Effects of retrieval practice on conceptual explicit and implicit consumer memory

Two experiments are reported that investigate the effects of retrieval practice on explicit and implicit memory for brand names. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to a set of brand names pertaining to a range of product categories. Following this, participants practiced retrieving a subset of the brands before taking an explicit or implicit test for the brands. The explicit test, required recall of the brands in response to product category cues. The implicit test required the generation of the first brand names that came to mind. In both tests, prior retrieval produced retrieval‐induced forgetting of the non‐practiced brands. Experiment 2 replicated this effect under conditions designed to reduce explicit contamination. In addition, Experiment 2 found that increasing the amount of retrieval practice also increased the magnitude of retrieval‐induced forgetting on the explicit but not the implicit test. Implications for advertising and marketing are considered. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of consumer perceptions of brand experience on the web: brand familiarity,satisfaction and brand trust

Creating a customer experience that is synonymous with a particular (website) brand is becoming increasingly recognised as a vital driver of e‐performance. E‐tailors are just as likely to try to influence consumers' shopping behaviour, through atmospherics and service, as brick‐and‐mortar stores. This study investigates several questions that have been left unanswered in recent studies of consumer behaviour in the context of internet‐based marketing. Its focus lies in addressing the issue of whether there is a direct relationship between brand experience and brand trust or whether there is an indirect relationship via satisfaction or brand familiarity. The results of an empirical study of e‐consumer behaviour show that brand trust is achieved through the following dimensions operating and interrelating as antecedent constructs: first, various brand experiences and the search for information, secondly, a high level of brand familiarity, and thirdly, customer satisfaction based on cognitive and emotional factors. These findings should assist marketers and academics in their understanding of the development of brand trust in an internet‐based environment. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

目标探测对记忆提取的影响

采用经典的"学习–再认"范式,在测验阶段设置了目标探测的干扰任务,通过比较目标探测和分心拒绝是否会对记忆提取产生不同的影响,以进一步探讨提取干扰与再认记忆之间的关系。结果发现,无论对目标进行显性(实验1)还是隐性(实验2)的探测反应,目标探测下旧词的再认反应均要比分心拒绝下更优,表明外显记忆的提取也会受到注意资源的调节。但更为重要的是,在辨别力指数(d′)及判断标准(C)上的差异分析发现,目标探测并没有提高被试的再认水平,而是降低了被试的判断标准,使得被试在目标探测条件下更容易对词做出"旧"反应。这种反应倾向与目标探测的动作反应方式无关,也不受词汇的编码加工水平深浅的调节。由此可见,外显记忆提取并非完全的"自动化加工",仍会受到注意资源的调节。     

Implicit memory and consumer choice: the mediating role of brand familiarity

Two experiments investigated the influence of implicit memory on consumer choice for brands with varying levels of familiarity. Priming was measured using a consideration‐choice task, developed by Coates, Butler and Berry ( 2004 ). Experiment 1 employed a coupon‐rating task at encoding that required participants to meaningfully process individual brand names, to assess whether priming could affect participants' final (preferred) choices for familiar brands. Experiment 2 used this same method to assess the impact of implicit memory on consideration and choice for unknown and leader brands, presented in conjunction with familiar competitors. Significant priming was obtained in both experiments, and was shown to directly influence final choice in the case of familiar and highly familiar leader brands. Moreover, it was shown that a single prior exposure could lead participants to consider buying an unknown, and indeed fictitious, brand. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

提取干扰对内隐记忆的影响

以往研究多认同内隐记忆不会受到干扰的影响,但主要集中于编码时的干扰不会影响随后的内隐记忆提取成绩,而对于提取时的干扰是否也不会影响内隐记忆成绩仍存在疑义。该文在实验1采用学习-测验范式,通过在提取阶段设置同时干扰任务进一步考察提取干扰与内隐记忆的关系,结果表明提取干扰下并未发现明显的启动效应,即提取干扰破坏了内隐记忆。为进一步探讨内隐记忆的提取干扰效应是否源于记忆与干扰刺激同时呈现所引起的知觉表征竞争,实验2改变了记忆与干扰刺激的呈现顺序,结果表明不论干扰刺激在记忆项目之前或之后呈现,启动效应均受到影响。相比之下,提取干扰对再认成绩的影响并不明显(实验3)。上述结果表明,内隐记忆的提取干扰效应是源于一般认知资源的竞争,在提取过程中任何能够产生认知资源竞争的变量设置都可能会削减内隐测验中的启动效应。     

