Disrupting attention: The need for retrieval cues in working memory theories

Sometimes in conversation, something is said that causes us to want to comment, but before our impending but implicit thoughts can be expressed, the conversation is disrupted. Later, we cannot recall what we wanted to say, but still later, we can. We used the extralist cuing task to model this phenomenon, and across experiments we varied the strength, direction, and directness of the relationship between the retrieval cues and the targeted information. Disruption was varied by switching attention to a different task before testing and by changing the testing context. Such disruptions reduced recall for the target and its implicitly activated memories. Following a disruption, stronger cues that were related to the target or to both the target and its implicit memories were more effective than those that were related to implicit memories. The findings were consistent with a model of long-term working memory that attributes forgetting to a loss of access to what has been activated, which loss is relative to the strength of the retrieval cue. Decay alone does not explain the results, indicating that many models of working memory need to be revised to take the nature of retrieval cues into account.     

Eliciting and comparing false and recovered memories: an experimental approach

We describe an experimental paradigm designed to elicit both recovered and false memories in the laboratory. All participants saw, on a video screen, three critical categorized lists of words mixed in randomly with eighteen filler categorized lists. Those in the blocking condition then had several paper‐and‐pencil tasks that involved only the 18 non‐critical filler lists. An uncued recall test was then given, asking participants to recall all the lists they originally saw on the video screen. Finally, there was a cued recall test that provided category cues for the three critical lists. Substantial memory blocking of critical lists on the uncued test and recovery on the cued recall test was observed in all three experiments. In Experiments 2 and 3, many false and recovered memories were elicited on the cued recall test by including cues for the three critical (forgotten) lists, plus cues for three lists that had never been presented. False memories were distinguishable from truly recovered memories in cued recall by ‘know’ versus ‘remember’ judgements, and by confidence ratings; accurately recovered memories were associated with higher confidence. False and recovered memories could not be discriminated based on recall latency. The results repeatedly show powerful effects of memory blocking and recovery. We also show that recovered and false memories can be elicited within a single experimental procedure, and there may be unique characteristics of each. Although we urge caution in generalizing to false and recovered memories of trauma, we suggest that variations of our comparative memory paradigm may be useful for learning about such phenomena. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thinking about memories for everyday and shocking events: Do people use ease-of-retrieval cues in memory judgments?

Extant research shows that people use retrieval ease, a feeling-based cue, to judge how well they remember life periods. Extending this approach, we investigated the role of retrieval ease in memory judgments for single events. In Experiment 1, participants who were asked to recall many memories of an everyday event (New Year's Eve) rated retrieval as more difficult and judged their memory as worse than did participants asked to recall only a few memories. In Experiment 2, this ease-of-retrieval effect was found to interact with the shocking character of the remembered event: There was no effect when the event was highly shocking (i.e., learning about the attacks of September 11, 2001), whereas an effect was found when the event was experienced as less shocking (due either to increased distance to "9/11" or to the nonshocking nature of the event itself). Memory vividness accounted for additional variance in memory judgments, indicating an independent contribution of content-based cues in judgments of event memories.     

Out of one's mind: a study of involuntary semantic memories

The study of memories that pop into one's mind without any conscious attempt to retrieve them began only recently. While there are some studies on involuntary autobiographical memories (e.g., ) research on involuntary semantic memories or mind-popping is virtually non-existent. The latter is defined as an involuntary conscious occurrence of brief items of one's network of semantic knowledge. The recall of these items (e.g., a word, a name, a tune) is not accompanied by additional contextual information and/or involvement of self-a standard feature of involuntary autobiographical memories. The paper reports several diary and questionnaire studies which looked into the nature and frequency of occurrence of these memories. The data show that people do experience involuntary semantic memories which tend to occur without any apparent cues while being engaged in relatively automatic activities. Possible mechanisms of involuntary semantic memories are discussed (e.g., very long-term priming), and the results of the study provide information on the possible duration of the priming effects in everyday life. Related theoretical and methodological issues and future avenues of research in this neglected area are outlined.     

