Episodic remembering creates access to involuntary conscious memory: demonstrating involuntary recall on a voluntary recall task

The idea that involuntary memory retrieval might occur during voluntary memory retrieval can be traced back to Ebbinghaus (1885/1964). However, methodological challenges have stood in the way of testing this idea. Recent diary studies of naturally occurring involuntary memories have provided insights into how this idea could be tested (Berntsen, 1998; Mace, 2005b, 2006). These studies have shown that the contents of an involuntary memory sometimes trigger additional involuntary memories, a process called chaining. It was hypothesised that chaining should also occur on autobiographical memory tasks, and this was tested in the present study by asking participants in an autobiographical memory task to report the presence of involuntary memories while they were performing the task. The results showed that involuntary memories did occur when participants were recalling the past. The results also showed involuntary memories dissociating from voluntary memories on two independent measures, thereby enhancing the credibility of the results.     

Conversational skills for autistic adolescents: An autistic peer as prompter

In this study, an autistic youth served as peer prompter for three other autistic adolescents. The peer prompter encouraged the other boys to talk about sports, a topic frequently discussed by typical teenagers. A multiple-baseline design across participants was used to assess the effectiveness of the peer-prompting procedure. During baseline, the youth rarely talked about sports, although all three had previously completed a sports-appreciation class and had displayed large pre-to-post gains on a paper-and-pencil test. During intervention, when a peer prompted sports discussions, all three youth engaged in much more sports-related conversation. Generalization measures indicated that: (1) the youth engaged in sports discussions in groups, as well as in the dyads that characterized the training situation; (2) they talked about sports in a setting other than the training setting; (3) they discussed sports with their peers when an unfamiliar teacher was present; and (4) they continued to discuss sports when training tapes and behavioral contracts between the teacher and the peer prompter were withdrawn. Previously, it has been common to use nonhandicapped or less-handicapped peers as tutors; this study demonstrates that an autistic youth may also effectively serve as a prompter who assists his schoolmates in acquiring conversational skills that contribute to their normalization.     

Episodic remembering creates access to involuntary conscious memory: Demonstrating involuntary recall on a voluntary recall task

The idea that involuntary memory retrieval might occur during voluntary memory retrieval can be traced back to Ebbinghaus (1885/1964). However, methodological challenges have stood in the way of testing this idea. Recent diary studies of naturally occurring involuntary memories have provided insights into how this idea could be tested (Berntsen, 1998; Mace, 2005b, 2006). These studies have shown that the contents of an involuntary memory sometimes trigger additional involuntary memories, a process called chaining. It was hypothesised that chaining should also occur on autobiographical memory tasks, and this was tested in the present study by asking participants in an autobiographical memory task to report the presence of involuntary memories while they were performing the task. The results showed that involuntary memories did occur when participants were recalling the past. The results also showed involuntary memories dissociating from voluntary memories on two independent measures, thereby enhancing the credibility of the results.     

Motivated self and recall: visual perspectives in remembering past behaviors

The present study examined motivational influences on visual perspectives in remembering past events and behaviors. Participants were first induced to believe that extraversion or introversion is conducive of success. Next, they recalled in details two introverted past behaviors. Introversion‐success participants, presumably motivated to see themselves as introverted, recalled and visualized the behaviors more from a first‐person actor perspective than did extraversion‐success participants (who recalled the behaviors from a third‐person observer perspective). Remembering past behaviors from a first‐person actor perspective implies that the behaviors are true of the self and impacts self‐definition to a relatively greater degree. The findings thus extend the influence of desired self to how people remember past events. They also contribute to the integration of motives in research on the link between self‐inferences and the subjective experience of remembering. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall

An analysis of the underlying structure of simple stories is presented. It is claimed that this type of representation of stories is used to form schemata which guide encoding and retrieval. A type of tree structure containing basic units and their connections was found to be adequate to describe the structure of both single and multi-episode stories. The representation is outlined in the form of a grammar, consisting of rewrite rules defining the units and their relationships. Some transformational rules mapping underlying and surface structures are discussed. The adequacy of the analysis is first tested against Bartlett's protocols of “The War of the Ghosts.” Then a developmental study of recall is presented. It is concluded that both children and adults are sensitive to the structure of stories, although some differences were found. Finally, it is suggested that the schemata used to guide encoding and recall are related but not identical and that retrieval is dependent on the schemata operative at the time of recall.     

Learning a list for free recall: Selective reminding versus the standard procedure

Almost all free-recall experiments involve an acquisition phase in which the set of to-be-learned items is presented repeatedly in its entirety. Two experiments are described that pit this standard procedure against theselective reminding procedure (Buschke, 1973), wherein only items incorrect on trial n are presented again on trial n+ 1. The two methods were virtually identical in terms of (1) trials to reach an acquisition criterion of one errorless recall, (2) number of items correct on each recall trial during acquisition, (3) number of items correct on a 3-week delayed-recall test, (4) number of items correctly relearned after the 3-week retention interval, (5) extent of subjective organization on all retention tests, and (6) pattern of errors over all test trials. These results generalized to both single-category and random lists of 20 words, and were thoroughly consistent across the two experiments. However, the standard procedure required that many more items be presented over trials, and more subjects failed to learn the list within 1 h using the standard procedure. Because the selective reminding procedure is more efficient and has no apparent drawbacks, it is recommended that memory researchers switch to selective reminding as the preferred way to teach a subject a free-recall list.     

