre-
sponded to the studied words (12 unique and 12 multiple); the other
36 corresponded to new words. Filler fragments were always constructed to
have unique solutions and were not scored. To further disguise the real
aim of the experiment, the first 15 fragments at the beginning of the test
could be completed only with new words. Multiple fragments were the same
employed in Experiment 1: They could be completed with a mean of 4.2
words (range37). Finally, the recognition test consisted of 72 words: 36
words corresponded to studied items, while the other 36 words corresponded
to new items (not presented in the WFC test).
Procedure. Procedures for the encoding phase and the WFC task were
similar to those used in Experiment 1, except that words were presented for
1000 ms instead of 2500 ms. In addition, one half of the participants were
presented first with all 0-load trials and then with all 7-load trials; the other
half performed the study phase in the reverse order. In the 7-load condition
participants were again requested to read the words aloud; however, the
experimenter stated that words had no role in this phase, and were presented
only to distract them from string recall.
Following the WFC and the posttest questionnaire, participants were
involved in casual conversations for 5 min. Lastly, the recognition task was
explained. Participants were given two sheets of paper that contained
72 words arranged in random order; they were instructed to circle only the
words studied during the encoding phase.
Results and discussion

As expected, the frequency of awareness was reduced. Sixteen participants
were classified as aware of the studytest relationship, while the other 16 were
unaware. As concerns retrieval intentionality, the majority of participants
(30) declared that they did not make use of explicit strategies of retrieval.
A paired t-test showed that the overall proportion of correct completions
for studied words was higher than the baseline completion rate (M0.266 vs.
M0.183), t(31)4.542, SEM0.018. This difference was reliable in the
FA condition, t(31)5.347, SEM0.024, but only marginally significant in
the DA condition, t(31)1.893, SEM0.022, p.068. Therefore, it can be
concluded that a reliable priming was obtained also in this second
experiment.
As in Experiment 1, the raw percentages of correct completions for studied
words were analysed with a one-way repeated ANOVA with fragment type
as within-subjects factor. This analysis revealed a significant main effect
of fragment type, F(1, 31)8.869, MSE0.209: The proportion of correct
completions was higher for unique than multiple-solution fragments (M
0.307 vs. M0.227). Thus, the degree of competition between alternative
responses was sufficient to reduce the number of correct completions to the
multiple-solution fragments.
For each type of fragment, priming values were calculated as the
differences between the percentages of correct completions with studied
words minus their spontaneous completion rates (respectively, 0.199 and
0.167 for unique and multiple-solution fragments). Data are presented in
Table 3. A 22 repeated ANOVA with fragment type and attentional load as
within-subjects factors revealed a significant main effect of attentional load,
F(1, 31)10.448, MSE0.236: Priming was higher in the FA (M0.128)
than in the DA condition (M0.042). There was also a marginally
significant main effect of fragment type, F(1, 31)3.502, p.071, MSE
0.082: Priming was slightly higher for unique (M0.110) than for multiple
TABLE 3
Percentages and priming scores on the WFC task in Experiment 2 as a function of
attentional condition and fragment type
Attentional condition
Fragment type 0-load 7-load
Unique solution
Priming 0.155 0.061
Multiple solution
Priming 0.099 0.020
fragments (M0.060). However, the critical interaction between fragment

