Encoding and memory for verbal and pictorial stimuli

Memory for visually presented verbal and pictorial material was compared using stimuli chosen to minimize non-essential differences between the two types of material. Experiment I required retention of a short list; verbal and pictorial stimuli were remembered equally well. Experiment II required recall of single items after 30 s of backwards counting; recall was much superior for pictorial stimuli. The type of task appeared to affect encoding, with verbal encoding reported to be predominant in Experiment I and visual encoding, or imagery, common in Experiment II.     

Congruity influences memory and judgments of learning during survival processing

A recent line of research has suggested that memory systems evolved to encode fitness-relevant information more effectively than other types of information—a phenomenon known as the “survival processing effect” (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 33:263–273, 2007). However, the basis for the effect has been debated. In addition, it is unknown whether or not individuals will adjust their judgments of learning (JOLs) to reflect the survival processing effect. In three experiments, participants rated 16 words for their relevance to a survival scenario and another 16 words for their relevance to a bank robbery scenario. In Experiment 1A (with no JOLs), the survival processing effect emerged; in Experiment 1B (with JOLs), no survival processing effect emerged, but JOLs were higher in the survival condition. In both cases, these findings were confounded by higher relevance ratings in the survival condition. In Experiment 2, relevance was manipulated within each list, and the survival processing effect was eliminated. Instead, both recall and JOL magnitude were related to level of congruity between the words and type of processing. Together, these results provide further evidence for the role of congruity in the survival processing effect and JOLs.     

Picturing survival memories: Enhanced memory after fitness-relevant processing occurs for verbal and visual stimuli

Recent studies have shown that processing words according to a survival scenario leads to superior retention relative to control conditions. Here, we examined whether a survival recall advantage could be elicited by using pictures. Furthermore, in Experiment 1, we were interested in whether survival processing also results in improved memory for details. Undergraduates rated the relevance of pictures in a survival, moving, or pleasantness scenario and were subsequently given a surprise free recall test. We found that survival processing yielded superior retention. We also found that distortions occurred more often in the survival condition than in the pleasantness condition. In Experiment 2, we directly compared the survival recall effect between pictures and words. A comparable survival recall advantage was found for pictures and words. The present findings support the idea that memory is enhanced by processing information in terms of fitness value, yet at the same time, the present results suggest that this may increase the risk for memory distortions.     

Contributions of processing ability and knowledge to verbal memory tasks across the adult life-span

This study investigated the relationships of processing capacity and knowledge to memory measures that varied in retrieval difficulty and reliance on verbal knowledge in an adult life-span sample (N = 341). It was hypothesized that processing ability (speed and working memory) would have the strongest relationship to tasks requiring active retrieval and that knowledge (vocabulary ability) would be related to verbal fluency and cued recall, as participants relied upon verbal knowledge to retrieve category items (fluency) or develop associations (cued recall). Measurement and structural equation models were developed for the entire sample and separately for younger (aged 20-54 years, n = 168) and older (aged 55-92 years, n = 173) subgroups. In accordance with the hypotheses, processing ability was found to be most highly related to free recall, with additional significant relationships to cued recall, verbal fluency, and recognition. Knowledge was found to be significantly related only to verbal fluency and to cued recall. Moreover, knowledge was more important for older than for younger adults in mediating variance in cued recall, suggesting that older adults may use age-related increases in knowledge to partially compensate for processing declines when environmental support is available in memory tasks.     

Hindsight bias around the world

Hindsight bias refers to the tendency to overestimate in hindsight what one has known in foresight. Recently, two experiments extended the research to include samples from different cultures (Choi & Nisbett, 2000; Heine & Lehman, 1996). Asking their participants what they would have guessed before they knew the outcome ("hypothetical design"), Choi and Nisbett (2000) found that Koreans, in comparison to North Americans, exhibited more hindsight bias. Heine and Lehman (1996), however, reported that Japanese people in comparison to Canadians showed marginally less hindsight bias. In a second study, in which participants were asked to recall what they had estimated before they knew the outcome ("memory design"), the latter authors found no difference in hindsight bias between Japanese people and Canadians. We extended these studies with 225 Internet participants, in a hypothetical design, from four different continents (Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America). Hindsight bias was large and similar for all samples except for German and Dutch participants who showed no hindsight bias at all. While the latter effect may be based on peculiarities of the material and of the participants, the former underscores the worldwide stability of the phenomenon. In addition a follow-up surprise rating (paper and pencil) in China (35 participants) and Germany (20 participants) revealed that only less surprising items led to hindsight bias while more surprising ones did not. We suggest that the basic cognitive processes leading to hindsight bias are by-products of the evolutionary-evolved capacity of adaptive learning. On top of these basic processes, individual meta-cognitions (e.g., elicited by surprise) or motives (e.g., a self-serving motive) may further moderate the amount of bias, thus explaining the diverging results of Choi and Nisbett (2000), Heine and Lehman (1996), and our own study.     

