Storing and retrieving information

The key to efficient information processing is a well-organized memory system. This chapter addresses in greater detail the role of memory functions in social cognition. It focuses on how previously stored knowledge is retrieved from memory and how retrieval cues result in diverse types of priming effects on social judgments and behaviors. It discusses conditions that can increase or decrease this impact, and examine how individuals may exert control over seemingly automatic and sometimes unwanted influences of prior knowledge. The chapter also illuminates how priming and other implicit memory functions are used as diagnostic tools to measure stereotypes, traits, and attitudes. It discusses memory functions triggered by extraneous, experimenter-provided retrieval cues, such as the stimuli used for priming or for an IAT. Several studies demonstrate vividly that cognitive structures drift toward consistency. The consistency principle applies not only to semantic and evaluative congruity, but also to spatial and temporal contiguity.