ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evidence that argues that the presentation of a stimulus results in the simultaneous activation of the several different representations or codes of that stimulus in memory. The implications of this view of memory activation for problems of aging and memory are then considered. Posner argued that subjects did not derive the name of a letter when making the letter versus digit discrimination. Subjects can access the category information needed for the judgment without any interference from activation of the name codes of the letters. Taylor has provided additional support for the parallel model of name and category retrieval. Saffran and Marin examined a single semantic dyslexic. She was severely impaired in her ability to analyze phonological features represented by a string of letters. Marcel has recently provided an additional demonstration of direct meaning access without activation of phonetic or orthographic codes.
