Recognition memory as influenced by differential attention to semantic and acoustic properties of words

Lists of 264 words were studied by 75 Ss. The Ss were divided into three groups instructed to remember either meaning or sound or both meaning and sound of the study words. During recognition, S was required to indicate which word of each test pair had been presented earlier. The incorrect alternative for each test pair was a homophone, synonym, or a word unrelated to the correct choice. Recognition increased as instructional emphasis on remembering word meaning increased. Overall recognition was best when the incorrect choice was unrelated to the study word, and worst when the incorrect choice was a synonym of the study word. The high performance levels obtained under some conditions suggest that word features other than semantic and plume tic information are important for word recognition.