type and divided attention was not significant, F(1, 31)B1.
To assess the role of test-awareness, the analysis was repeated including
this variable as a between-subjects factor. Test awareness did not enter into
any significant interactions, all FsB1.167, ps.289, indicating that the effect
of attention (and all other results) did not vary in relation to the awareness
status. However, it should be noted that the main effect of test-awareness
approached significance, indicating a trend for greater priming in aware than
unaware participants (M0.115 vs. M0.055), F(1, 30)2.799, p.105.
The effect of attentional load remained significant when the analysis was
limited to the unintentional participants (e.g., when the two participants who
claimed the use of intentional strategies of recall were removed from the
sample), F(1, 29)9.992, MSE0.222. However, the main effect of
fragment type became significant, F(1, 29)4.927, MSE0.114; more
importantly, the interaction between the two variables continued to be
negligible, F(1, 29)B1.
Finally, these results were independent from the level of performance on
the secondary task. The mean value of recalled elements in the 7-load
condition was 4.82 (SD1.06; minimum2.71, maximum6.48): When
the analysis was restricted to the participants whose scores were above the
median (Mn4.90), the effect of attentional load was still significant,
F(1, 15)9.828, MSE0.157, but the interaction was again trivial,
F(1, 15)B1, replicating the pattern of the main analysis.
For recognition, the mean value of correct responses, calculated as hits
false alarms, was 0.370 (SD0.161). False alarm rates were fairly low,
ranging from 0 to 0.139 (M0.052). A one-way repeated ANOVA with
attentional load as within-subjects factor found a significant main effect
of the attentional manipulation, F(1, 31)24.678, MSE0.373: The
proportion of hits was higher for the words studied in the FA (M0.491)
than in the DA condition (M0.338)], thus replicating the impairment
usually found with explicit memory measures.
In summary, Experiment 2 demonstrated that, at least in particular
experimental conditions, DA at encoding can reduce priming on the indirect
task of word fragment completion. This result contradicts a strong version of
the TAP theory, but is congruent with other recent research showing that
perceptual implicit memory is not completely invulnerable to attentional
manipulations (Crabb & Dark, 1999, 2003; Rajaram, Srinivas, & Travers,
2001).
However, even in this second experiment the extent of DA impairment
was equivalent for unique- and multiple-solution fragments: Indeed, the
difference between priming levels in the FA and DA conditions was greater
for unique-solution fragments (0.094 vs. 0.079). This failure, coupled with
the findings of Experiment 1, provides additional evidence against the
hypothesis that production priming, relative to identification priming,
requires greater amounts of attention at encoding: Importantly, this
conclusion holds both when the effect of divided attention on unique-
solution fragments (e.g., on identification priming) was not -significant
(Experiment 1), but also when it was substantial (Experiment 2).
Contrary to Experiment 1, the effect of the manipulation of the number
of fragment solutions on priming approached significance in the major
analysis, and was fully significant when the sample was restricted to
unintentional participants. This result is congruent with the idea that a
brief study episode will have greater consequences on unique- rather than on
multiple-solution fragments, provided that initial baseline levels are equated.
At this point some speculations are in order. First, it should be outlined
that, according to some authors (Weldon, 1991, 1993), the WFC task is quite
sensitive to conceptually driven processing, especially when the fragments
are exposed for long periods of time, as in the present experiments (12 s).
Weldon, for example, suggested that the WFC task is affected both by
perceptual and conceptual information, but the first is recruited more
quickly. When its mixed nature is taken into account, the present findings
could be explained by supposing that the DA manipulation affected the
conceptual component of the WFC. However, this interpretation is partially
undermined by two problems. First, the vast majority of the studies argue
against the conceptual nature of the WFC task (see the introduction). For
example, MacLeod and Masson (1997) found that the generateread
manipulation produced different patterns of results on two perceptual
implicit tests: Read words resulted in more priming than generated words in
the WFC, whereas equivalent priming was found in the word identification
task. The authors concluded that word identification involved an initial
interpretive encoding that included records of conceptual as well as
perceptual analyses, whereas the WFC was based solely on the results of
perceptual operations. Similarly, Blum and Yonelinas (2001; see also
Mitchell & Bruss, 2003) reported that unintentional participants demon-
strated cross-modality priming in the stem completion and the word
identification tasks, but not in the WFC: They suggested that the visual
word-fragment completion test had unique properties, because it relied only
on visual (perceptual) memory processes, whereas the other tasks relied also
on phonological or semantic processes. Furthermore, if the WFC is partly
conceptual, why did previous researches fail to find a DA effect? As
discussed in the General Discussion, it is highly possible that the reduction