The influence of one memory retrieval on a subsequent memory retrieval

Ss produced an instance of a category and following zero or two intervening items produced a second instance of the same category. The second instance was produced more quickly than the initial instance. This finding, in conjunction with other data reported in the paper, indicate that the reduction in latency for the second instance is due mostly to a reduction in the rate with which the category is searched.     

Consumer evaluation of net utility: Effects of competition on consumer brand selection processes

This study explores how brand-related information is integrated within a competitive environment. Specifically, we develop a structural equation model of competition between two brands, which includes each brand's price-quality characteristics (i.e., net utility). The model simultaneously tests how the net utility of the focal and competing brands affects consumers' attitudes, intentions, and choice regarding the focal brand. This study extends existing research with the findings that price-quality evaluations of a focal brand and net utility perceptions of competing brands influence consumers' attitudes, intentions, and choice regarding the focal brand. Thus, in order to attract consumers to their brands, marketers should focus not only on improving the performance and net utility of their own brands, but also on studying competing brands in the marketplace.     

Prospective memory: Effects of divided attention on spontaneous retrieval

We examined the effects of divided attention on the spontaneous retrieval of a prospective memory intention. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task with an embedded prospective memory demand, and also performed a divided-attention task during some segments of lexical decision trials. In all experiments, monitoring was highly discouraged, and we observed no evidence that participants engaged monitoring processes. In Experiment 1, performing a moderately demanding divided-attention task (a digit detection task) did not affect prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, performing a more challenging divided-attention task (random number generation) impaired prospective memory. Experiment 3 showed that this impairment was eliminated when the prospective memory cue was perceptually salient. Taken together, the results indicate that spontaneous retrieval is not automatic and that challenging divided-attention tasks interfere with spontaneous retrieval and not with the execution of a retrieved intention.     

Benefits from retrieval practice are greater for students with lower working memory capacity

We examined the effects of retrieval practice for students who varied in working memory capacity as a function of the lag between study of material and its initial test, whether or not feedback was given after the test, and the retention interval of the final test. We sought to determine whether a blend of these conditions exists that maximises benefits from retrieval practice for lower and higher working memory capacity students. College students learned general knowledge facts and then restudied the facts or were tested on them (with or without feedback) at lags of 0–9 intervening items. Final cued recall performance was better for tested items than for restudied items after both 10 minutes and 2 days, particularly for longer study–test lags. Furthermore, on the 2-day delayed test the benefits from retrieval practice with feedback were significantly greater for students with lower working memory capacity than for students with higher working memory capacity (r?=??.42). Retrieval practice may be an especially effective learning strategy for lower ability students.     

Effects of alcohol intoxication on metamemory and on retrieval from long-term memory

In a balanced-placebo design, people expected either an alcohol drink or placebo drink and consumed either alcohol (1 ml/kg) or placebo. Shortly thereafter, each person attempted to recall the answers to general-information questions (e.g., "What is the capital of Chile?"), made confidence judgments about the accuracy of recall, made feeling-of-knowing judgments on all nonrecalled items, and received a recognition test. Unanticipated outcomes included: Alcohol intoxication significantly hindered recall from long-term memory, contrary to previous conclusions that alcohol does not affect retrieval; people's expectancy of alcohol had no significant effect on memory or metamemory performance, contrary to its established effects on other kinds of performance; and alcohol intoxication produced no significant overconfidence in judgments about recall or in feeling-of-knowing judgments, contrary to the overconfidence produced in other kinds of judgments such as an intoxicated person's assessment of his driving ability. This last outcome implies that alcohol intoxication does not produce a general lowering of the threshold for confidence but rather has effects that are situation specific.     