Dissociating positive and negative influences of verbal processing on the recognition of pictures of faces and objects

Four experiments investigated the role of verbal processing in the recognition of pictures of faces and objects. We used (a) a stimulus-encoding task where participants learned sequentially presented pictures in control, articulatory suppression, and describe conditions and then engaged in an old-new picture recognition test and (b) a poststimulus-encoding task where participants learned the stimuli without any secondary task and then either described or not a single item from memory before the recognition test. The main findings were as follows: First, verbalization influenced picture recognition. Second, there were contrasting influences of verbalization on the recognition of faces, compared with objects, that were driven by (a) the stage of processing during which verbalization took place (as assessed by the stimulus-encoding and poststimulus-encoding tasks), (b) whether verbalization was subvocal (whereby one goes through the motions of speaking but without making any sound) or overt, and (c) stimulus familiarity. During stimulus encoding there was a double dissociation whereby subvocal verbalization interfered with the recognition of faces but not objects, while overt verbalization benefited the recognition of objects but not faces. In addition, stimulus familiarity provided an independent and beneficial influence on performance. Post stimulus encoding, overt verbalization interfered with the recognition of both faces and objects, and this interference was apparent for unfamiliar but not familiar stimuli. Together these findings extend work on verbalization to picture recognition and place important parameters on stimulus and task constraints that contribute to contrasting beneficial and detrimental effects of verbalization on recognition memory.     

Internalising symptoms and verbal working memory in school‐age children: A processing efficiency analysis

The current study investigated differential contributions of internalising symptoms (state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression) to school‐age children's verbal short‐term (STM) and working memory (WM) span accuracy and efficiency (microanalysis of response times). Children's (N = 125, M_age = 11.44 years) STM/WM was assessed with simple/complex span tasks. Our analyses revealed that: (a) children with high levels of state anxiety displayed reduced simple span accuracy (on Word span) and poorer efficiency on both simple (preparatory intervals, interword pauses) and complex span (preparatory intervals) response time segments; (b) trait anxiety was a negative predictor of children's complex span accuracy, as well as their efficiency on both simple (word durations) and complex span (interword pauses) response time measures; (3) depressive symptoms predicted longer simple span interword pauses. Findings indicate that while all internalising symptoms were predictive of children's poorer memory search efficiency, especially during the “silent”, executive intervals (interword pauses), anxiety symptoms were specifically predictive of children's impaired span accuracy and other efficiency indicators (preparatory intervals, word durations). The study highlights the differential contributions of state, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms to STM/WM in children, emphasising the need to measure both accuracy and efficiency to assess the role that such symptoms play in children's performance.     

Impairment in processing meaningless verbal material in several modalities: The relationship between short-term memory and phonological skills

Phonological processing abilities were studied in a patient who, following focal brain damage, showed selective impairment in non-word reading, writing, and repetition and also a severe short-term memory (STM) deficit specific for auditorily presented verbal material. The patient could execute tasks involving phonemic manipulation and awareness perfectly. Our data, in contrast with earlier observations in a case of developmental phonological dyslexia, show that acquired impairment in non-word reading, writing, repetition, and immediate memory may occur despite good phonological processing abilities. The role of STM in processing meaningless verbal material is discussed.     

The role of verbal short-term memory in task selection: How articulatory suppression influences task choice in voluntary task switching

The roles of verbal short-term memory (vSTM) in task selection and task performance processes were examined when individuals were asked to voluntarily choose which of two tasks to perform on each trial randomly. Consistent with previous voluntary task-switching (VTS) research, we hypothesized that vSTM would support random task selection by maintaining a sequence of previously executed tasks that would be used by a representativeness heuristic. Furthermore, because using a representativeness heuristic requires sufficient time for updating and comparison processes, we expected that vSTM would have a greater effect on task selection when more time was available. Participants completed VTS under concurrent articulatory suppression and foot tapping at short and long response-to-stimulus intervals (RSIs). Task selection in VTS was more repetitive under suppression than under foot tapping, but this effect did not vary with RSI, suggesting that vSTM does not maintain the sequence of executed tasks to guide task selection. Instead, vSTM is critical for maintaining the intended task and ensuring that it is carried out. In contrast to the finding that a working memory load impairs task performance, we found no difference in reaction times and no switch costs between suppression and foot-tapping conditions, suggesting that vSTM is not critical for task performance.     