Remembering computer command names: Effects of subject generation versus experimenter imposition

Two experiments analyzed the effectiveness of goal statements in aiding recall of self-generated as opposed to experimenter-imposed command names. Subjects were presented with a series of before-after pairs representing the computer states before and after a command was executed. In Experiment 1, during study, one group of subjects generated a command name in response to each pair; a second group generated a goal statement describing the goal to be accomplished in addition to generating a command name. During recall, half of each group was required to recall the name, whereas the other half was required to describe the goal before attempting to recall the name. In Experiment 2, during study, command names (and goals for those subjects in the goal condition) were imposed by the experimenter rather than generated by the subject. Subjects who generated goals and names recalled more command names than did those who generated only names or who received imposed goals and/or names. Generation of an appropriate goal at study improved encoding by helping subjects to select more appropriate command names; generation of an appropriate goal at test improved retrieval for appropriate names only, presumably by activating a relevant subset of names. Even in the relatively simple task of naming and remembering command names, having an appropriate model of the domain through the use of specific goal statements substantially improved performance.     

Collaborative remembering in older adults: age-invariant outcomes in the context of episodic recall deficits

Rapidly growing research reveals complex yet systematic consequences of collaboration on memory in young adults, but much less is known about this phenomenon in older adults. Young and older adults studied a list of categorized words and took three successive recall tests. Test 1 and 3 were always taken individually, and Test 2 was done either in triads or alone. Despite older adults recalling less overall than young adults, both age groups exhibited similar costs and benefits of collaboration: Collaboration reduced both correct and false recall during collaborative remembering, was associated with more positive beliefs about its value, and produced reminiscence, collective memory, and some forgetting in its cascading effects on postcollaborative recall. We examine the role of retrieval organization in these effects. As environmental support may play a substantial role in healthy aging, the relatively preserved effects of collaboration on memory in older adults hold promise for testing judicious uses of group remembering in aging.     

Memory for emotional simulations: remembering a rosy future

Mental simulations of future experiences are often concerned with emotionally arousing events. Although it is widely believed that mental simulations enhance future behavior, virtually nothing is known about how memory for these simulations changes over time or whether simulations of emotional experiences are especially well remembered. We used a novel paradigm that combined recently developed methods for generating simulations of future events and well-established procedures for testing memory to examine the retention of positive, negative, and neutral simulations over delays of 10 min and 1 day. We found that at the longer delay, details associated with negative simulations were more difficult to remember than details associated with positive or neutral simulations. We suggest that these effects reflect the influence of the fading-affect bias, whereby negative reactions fade more quickly than positive reactions, and that this influence results in a tendency to remember a rosy simulated future. We discuss implications of our findings for individuals with affective disorders, such as depression and anxiety.     

Just lying there,remembering: Improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment by minimising interference

The hallmark of amnesia is poor explicit long‐term memory along with normal short‐term memory. It is often stated that information encountered by amnesic patients is forgotten within 1 minute of presentation. However, previous work has not distinguished between forgetting as a function of time versus the interfering material occupying that time. We show that there is a marked benefit of reduced interference in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that is characterised by anterograde amnesia in the absence of other neuropsychological deficits and carries an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The result suggests that long‐term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference.     

Just lying there, remembering: improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment by minimising interference

The hallmark of amnesia is poor explicit long-term memory along with normal short-term memory. It is often stated that information encountered by amnesic patients is forgotten within 1 minute of presentation. However, previous work has not distinguished between forgetting as a function of time versus the interfering material occupying that time. We show that there is a marked benefit of reduced interference in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that is characterised by anterograde amnesia in the absence of other neuropsychological deficits and carries an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The result suggests that long-term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference.     

Recognition memory with little or no remembering: Implications for a detection model

Remembering and knowing are two states of awareness that reflect autonoetic and noetic consciousness. Recent extensions of signal detection theory have attempted to fitremember andknow responses, which measure these states of awareness, to a continuum of trace strength or familiarity. The model assumes there are two response criteria, a remembering criterion, which is more strict, and a recognition criterion, which is more lenient and leads to any positive recognition response. The most important prediction of this model is that bias-free estimates of memory should be the same whether derived from overall hit and false alarm rates or fromremember hit and false alarm rates. We describe evidence that disconfirms this prediction and discuss other findings that the model cannot accommodate.     

Recognition versus recall of briefly presented visual information: a developmental study.