The role of retrieval mode and retrieval orientation in retrieval practice: insights from comparing recognition memory testing formats and restudying

The effectiveness of retrieval practice for aiding long-term memory, referred to as the testing effect, has been widely demonstrated. However, the specific neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. In the present study, we sought to explore the role of pre-retrieval processes at initial testing on later recognition performance by using event-related potentials (ERPs). Subjects studied two lists of words (Chinese characters) and then performed a recognition task or a source memory task, or restudied the word lists. At the end of the experiment, subjects received a final recognition test based on the remember–know paradigm. Behaviorally, initial testing (active retrieval) enhanced memory retention relative to restudying (passive retrieval). The retrieval mode at initial testing was indexed by more positive-going ERPs for unstudied items in the active-retrieval tasks than in passive retrieval from 300 to 900 ms. Follow-up analyses showed that the magnitude of the early ERP retrieval mode effect (300–500 ms) was predictive of the behavioral testing effect later on. In addition, the ERPs for correctly rejected new items during initial testing differed between the two active-retrieval tasks from 500 to 900 ms, and this ERP retrieval orientation effect predicted differential behavioral testing gains between the two active-retrieval conditions. Our findings confirm that initial testing promotes later retrieval relative to restudying, and they further suggest that adopting pre-retrieval processing in the forms of retrieval mode and retrieval orientation might contribute to these memory enhancements.     

Effects of suggestibility and hypnosis on accurate and distorted retrieval from memory

Research investigated the hypothesis inferred from the theorizing of Loftus that suggestibility is related to the tendency to incorporate incorrect information into memory when this information has been subtly introduced after the to-be-remembered events have occurred. Specifically, it was predicted that if level of suggestibility is theoretically relevant to subjects' acceptance of misleading information, then more subjects who are highly hypnotically suggestible than those with a low level of hypnotic suggestibility will incorporate the incorrect information into memory. Hypnotic as compared with waking instruction should enhance this distortion effect by providing a context of testing in which subjects are readily prone to respond positively to suggestions. Eight independent groups of 12 subjects were tested. Separate groups of subjects of high and low suggestibility were presented with misleading or neutral information about a wallet-snatching incident and tested for memory under either waking or hypnotic instruction. Analysis of subjects' memory distortions indicated that suggestibility plays a somewhat different role than has been argued previously. The magnitude of distortion that was observed varied according to the stimulus features that were studied, but hypnotic suggestibility was not associated with the distortion effect. Despite the fact that hypnosis did not enhance recall in any way, subjects were frequently confident that distorted memories recovered under hypnosis were accurate.     

When communication challenges brand associations: a framework for understanding consumer responses to brand image incongruity

• In this conceptual paper, the authors review literature on how consumers react when a piece of brand communication is incongruent with established brand associations. Although brand experts typically criticize such brand image incongruity, it is a fact that companies do communicate in a way that challenges existing associations, for example in advertising or when launching brand extensions. The article integrates previous work—which has been scattered across several poorly connected domains—into a coherent framework. The authors propose effects of brand image incongruity on consumers' processing and evaluation. They also identify marketing implications and avenues for future research. The propositions imply opportunities for brand management, thus suggesting the need for a balanced view on brand image incongruity.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Concurrent task effects on memory retrieval

Previous studies combining continuous free recall with a concurrent task have generally shown that concurrent tasks impose fairly negligible effects on memory retrieval. By contrast, dual-task studies employing either cued recall or semantic retrieval reveal gross memory impairment and suggest that retrieval is delayed by the centrally demanding phase of the concurrent tasks (i.e., response selection). To explore this conflict, subjects performed continuous free recall while carrying out a serial-choice#x2014; response time (RT) task, as in the previous free recall studies. Unlike these previous studies, however, the choice#x2014;RT task utilized arbitrary stimulus#x2014;response mappings in order to increase the proportion of time devoted to the centrally demanding response selection phase. Recall total was reduced significantly, and recall latency was slowed substantially.     