of the WFC performance in the DA blocked condition was caused not by an
impairment of its (putative) conceptual component, but instead by a deficit
of lexical processing.
Second, the central bottleneck model of Pashler (1994, 1998) could be
applied to the interpretation of the present results. In this framework, it is
claimed that memory encoding (like memory retrieval and response
selection) requires a central bottleneck process: Following this account,
Mulligan and Hornstein (2000) proposed the distractor-selection hypothesis,
which suggests that making response to a distractor stimulus disrupts
encoding of the target words. In this view, the probability of finding a
significant effect of DA is proportional to the frequency and the degree of
synchronicity between target and distractor stimuli. As concerns Experiment
2, it should be noted that the strings immediately preceded the presentation
of the target words (without any gap): Even if our secondary task did not
require an overt response, the necessity to remember the sequence of letters
and numbers could have stressed the central bottleneck, reducing the
efficacy of target-word encoding. Indeed, Mulligan (2003), using the even/
odd decision task, showed that a 500 ms time gap between target and
distractor was sufficient to produce a DA effect.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Two experiments investigated the effects of divided attention on identifica-
tion and production versions of the word fragment completion task.
Multiple-solution fragments were used to test the hypothesis that production
priming (unlike the standard identification version of the WFC, with
unique-solution fragments) should imply a greater involvement of cognitive
resources during encoding (Gabrieli et al., 1999). In the first experiment,
target words were studied for 2.5 s and the presentation of attentional
conditions was randomly mixed; in the second experiment study time was
reduced to 1 s and presentation of the FA/DA conditions was blocked. The
latter modifications were done in order to maximise the probability of
observing a DA effect, thus allowing us to ascertain if the consequences of a

successful attentional manipulation differed between unique- and multiple-
solution fragments. The results of both experiments, failing to detect
significant interactions between fragment type and attentional load, offer
no support for the identificationproduction account of DA effects on
priming. This is rather surprising because multiple-solution fragments
should involve a competition between alternative responses in the lexicon:
An achievement of full priming in these conditions (that is, the biased
selection of primed stimuli against the competitors) was supposed to result
from the allocation of an higher quantity of cognitive resources to the

encoding of target words during the study phase (Vaidya et al., 1997).
Why DA effects were not greater with multiple fragments?

One of the most obvious explanation for the failure in detecting a difference
between the effects of DA on unique- and multiple-solution fragments is
given by the possibility that the degree of competition was too low in our
production version of the WFC task. Nyberg et al. (1994) used multiple
fragments with a number of alternative solutions that ranged between 4 and
81, with a mean equal to 8.5: The corresponding range in our two
experiments was 37, with means of 4.7 and 4.2. Even if we cannot
ultimately discard this account, there are arguments to question its validity.
In particular, the analyses of the raw percentages of correct completions for
the fragments corresponding to studied words highlighted significant results
in both experiments, with the percentage of correct responses being
consistently higher for unique-solution fragments; thus, the manipulation
of the solution set size was sufficient to result in the expected diminution of
completions with the multiple-solutions fragments.
On the other hand, it should be noted that many experiments aimed
at assessing the validity of the identification/production distinction used
as examples of production priming the word-stem completion or the cate
gory exemplars generation tasks (Fleischman et al., 2001; Gabrieli et al.,
1999; Geraci, 2006): In these two tests the stems/categories are typically selected
to have at least 10 solutions different from the target words. Thus, it is possible
that the study-phase hypothesis of the difference between identification and
production priming applies only when the competition level is very high (10).
Clearly, further research is needed to support this prediction.
A second speculative explanation for the present results is that unique-
solution fragments could allow some minimum degree of competition.
Tenpenny and Shoben (1992, note 3, p. 36) sustained that participants,
when approaching unique-solution fragments, often used recursive strategies
in which potential candidates were produced and immediately rejected,
including near completions, words acoustically similar to the target item or

