The effects of conceptual salience and perceptual distinctiveness on conscious recollection

Two experiments were conducted to examine the hypothesis that recollective experience is influenced by the manipulation of salient or distinctive dimensions of the encoded stimuli (Rajaram, 1996). In Experiment 1, the conceptual dimension of the to-be-remembered homographs (bank) was manipulated by requiring subjects to encode the dominant (money-BANK) or the nondominant (river-BANK) meanings. In Experiment 2, the perceptual dimension was manipulated by presenting orthographically distinctive (subpoena) or orthographically common (sailboat) words. An advantage for conceptually salient (dominant meaning) items and perceptually distinctive (orthographically distinctive) items was selectively observed in remember responses. These results support the hypothesis that processing of distinctive or salient attributes boosts the recollective component of explicit memory.