Effects of Divided Attention in the Word Fragment Completion Task with Unique or Multiple Solutions

Previous research has found no effects of divided attention (DA) in the Word Fragment Completion Task (WFC) when only one legitimate solution was allowed for each fragment. In two experiments a short-term memory load paradigm was used to vary attention during encoding, and fragments were constructed to have unique or multiple solutions. Results demonstrate that DA can reduce perceptual priming when the presentation is blocked rather than mixed, and the study time is sufficiently brief. However, the degree of impairment was not greater for multiple fragments, nor it was modulated by test-awareness. Possible explanations are discussed.