words with a different number of letters (errors). Thus, it is possible that the
effect of DA was not modulated by fragment type because unique-solution
fragments implied a level of competition not sufficiently different from that
obtained with multiple-solution cues.
A third radical account stems from the proposal that perceptual priming
could be characterised as an ‘‘all-or-none’’ phenomenon (Ganor-Stern et al.,
1998; Musen & Treisman, 1990). The only critical factor would be whether a
novel representation has been formed in memory (when stimuli are
unfamiliar), or whether the activation of preexisting nodes (when stimuli

are familiar) has been sufficient to exceed the response threshold at the time
of the representation of the same items: Divided attention can reduce the
probability of occurrence of these two processes, but once priming is
obtained no further decrease should be expected because of the presence of a
competition in the multiple fragments. Similar explanations have been
proposed by other researchers who manipulated the number of solutions in
the WFC task. Nyberg et al. (1994), for example, proposed that a single
presentation of the target word acted as a necessary and sufficient event that
promoted priming: Independently from the nature of the fragment (unique
or multiple), successive presentations did not increase WFC performance.
Again, additional research is required to differentiate this view from others
arguing for a more graded nature of perceptual implicit memory (e.g.,
Barnhardt, 2005; Brown, Jones, & Mitchell, 1996; Li, Miller, & Desimone,
1993).
Finally, Winocur, Moscovitch, and Stuss (1996) and Nyberg, Winocur,
and Moscovitch (1997) found that, in healthy elderly, word-stem priming
correlated with the performance on some neuropsychological tests sensitive
to frontal-lobe dysfunction, such as the word fluency task and the Wisconsin
Card Sorting Test. They proposed that attention-demanding processes
(driven by the frontal lobes) could be involved in the retrieval phase of the
word-stem completion task, to generate the set of solutions, select the target
response, and inhibit the competitors. According to this explanation, divided
attention at test (but not at encoding) should have more negative
consequences on the production rather than on the identification version
of the WFC.
Test awareness and retrieval intentionality

Substantial research has accumulated about the influence of test-awareness
and retrieval intentionality on priming measures (Kinoshita, 2001;
Richardson-Klavehn, Gardiner, & Java, 1996). As concerns test-awareness,
results seem to indicate that the relation with priming depends on the type
of implicit task employed: Perceptual tests like the word-stem completion

are often unaffected by the state of awareness (Barnhardt & Geraci, 2008;
Bowers & Schacter, 1990; but see Mace, 2003b, for different conclusions),
whereas associative priming (Bowers & Schacter, 1990) and conceptual tests
like the category-exemplar generation (Barnhardt & Geraci, 2008; Mace,
2003a) can be significantly enhanced in aware participants.
Even if the frequency of awareness was quite high in the present
experiments, we do not think that this factor, or explicit contamination,
can account for the results. First, only a few participants claimed intentional
retrieval (respectively, 6 and 2). Second, unlike in other studies, spontaneous

awareness did not interact with experimental variables. For example,
Richardson-Klavehn and Gardiner (1996) found that cross-modal priming
in the word-stem completion task was evident only in those participants who
stated they were aware of the studytest relationship but did not use
voluntary retrieval strategies; memory that was both unaware and uninten-
tional did not transfer across modalities (cf. Blum & Yonelinas, 2001). On
the contrary, in Experiment 2 no interaction was seen between divided
attention and test-awareness. Similarly, Mulligan (2003, Exp. 2) found a DA
effect on the perceptual identification task that did not interact with test-
awareness. These findings indicate that awareness does not represent a
critical element in order to obtain a significant DA effect. Support for this
conclusion derives also from Experiment 1: If test-awareness was the key
factor, then the effect of DA should have been highly significant in this
experiment because the number of aware participants was greater compared
with Experiment 2 (respectively, 24 vs. 16), whereas statistical analyses
demonstrated that it was trivial.
Divided attention
Although the analysis of the factors that mediate the effect of divided
attention on the WFC task was not the primary aim of the present research,
the findings of Experiment 2, being in contrast with previous conclusions of
other authors (Clarys et al., 2000; Mulligan, 1998; Mulligan & Hartman,
1996; Parkin et al., 1990), demand some comments.
First, we note that, despite this apparent incongruence, our current results
are in line with other recent research showing that implicit perceptual
memory is not completely immune to attentional manipulations. The WFC
task itself was found to be impaired by a selective-attention paradigm
(Rajaram et al., 2001; Stone et al., 1998): for example, Rajaram and
colleagues (2001) reported that the request to direct attention towards an
attribute different from the word identity, as the print colour, was sufficient
to significantly reduce the magnitude of completion priming, when compared
with a read-only condition (full attention). Similar results were obtained by

