Abstract
Presenting some information in memory as retrieval cues impairs recall for the remaining information. This phenomenon is called the part-list cuing effect. This study examines whether the part-list cuing effect is mediated by retrieval inhibition. To that aim, the experiment manipulated the encoding strategy employed during the study phase. The study list consisted of five categories, each with six items with two items from each category being presented successively. The participants made either difference or similarity judgments for the two successively presented items. Then, some participants (cue group) were presented with one of the successively presented items as a retrieval cue. The other participants (control group) read aloud four-digits numbers. The results indicated that difference judgments during study impaired recall for the non-cued items in the cue group, relative to the control group, but similarity judgments did not impair recall. These results are consistent with the view that the detrimental effect of part-list cuing is mediated by retrieval inhibition.
