Unitization and Grouping Mediate Dissociations in Memory for New Associations

Previous research has demonstrated performance dissociations between explicit and implicit memory for newly acquired associations between unrelated words. The present article accounts for this finding in terms of two factors: unitization and grouping. Unitization involves representing previously separate items as a single unit, and grouping involves forming associations among separate representations. We propose that grouping facilitates primarijy explicit remembering by providing the routes for accessing encoded word pairs via the cues available during testing; in contrast, unitization affects primarily implicit remembering by enabling the redintegration of studied items in response to partial cues. Consistent with this view, the results from two experiments show that by focusing processing on the relation between target word pairs, explicit remembering can be manipulated independently of implicit remembering. Two further experiments reveal that a materials manipulation—concreteness of words—affects both implicit and explicit remembering.