The investigation of the reaction times obtained by means of the Posner task for measuring the speed of the retrieval of long-term memory contents revealed a hierarchical structure. This investigation also extended to the rule identity condition included in the original Posner task in addition to the commonly known and utilized physical and name identity conditions. Physical identity reaction times, name identity reaction times and rule identity reaction times constituted three first-order

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... rs. The correlations among these first-order factors gave rise to the general second-order factor. Furthermore, there was an additional investigation of the causal effects among the first-order factors. The results suggested the processing stimulated by the physical identity condition as the basic source that contributes directly to the processing stimulated by the name identity condition and indirectly to the rule identity condition. Additionally there was a unique contribution of the name identity condition to the rule identity condition.