Mulligan (2002, 2003); see also Mulligan & Hornstein, 2000) with the
perceptual identification task. Convergent results in the auditory modality
were achieved by Mulligan, Duke, and Cooper (2007): They showed that a
distractor task with high response frequency disrupted priming on the
auditory versions of perceptual identification, word-stem, and word-frag-
ment completion tasks. Finally, Mulligan and Peterson (2008) demonstrated
that even the lexical decision (which had previously showed a strong
resilience to attentional manipulations; Szymanski & MacLeod, 1996) was
impaired by a modified version of the Stroop task, in which the attention was
manipulated across distinct objects rather than within the same words (e.g.,
participants were requested to do colour judgements about Xs flanking the
words). All these results point to the conclusion that perceptual implicit
memory depends on attentional requirements beyond those needed for the
simple identification of the words.
Furthermore, since we asked participants to read the words during the
encoding phase, our results imply that the correct lexical access to the words
is not sufficient to ensure a complete immunity against attentional
manipulations. However, even this result can be made congruent with the
current literature. Mulligan and Hornstein (2000) had their participants
studying words printed in different colours: The instructions were to read the
word (full attention condition), to identify the colour (colour-name
condition), or to do both tasks (both condition). The results showed that
performance in the perceptual identification task was significantly disrupted
by the requirement to respond to the words’ colour: Critically, the
impairment was reliable even in the both condition, despite the instruction
to read aloud the words. Thus, in those experiments lexical access was not
sufficient to equate priming to the levels reached in the read-only condition.
In summary, although the results of Experiment 2 are apparently in contrast
with a strong version of the TAP theory (because the WFC is thought to be a
data-driven task), they still agree with much literature in demonstrating that:
(1) Perceptual implicit memory relies on attention at encoding, even if the
extent of this reliance is lower when compared with explicit or conceptual
implicit memory; (2) lexical access is not sufficient to prevent the effects of
divided attention.
As concerns the mechanisms that produced the DA impairment, it is
possible that in the blocked DA condition, the continuous repetition of the
secondary task (e.g., the accurate recall of the strings of letters and digits),
coupled with the short study time of target words and the type of
instructions (which discouraged extensive elaborations of the words),
induced participants to treat it as the primary concern, thus diverting
attentional resources from the lexical processing of words to string retrieval.
In this condition, reading the words (and thus accessing the lexical
representations) did not ensure the same level of lexical processing that was
achieved in the full attention condition. Using Begg and Roe’s (1988); see
also Begg & Snider, 1987; Begg, Snider, Foley, & Goddard, 1989) definitions,
in the blocked DA condition participants became ‘‘lazy readers’’: The
repeated execution of the short-term memory task led to a shallow
elaboration of the words, probably aimed only at their identification,
whereas in the full attention condition the extent of lexical processing was
more accurate. This strategy was not followed in the mixed list, because the
constant alternation of the 07 load conditions oriented participants to
perform the same standard level of lexical elaboration on all the target
words. As suggested by Richardson-Klavehn and Gardiner (1998), attention
to the study stimuli as lexical units is critical for repetition priming, and is
required in addition to lexical access, which can occur automatically. Our
explanation fits well with this framework, because it implies that in the
blocked DA condition lexical access was present, but lexical processing (that
is, the words’ elaboration as lexical units) was very superficial. The account
is also congruent with the idea that the blocked condition allows for a more
rigorous control of both processing strategies and allocation of attention
(Bentin, Moscovitch, & Nirhod, 1998).
In conclusion, by proposing a lexical deficit in the DA blocked condition,
our hypothesis complies with other evidence showing that lexical processing
has a critical importance for repetition priming: for example, Weldon (1991)
demonstrated that the study of anagrams produced significant priming in
fragment completion and perceptual identification only when participants
used a simple rule to turn the anagrams into words. In the same vein,
Nelson, Keelean, and Negrao (1989) found that instructions to search at the
word level enhanced WFC performance, whereas instructions to generate
letters to fill missing spaces had no effect. These and other data sustain the
idea that lexical processing has a primary role in perceptual implicit tasks.
SUMMARY
Two experiments studied the difference between identification and produc-
tion priming using the word-fragment completion task with unique
(identification version) or multiple-solution (production version) fragments.
The purpose was to test the hypothesis that production priming, given the
presence of competition, should require greater amounts of attentional
resources during the encoding of target words (Gabrieli et al., 1999).
According to this framework, when the fragments are constructed to allow a
competition between target words and alternative solutions, the biased
selection of primed stimuli will occur only if their encoding has been
sufficiently elaborated; this, in turn, should imply more attention-demanding
processes. On the basis of these expectations, it was predicted that dividing