The aftermath of memory retrieval for recycling visual working memory representations

We examined the aftermath of accessing and retrieving a subset of information stored in visual working memory (VWM)—namely, whether detection of a mismatch between memory and perception can impair the original memory of an item while triggering recognition-induced forgetting for the remaining, untested items. For this purpose, we devised a consecutive-change detection task wherein two successive testing probes were displayed after a single set of memory items. Across two experiments utilizing different memory-testing methods (whole vs. single probe), we observed a reliable pattern of poor performance in change detection for the second test when the first test had exhibited a color change. The impairment after a color change was evident even when the same memory item was repeatedly probed; this suggests that an attention-driven, salient visual change made it difficult to reinstate the previously remembered item. The second change detection, for memory items untested during the first change detection, was also found to be inaccurate, indicating that recognition-induced forgetting had occurred for the unprobed items in VWM. In a third experiment, we conducted a task that involved change detection plus continuous recall, wherein a memory recall task was presented after the change detection task. The analyses of the distributions of recall errors with a probabilistic mixture model revealed that the memory impairments from both visual changes and recognition-induced forgetting are explained better by the stochastic loss of memory items than by their degraded resolution. These results indicate that attention-driven visual change and recognition-induced forgetting jointly influence the “recycling” of VWM representations.     

Effects of delay on episodic memory retrieval by children with autism spectrum disorder

Twenty‐seven 6‐ to 15‐year‐old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 32 typically developing (TD) children were questioned about their participation in a set of activities after a 2‐week delay and again after a 2‐month delay using a best practice interview protocol. Interviews were coded for completeness with respect to the gist of the event, the number of narrative details provided, and accuracy. Results indicated that children with ASD did not differ from TD peers on any dimensions of memory after both delays. Specifically, both groups of children provided equivalently complete accounts on both occasions. However, children in both groups provided significantly fewer narrative details about the event in the second interview, and the accuracy rates were lower. The findings indicate that, like TD children, children with ASD can provide meaningful and reliable testimony about an event they personally experienced, but several aspects of their memory reports deteriorate over time.     

Effects of correspondence between encoding and retrieval organization in social memory

Memory research has shown impaired recall performance when a subset of the studied stimuli is presented at recall (the part-list cueing effect, Slamecka, 1968) or when the recall is collaborative (collaborative-inhibition effect, Weldon & Bellinger, 1997). In two experiments we explore these effects in an impression-formation context and compare two prominent accounts (retrieval blocking versus strategy disruption) for them. We varied the correspondence between item organization at encoding and retrieval, either by manipulating the organization of part-list cues (Experiment 1) or the organization of the stimulus list that was later recalled collaboratively (Experiment 2). Results showed that when encoding and recall organizations did not correspond recall was impaired, replicating part-list cueing and collaborative-inhibition effects. However, when encoding and retrieval organization corresponded, these effects were greatly reduced. Such results support the recall strategy disruption hypothesis and challenge the retrieval blocking account. Implications for understanding memory in a social context are discussed.     

Specificity of learning through memory retrieval practice: The case of addition and subtraction

The identical elements (IE) model (Rickard, Healy, & Bourne, Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32:734–748, 1994) of fact representation predicts that, in both verbal and numerical domains, performance gains with retrieval practice on multielement items will be specific to the practiced stimulus–response combinations, failing to transfer even to altered stimulus–response mappings of practiced items. In the case of arithmetic, the model predicts no transfer across either complementary operations (e.g., 4 × 7 to 28 / 4) or complementary division or subtraction problems (e.g., 28 / 4 to 28 / 7). Although that model has successfully described transfer effects in the domains of multiplication–division and episodic cued recall, it is challenged by a recent demonstration of positive cross-operation transfer for addition and subtraction (Campbell & Agnew, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16:938–944, 2009). We report results of a new addition–subtraction transfer experiment, the design of which closely matched that of a prior multiplication–division experiment that supported the model. The transfer results were consistent with the IE model. A two-component model of memory retrieval practice effects is proposed to account for the discrepant experimental results for addition and subtraction and to guide future work.