Comparing music- and food-evoked autobiographical memories in young and older adults: A diary study

Previous research has found that music brings back more vivid and emotional autobiographical memories than various other retrieval cues. However, such studies have often been low in ecological validity and constrained by relatively limited cue selection and predominantly young adult samples. Here, we compared music to food as cues for autobiographical memories in everyday life in young and older adults. In two separate four-day periods, 39 younger (ages 18–34) and 39 older (ages 60–77) adults recorded their music- and food-evoked autobiographical memories in paper diaries. Across both age groups, music triggered more frequent autobiographical memories, a greater proportion of involuntary memories, and memories rated as more personally important in comparison to food cues. Age differences impacted music- and food-evoked memories similarly, with older adults consistently recalling older and less specific memories, which they rated as more positive, vivid, and rehearsed. However, young and older adults did not differ in the number or involuntary nature of their recorded memories. This work represents an important step in understanding the phenomenology of naturally occurring music-evoked autobiographical memories across adulthood and provides new insights into how and why music may be a more effective trigger for personally valued memories than certain other everyday cues.     

Ways of sampling voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memories in daily life

Cognitive psychologists have often equaled retrieval of personal events with voluntary recall from autobiographical memory, but more recent research shows that autobiographical memories often come to mind involuntarily—that is, with no retrieval effort. Voluntary memories have been studied in numerous laboratory experiments in response to word-prompts, whereas involuntary memories primarily have been examined in an everyday living context, using a structured diary procedure. However, it remains unclear how voluntary memories sampled in the laboratory map onto self-prompted voluntary memories in daily life. Here, we used a structured diary procedure to compare different types of voluntary autobiographical memories to their involuntary counterparts. The results replicated previous findings with regard to differences between word-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories, whereas there were fewer differences between self-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories. The findings raise the question as to what is the best way of sampling voluntary memories and the best comparison for involuntary memories.     

Retrieval‐induced forgetting of emotional and unemotional autobiographical memories

This experiment extended the retrieval‐induced forgetting (RIF) procedure from simple, episodic information to emotional and unemotional autobiographical memories. In the elicitation phase, participants generated specific memories from their past in response to negative, neutral, or positive category cues. In the retrieval‐practice phase, they practised retrieving (and elaborated further on) some of the memories for some of the categories. In the final test phase, they tried to recall all memories. Memories that received retrieval practice were recalled more often on final test than baseline memories, whereas memories that were not practised, yet competed with practised memories via a shared category cue, were recalled less often than baseline memories. We discuss the roles of inhibition, competition, emotion, and self‐relevance, and consider what laboratory manipulations of memory might reveal about everyday and pathological personal memory.     

The use of hand gestures as self-generated cues for recall of verbally associated targets

This study examined the effects of hand gestures as cues for recall of 40 previously described abstract and concrete words. Participants were either self-cued (SC) with their own self-generated gestures, other-cued (OC) with someone else's gestures, or shown no cues (NC). The SC group had significantly better recall for both word types than either the OC or NC immediately and at a 2-week retrieval interval. Results also showed that when the SC group produced a meaningful gesture, concrete words were cued significantly more often than abstract words, but when total recall (cued and residual) was considered, abstract words were recalled equally well. These results are discussed in the context that hand gestures are a component of subjective organization and are thus distinctive cues for the producer that may facilitate or prime recall.     

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories

Involuntary autobiographical memories occur frequently in daily life and are usually triggered by cues in one's environment. This study investigated the possibility that priming plays a role in the production of involuntary memories. In Study 1, participants recorded their involuntary memories in a diary for 14 days and then completed a questionnaire assessing their cognitive activity during the recording period. Participants indicating frequent thought about significant others on the questionnaire showed significantly more involuntary memories related to such individuals than a control group. In Studies 2 and 3, participants recorded their involuntary memories in diaries for 14 days and were primed with recall sessions in the laboratory during that period (recalling episodes from high school, Study 1, the past year, or ages 13-16, Studies 2 & 3). The results of both studies showed significant priming effects in the involuntary memories of participants for all of the periods primed. The possibility that priming plays a significant role in the daily production of involuntary memories is discussed.     

Posthypnotic amnesia for a first romantic relationship: Forgetting the entire relationship versus forgetting selected events

This experiment investigated the impact of suggestion focus on posthypnotic amnesia (PHA) for memories of a first romantic relationship. During hypnosis, high and low hypnotisable participants recalled specific memories from this period in response to 10 cue phrases (Elicitation). They then received a PHA suggestion that targeted either the entire period or specific memories from that period. Participants' explicit memory was indexed by cued recall after PHA was administered (memories recalled to "old" and "new" cues; Recall 1) and after it was cancelled (Recall 2). A social judgement task indexed dissociations between implicit and explicit memory. PHA had the greatest impact on highs', but not lows', memory performance (in terms of memories recalled to old cues, recall latency, and qualitative memory ratings) when the suggestion targeted the entire period rather than specific events. We discuss these findings in terms of the parameters of PHA's influence on memory, its value for exploring the nature and structure of autobiographical memory, and its utility as a laboratory analogue of functional amnesia.     

