Examination for Professional Practice of Psychology (EPPP) Practice Test

Which task is most likely utilized by researchers investigating implicit memory?

1. Free recall

2. Paired-associate

3. Word-stem completion

4. Verbal recognition

The correct answer is: Word-stem completion

Researchers investigating implicit memory often utilize tasks that emphasize the influence of previous experiences on current behavior without requiring conscious recollection of those experiences. Word-stem completion is a classic example of such a task. In this procedure, participants are presented with the beginning of a word (the stem) and asked to complete it, typically by forming a word they believe fits. This task measures implicit memory because it is influenced by prior exposure to words, even when participants are unaware of that prior exposure. For instance, if a participant has seen the word "train" in a study phase without being explicitly told to remember it, they might be more likely to complete the stem "tra-" with "train" than with an unrelated word like "trapeze" simply because they have been primed by previous exposure. The other tasks, such as free recall and verbal recognition, primarily assess explicit memory, which relies on conscious recollection of information. Paired-associate tasks likewise draw on explicit memory because they involve learning pairs of items and recalling one when presented with the other. Therefore, the nature of word-stem completion aligns closely with how implicit memory is conceptualized in cognitive psychology, making it the most suitable task for researching this type of memory.