JUDGMENTS OF SEMANTIC AND EPISODIC RELATEDNESS - COMMON TIME-COURSE AND FAILURE OF SEGREGATION

We investigated the processes by which people discriminate preexperimental (semantic) from experimental (episodic) associations. Dosher (1984, Cognitive Psychology, 16, 519-555) showed that information about semantic relatedness intruded into judgments of episodic (newly learned) associations, especially early in the time course of recognition. Time course is evaluated in a speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) paradigm, in which subjects are interrupted at various points during retrieval with a cue to respond. The present study: (i) replicated the semantic intrusion into episodic judgments; (ii) found intrusion of episodic associations into judgments of semantic relatedness, although the effect was smaller; (iii) allowed a direct comparison of the speed of associative recognition judgments and of semantic relatedness judgments in comparable situations for the same subjects-the time courses of the two judgments were similar; and (iv) showed that these effects in SAT retrieval functions translate into comparable patterns in RT and error rates for both types of judgment. Conclusions for semantic/episodic system distinctions, possible relation to the implicit/explicit distinction, and an analysis of differential cuing processes related to Humphreys, Bain, and Pike (1989, Psychological Review, 96, 208-233) are discussed. © 1991.