Retrieval volition and memorial awareness in stem completion: an empirical analysis.

Facilitation in an incidental test of stem completion shows little influence of depth of processing at study, whereas facilitation in an opposition test (in which subjects give the first word coming to mind, but omit studied words) occurs following graphemic processing, but not following semantic processing. We argue that completions come to mind involuntarily in both tests. Involuntary conscious memory causes studied words to be omitted in an opposition test, but not in an incidental test, so that the difference in priming between tests is a measure of involuntary conscious memory. We obtained data consistent with this hypothesis by making overt the mental activities that occur covertly in an opposition test: (1) an on-line recognition measure in an incidental test showed a strong advantage of semantic over graphemic processing, even though depth of processing exerted little influence on priming; (2) conditionalizing on recognition failure resulted in accurate estimates of opposition performance; and (3) stems were completed much more rapidly in incidental and opposition tests than in an intentional test, in which voluntary retrieval was engaged. The data provide further evidence that retrieval volition (voluntary vs. involuntary) is dissociable from memorial state of awareness (conscious vs. unconscious). We contrast our approach with the process-dissociation approach, which confounds conscious awareness of the past with voluntary retrieval, overlooking involuntary conscious memory.