Thirty-five-month-old children have spontaneous memories despite change of context for retrieval

ABSTRACT

Many parents have experienced incidents in which their preschool child spontaneously (i.e., without prompting of any kind) recall a previously experienced event. Until recently, such spontaneous memories had only been examined in non-controlled settings (e.g., diary studies). Using a novel experimental paradigm, a previous study has shown that when young children are brought back to a highly distinct setting (same room, same experimenter, same furnishing), in which they previously experienced an interesting event (a Teddy or a Game event), spontaneous memories can be triggered. However, exactly which cues (or combination of cues) are effective for the children’s memory, remains unknown. Here, we used this novel paradigm to examine the possible impact of contextual cues at the time of retrieval. We manipulated whether the 35-month-old children returned to the same room (n?=?40) or to a different, but similarly furnished, room (n?=?40) after one week. The results revealed that although the children returning to a new room produced fewer spontaneous memories than the children returning to the same room, the difference was not significant. Interestingly, despite changing rooms, the children still produced spontaneous memories. Taken together the results may shed new light on the mechanisms underlying childhood amnesia.     

Influences of part-list cuing on different forms of episodic forgetting

Across 3 experiments, we examined the interplay of part-list cuing and forgetting, employing 3 different methods to induce episodic forgetting-list--method directed forgetting, context-dependent forgetting, and proactive interference. For each form of forgetting, participants were asked at test to recall the target items of a previously studied list in the presence or the absence of the list's remaining items serving as retrieval cues. We found such part-list cuing to amplify the forgetting in proactive interference but to diminish the forgetting in list-method directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting. These results show that the effects of part-list cuing on forgotten memories depend critically on the circumstances surrounding the forgetting. If the forgetting reflects impaired access to the original encoding context, as has been suggested in list-method directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting (but not in proactive interference), part-list cues improve access to forgotten memories; if the forgetting does not reflect such a contextual effect, no such beneficial effects emerge, and access to forgotten memories may even be impaired.     

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories

Involuntary autobiographical memories occur frequently in daily life and are usually triggered by cues in one's environment. This study investigated the possibility that priming plays a role in the production of involuntary memories. In Study 1, participants recorded their involuntary memories in a diary for 14 days and then completed a questionnaire assessing their cognitive activity during the recording period. Participants indicating frequent thought about significant others on the questionnaire showed significantly more involuntary memories related to such individuals than a control group. In Studies 2 and 3, participants recorded their involuntary memories in diaries for 14 days and were primed with recall sessions in the laboratory during that period (recalling episodes from high school, Study 1, the past year, or ages 13–16, Studies 2 & 3). The results of both studies showed significant priming effects in the involuntary memories of participants for all of the periods primed. The possibility that priming plays a significant role in the daily production of involuntary memories is discussed.     

Memory for media: investigation of false memories for negatively and positively charged public events

Despite a large body of false memory research, little has addressed the potential influence of an event's emotional content on susceptibility to false recollections. The Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis predicts that negative emotion generally facilitates memory but also heightens susceptibility to false memories. Participants were asked whether they could recall 20 "widely publicised" public events (half fictitious) ranging in emotional valence, with or without visual cues. Participants recalled a greater number of true negative events (M=3.31/5) than true positive (M=2.61/5) events. Nearly everyone (95%) came to recall at least one false event (M=2.15 false events recalled). Further, more than twice as many participants recalled any false negative (90%) compared to false positive (41.7%) events. Negative events, in general, were associated with more detailed memories and false negative event memories were more detailed than false positive event memories. Higher dissociation scores were associated with false recollections of negative events, specifically.     

