Repetition priming effects for newly formed associations are perceptually based: evidence from shallow encoding and format specificity.

This article is concerned with memory for newly formed associations as displayed on implicit and explicit tests of memory. After studying a list of word pairs, participants were shown the original intact pairs and pairs formed by recombining the original pairs. Pairs were simultaneously presented both at study and at test. In a lexical-decision task in which participants were asked to indicate whether both items were words, responses to intact pairs were faster than to recombined pairs. The size of this association-specific repetition effect was relatively unaffected by a levels-of-processing manipulation, indicating that conceptual processes did not likely contribute to the production of the effect. Furthermore, the effect was not produced when pairs were presented simultaneously at study but sequentially at test, thus highlighting the importance of format of presentation. Finally, in an explicit speeded-recognition task the size of the association-specific effect was largely affected by levels-of-processing manipulation and was revealed even under sequential test presentation suggesting that the associative repetition effects were not contaminated by conscious recollection. Together, the results show that perceptual factors are involved in both storage and retrieval of associative information in data-driven implicit tests of memory.