Word stem and word fragment completion following semantic activation and elaboration.

In 5 experiments, Ss made timed lexical decisions to target words (or nonwords) preceded by primes that were semantically related or unrelated to them. Subsequently, a stem or fragement completion task was administered as an implicit memory test (e.g., complete bu for butter), followed by an explicit recognition test of memory for the previously seen primes and targets. Conditions of presentation for the lexical decision task were varied across experiments. In Exp 1, both semantic relatedness and semantic elaboration (primes vs targets) influenced performance on both the implicit and explicit tests. In Exps 2–5, a dissociation was obtained between the tests, with reliable effects of relatedness and eleaboration obtained for recognition but not completion. The notion of presemantic representations (E. Tulving and D. L. Schacter [see PA, Vol 77:16343] and Schacter [see PA, Vol 80:368]) is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)