Long-term conceptual implicit memory: A decade of evidence

Demonstrations of long-term implicit memory are numerous, but to date they have been reported in what might be thought of as perceptually driven tasks. In the present experiment, a low-frequency U.S. state name was presented verbally to participants within the context of a memory-course lecture, and the influence of that experience was measured indirectly 4 to 8 weeks later using a state-name-generation task. Participants were significantly more likely to generate the critical state name when it had been presented in an earlier lecture than when it had not been presented in an earlier lecture, a novel demonstration of long-term, conceptually driven priming after a single stimulus exposure.