attention at encoding should have been more harmful for the production,
than for the identification, version of the WFC task. However, the results
showed no difference between the effects of DA on unique- and multiple-
solution fragments. Although the level of competition was not maximum in
our experiments, these findings, coupled with other recent failures (Prull,
2004; Geraci, 2006), raise questions with the identificationproduction
distinction. Further research is needed to verify if its predictions can really
aid our comprehension of the dynamics of memory processes in normal
adults.
Original manuscript received June 2008

Revised manuscript received December 2008
First published online March 2009
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European Journal of Cognitive

Effects of divided attention in

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Effects of divided attention in the word-fragment

The Identification-Production Hypothesis predicts that the effect of divided

Keywords: Attention; Identificationproduction hypothesis; Implicit memory;

Correspondence should be addressed to Pietro Spataro, Department of Psychology, University

Schacter, 1987). Implicit tests assess experience-induced changes in perfor-

tasks (e.g., word-stem completion, category exemplar generation) are those

literature reveals that many experimental findings can be reasonably explained

In the present experiments, the identificationproduction distinction was

single-solution WFC should be closer to the identification endpoint, whereas

requires the additional involvement of attentional processes guided by frontal

different symbolic forms (picture-word), and are unaffected by the level of

As suggested above, clear-cut predictions can be formulated according to

Design and materials. The experiment used a 22 design in which

Procedure. Participants were tested individually. The experiment con-

6 X_ X_X_ C_A_I_ CRANIO (skull)

question marks: ‘‘???’’) appeared, at which point participants recalled, in any

Results and discussion

and DA conditions, respectively, t(29)6.237, SEM0.019, and t(29)

Fragment type 0-load 7-load

In summary, in the first experiment a short-term memory load imposed at

an essential factor for the outcome of the DA manipulation in the present

Results and discussion

Fragment type 0-load 7-load

fragments (M0.060). However, the critical interaction between fragment

discussed in the General Discussion, it is highly possible that the reduction

observing a DA effect, thus allowing us to ascertain if the consequences of a

from the allocation of an higher quantity of cognitive resources to the

Why DA effects were not greater with multiple fragments?

including near completions, words acoustically similar to the target item or

unfamiliar), or whether the activation of preexisting nodes (when stimuli

Test awareness and retrieval intentionality

of implicit task employed: Perceptual tests like the word-stem completion

retrieval (respectively, 6 and 2). Second, unlike in other studies, spontaneous

with a read-only condition (full attention). Similar results were obtained by

processes. On the basis of these expectations, it was predicted that dividing

Original manuscript received June 2008

Mace, J. L. (2005). Experimentally manipulating the effects of involuntary conscious memory on a

Prull, M. W. (2004). Exploring the identificationproduction hypothesis of repetition priming in

Richardson-Klavehn, A., & Gardiner, J. M. (1998). Depth-of-processing effects on priming in stem

fragment completion priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and

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