Rehearsal,generative processes,and the activation of underlying stimulus representations

Previous research found that subjects engaged in mental rehearsal could reduce stimulus encoding time in classification and identification tasks by generating an appropriate representation of the probe stimulus prior to its presentation. The present experiment examined the types of representational codes activated by generative processes in character classification. Numerical stimuli were employed which could differ visually, yet have the same name and meaning (e.g., TWO, 2, II, &.). The results indicate that generative processes may activate visual and nonvisual memory codes prior to the encoding of an external stimulus. Effects of generative processes were discussed in terms of an activation model which defines the function of rehearsal in perceptual processing. Attention, through rehearsal, activates stimulus representations which are described by distributions of activation which change continuously over time. The momentary state of each distribution determines the rate of stimulus encoding.