The Effect of Focus on Memory for Words in Sentences

Three experiments investigated the effects of focus on memory for words in written sentences. The effect of focusing phrases, such as It was the ... and There was this ... on memory for the focused word and for particular types of information about it (phonological and semantic) was investigated. The results indicated that words were consistently better remembered when they had been focused. Phonological information was found to be better remembered for focused words in a delayed recognition task (Experiment 2) and in a naming task (Experiment 3), but not in an immediate recognition task (Experiment 1). Memory for general semantic information about words was not enhanced by focus in either recognition or naming. The results suggest that focusing a word enhances memory for its specific identity and for its phonological properties and possibly increases the specificity of memory for its semantic properties.