Influences of intentional and unintentional forgetting on false memories

In 2 experiments, we examined the interplay of 2 types of memory errors: forgetting and false memory--errors of omission and commission, respectively. We examined the effects of 2 manipulations known to inhibit retrieval of studied words--directed forgetting and part-list cuing--on the false recall of an unstudied "critical" word following study of its 15 strongest associates. Participants cued to forget the 1st of 2 studied lists before studying the 2nd recalled fewer List 1 words but intruded the missing critical word more often than did participants cued to remember both lists. By contrast, providing some studied words as cues during recall reduced both recall of the remaining studied words and intrusions of the critical word. The results suggest that forgetting can increase or decrease false memories, depending on whether such forgetting reflects impaired access to an entire episode or retrieval competition among elements of an episode.     

The neural correlates of attempting to suppress negative versus neutral memories

We performed an event-related fMRI study comparing attempts at suppressing recall of negative versus neutral memories. The hippocampus is crucial for successful explicit recall. Hippocampal activation has been shown to decrease during the suppression of previously learned neutral words. However, different effects may occur in the case of emotional memories. Participants first learned 40 word pairs consisting of a cue and either a neutral or a negative target. During fMRI scanning, the participants were shown the cues and were instructed to recall the targets or to suppress the targets, using attentional distraction. Similar right-lateralized frontoparietal regions were activated more during suppression than during recall, regardless of emotion. However, we show for the first time that lowered hippocampal activation occurs during the suppression of neutral, but not negative, words. Coinciding with this sustained hippocampal activation, the amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate, and fusiform gyrus showed greater activation during the suppression of negative memories than during suppression of neutral memories. Thus, during attempts to suppress negative memories, regions involved in the emotional and sensory aspects of memory reactivate, along with regions indexing conscious recall. Revealing the neural correlates and mechanisms of the suppression of negative memories has relevance for disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, in which traumatic memories often intrude and are associated with avoidance. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Reinstatement of odour context cues veridical memories but not false memories

ABSTRACT

The sense of smell has made a recent return to the forefront of research on episodic memory. Odour context cues can reactivate recently encoded memories during sleep-dependent memory consolidation [e.g., Rasch, B., Buchel, C., Gais, S., & Born, J. (2007). Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science, 315, 1426–1429], and reinstating the odour experienced during encoding at test results in superior recall and recognition [e.g., Isarida, T., Sakai, T., Kubota, T., Koga, M., Katayama, Y., & Isarida, T. K. (2014). Odor-context effects in free recall after a short retention interval: A new methodology for controlling adaptation. Memory & Cognition, 42, 421–433]. However, whether the impact of odour cues is restricted to the specific memories studied in the presence of the odour, or whether reinstating the odour also cues unstudied memories that are semantically related to the studied memories (i.e., false memories) is unknown. We used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm to quantify the impact of odour cues on both veridical memory and false memory. Reinstating the odour presented during the study of the DRM word lists at the test phase resulted in better free recall of the studied words, but had no statistically significant impact on the number of false memories produced. We argue that odour cues influence recall of the memories they co-occurred with during study but potentially not semantically related memories.     

Individual differences in recognising involuntary autobiographical memories: Impact on the reporting of abstract cues

This study examined individual differences in the ability to recognise involuntary autobiographical memories. We hypothesised that individuals may not always recognise involuntary memories which are cued by abstract experiences (e.g., thoughts or language), while they are better able to recognise those which are cued by concrete sensory/perpetual experiences. We hypothesised that individuals without formal training in psychology would be more prone to these recognition failures than individuals with training in psychology. We tested the hypothesis by comparing the results of general first-year undergraduate students, graduate students in psychology and graduates students in other disciplines after each had participated in a two-week diary study of their naturally occurring involuntary memories. The results showed undergraduate participants and non-psychology graduate participants reporting fewer involuntary memories being triggered by abstract cues than the graduate psychology participants, while the groups did not differ in the report of memories triggered by sensory/perpetual cues. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Directed forgetting of autobiographical events

Two diary experiments demonstrated directed forgetting (DF) of autobiographical events, previously observed only for less complex memory items. Using a 2-week diary paradigm, we compared recall between a group of participants who were directed to forget Week 1 memories (forget group) and a group who did not receive a forget instruction (remember group). In Experiment 1, the forget group remembered fewer items from Week 1 than did the remember group. The effect was observed for negative and positive valence events, as well as for high and low emotional intensity events. The effect was replicated in Experiment 2 despite a memorable holiday (Valentine's Day) that occurred during the manipulation week. Forget participants remembered fewer low emotional intensity items in Experiment 2. We conclude that intentional forgetting is a plausible explanation for the loss of some autobiographical memories.