Five-year-olds, as compared to adults, have displayed a striking constraint on short-term recognition memory for briefly presented visual information. In the present study, a recall paradigm was also examined to test the generality of this constraint. Additionally, we examined the possibility that forced verbal report might differentially enhance children's performance. Evidence of improved performance in children would suggest that a verbal encoding strategy, used by adults only during the recognition task, is activated in children in a recall task. Though recall memory performance of young children did surpass recognition memory levels, the same was true for adults with the relative adult-child difference remaining constant across conditions. It was concluded that processes other than verbal labeling (e.g., buffer storage, organization, retrieval) are probably more responsible for age differences in immediate memory performance than labeling, per se.     

Memory for previous recall: a comparison of free and cued recall

Case studies of individuals who claimed to have recovered previously repressed memories of abuse during situations that involved memory cueing revealed that some individuals had discussed abuse with others during an earlier time period. Termed the ‘forgot‐it‐all‐along’ effect, this phenomenon has legal implications for statutes of limitations. Two experiments provide evidence for differences between free recall and more directed (recognition or cued recall) test conditions in the accuracy of memories for previous recall. Participants more often erred by claiming they had not previously remembered recognized (Experiment 1) or cued (Experiment 2) sentences than freely recalled sentences, and this difference was obtained even when the number of remembered sentences was equivalent across conditions (Experiment 2). These studies document that memory for previous recollection is less accurate for cued memories even when remembered events do not produce feelings of shock or surprise. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preschool children's preferences and recall for stereotyped versus nonstereotyped stories

This study assessed children's preferences and recall for stereotyped versus non-stereotyped stories. The sample consisted of 32 preschool children, ranging in age from 60 months to 75 months. Four stories with boys or girls as the main character, each portraying typically masculine or feminine activities, were read to each child. Both preference and recall measures were obtained immediately and one day later. The hypothesis was confirmed that the stories were differentially preferred by boys and girls as a function of stereotyping of story. Girls preferred the story with a female character and a feminine activity and least preferred the story with a male character and a masculine activity. For boys, the reverse was true. The second choice for both boys and girls involved preference for activity, not sex of main character. A cross-lagged panel revealed that preference at Time 1 was causally related to recall at Time 2. The children remembered the most at Time 2 about the stories they liked the least at Time 1.This article is based on the first author's master's thesis, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a M.S. degree at the University of Georgia. A summary of this research was presented at the Fourth Annual Southeastern Conference on the Family and the Child, Athens, Ga., 1979.     

Death with a Story

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first‐person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not affect self‐reported arousal or dominance. This study clearly demonstrates that story is something that video game players enjoy; it helps involve them in the game play, makes them feel more immersed in the virtual environment, and keeps them aroused. The greater character identification may be especially worrisome, as past research has shown that justified media violence disinhibits actual aggression on the part of the audience.     

Perceptions of sex-role stereotyped dimensions in cotherapists with an examination of experimenter effects

Observers' impressions of sex-role stereotyped dimensions of videotyped pairs of male and female cotherapists were examined in two conditions of dominance: male-dominant pairs and female-dominant pairs. Sex of experimenter effects were also studied. Results indicated that sex-role stereotyping was a function of behavior, not biological sex. Support was found for the conceptualization of masculinity and femininity as independent dimensions. Observer sex differences indicated less favorable impressions with same-sex dominance. Sex of experimenter effects were not found, but may subtly influence results in sex-role research.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 50th annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia, PA. April 1979. The author wishes to thank Barbara B. Bunker, Norman Epstein, and Joseph Masling for their support and thoughtful suggestions concerning this project.     

Autobiographical remembering regulates emotions: a functional perspective

Emotional deviation has been considered an essential factor in emotion regulation, in that, attempts to compensate for the deviation is reflected on cognitive processes. In the present study, we focused on autobiographical remembering and tested the functional role of memory on emotion regulation. We specifically examined the congruence effect in individuals’ subsequent memory reports after recalling emotional events. Individuals were randomly assigned to three groups to report either sadness or anger evoking events or emotionally unspecified events that they experienced in the last five years. Results supported mood-incongruence, but only for the emotional memory groups. Despite highly negative memories reported in the initial recall, individuals in anger- and sad-memory groups revealed an up-regulation trend in subsequent recall. Furthermore, sadness and anger induction affected phenomenological features of the subsequently reported memory. Overall, our findings supported for the emotion regulation function of remembering that serves counter-regulation of the negative emotion. We discuss potential mechanisms in the light of explanations by a functional approach to autobiographical memory.     

Children's coping with in vivo peer rejection: an experimental investigation

We examined children's behavioral coping in response to an in vivo peer rejection manipulation. Participants (N=186) ranging between 10 and 13 years of age, played a computer game based on the television show Survivor and were randomized to either peer rejection (i.e., being voted out of the game) or non-rejection control. During a five-min. post-feedback waiting period children's use of several behavioral coping strategies was assessed. Rejection elicited a marked shift toward more negative affect, but higher levels of perceived social competence attenuated the negative mood shift. Children higher in depressive symptoms were more likely to engage in passive and avoidant coping behavior. Types of coping were largely unaffected by gender and perceived social competence. Implications are discussed.