Abstract
Hanson and Hirst (1989) recently provided evidence that parsing strategies affect Ss' ability to recall but not to recognize episodic information. This finding conflicts with results obtained by Lassiter (1988) and Lassiter, Stone, and Rogers (1988) as noted by Lassiter and Slaw (1991). On the basis of a meta-analysis combining data from the Hanson and Hirst and the Lassiter experiments, Lassiter and Slaw argued that the discrepancy in findings across studies is "more illusory than real" (p. 81). In this article, four critical differences between the Hanson and Hirst study and the two Lassiter studies are outlined. It is argued that these factors must be considered when drawing conclusions about the effect of parsing strategies on recognition performance.