The underlying mechanism for process dissociation in recognition: Performance, response latency, and eyeblink in a three-process model

Abstract

Jacoby (1991) proposed a process-dissociation procedure to estimate contributions of conscious and unconscious processes to cognitive task performance. The present research examined the inner processing mechanism underlying the procedure. Thirty-two female undergraduates learned a list of visual stimulus words and another of auditory stimulus. They then performed recognition memory tasks in which conscious and unconscious memory components presumably either help or interfere with each other. Memory performance, response latency, and eyeblink activity were analyzed based on the framework of the process-dissociation procedure. A three-process model of recognition, with an underlying hypothetical processing mechanism, was proposed to explain the complicated results obtained of the three dependent measures.