Children's verbal working memory: relative importance of storage, general processing speed, and domain-general controlled attention

This study evaluated multiple constraints of verbal working memory in typically developing 7- to 11-year-olds. Multiple measures of verbal working memory and the predictors-short-term memory storage, general speed, and domain-general controlled attention were used. General linear modeling (GLM) showed that storage and the efficiency of controlled attention (i.e., speed of updating information during attention switching) contributed to significant variance in children's verbal working memory. In a secondary analysis verbal storage and domain-general attention (focus switching accuracy and speed of updating on switch) emerged as significant predictors. Results suggest domain-general attention and verbal storage mechanisms to be independent constraints of verbal working memory.     

The role of verbal ability in the processing of complex verbal information

Summary This study investigated the relation between psychometric mental-ability test scores and several reaction-time measures; a simple-reaction task, a choice-reaction task, the Posner and Mitchell (1967) letter-identification task, and a variation of the sentence-verification task. Scores on the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Verbal Subtest of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SATV) were obtained. The less complex information-processing tasks replicate earlier studies in which general intelligence was only marginally related to reaction-time measures. The sentence-verification task systematically varied task complexity. Several direct and derived measures from the task were significantly correlated with psychometric mentalability measures. However, even though a number of precautions were taken to ensure that the sentence-verification task assessed purely verbal-processing efficiency, there was little evidence for an important task-specific relation between verification measures and verbal ability. Moreover, despite its relative verbal complexity, sentence verification did not reflect a greater relationship to verbal ability than other tasks did. Overall, the information-processing efficiency measures used in this study suggested a fairly general, rather than a task-specific, relationship to intellectual ability.The research presented in this paper was conducted while the first author was affiliated with the University of Georgia, U. S. A.     

Verbalizing facial memory: criterion effects in verbal overshadowing

This article investigated the role of the recognition criterion in the verbal overshadowing effect (VOE). In 3 experiments, people witnessed an event, verbally described a perpetrator, and then attempted identification. The authors found in Experiment 1, which included a "not present" response option and both perpetrator-present (PP) and perpetrator-absent (PA) lineups, an increased reluctance to identify a person from both lineup types after verbalization. Experiment 2 incorporated a forced-choice procedure, and the authors found no effect of verbalization on identification performance. Experiment 3 replicated the essential aspects of these results. Consequently, the VOE may reflect a change in recognition criterion rather than a changed processing style or alteration of the underlying memory trace. This conclusion was confirmed by computational modeling of the data.     

Encoding details: positive emotion leads to memory broadening

In the current experiment we tested the hypothesis that unlike negative arousal, which leads to memory narrowing effects whereby an increase in memory for the central details is accompanied by a decrease in memory for the peripheral details, positive arousing events might lead to a memory broadening effect such that positive arousal would increase memory for both central and peripheral details. This was assessed by testing recognition for central and peripheral details of pictures that were selected to vary in a continuous manner across a wide range of arousal for both positive and negative items. The results indicated that increases in both positive and negative stimulus arousal levels led to gradual increases in memory for the central aspects of the photos. In contrast, negative arousal first increased then decreased memory for peripheral detail as arousal levels increased, whereas positive arousal led to a continuous increase in memory for peripheral details. Thus, arousing negative materials lead to memory narrowing, whereas arousing positive materials can lead to memory broadening.     

Encoding details: Positive emotion leads to memory broadening

In the current experiment we tested the hypothesis that unlike negative arousal, which leads to memory narrowing effects whereby an increase in memory for the central details is accompanied by a decrease in memory for the peripheral details, positive arousing events might lead to a memory broadening effect such that positive arousal would increase memory for both central and peripheral details. This was assessed by testing recognition for central and peripheral details of pictures that were selected to vary in a continuous manner across a wide range of arousal for both positive and negative items. The results indicated that increases in both positive and negative stimulus arousal levels led to gradual increases in memory for the central aspects of the photos. In contrast, negative arousal first increased then decreased memory for peripheral detail as arousal levels increased, whereas positive arousal led to a continuous increase in memory for peripheral details. Thus, arousing negative materials lead to memory narrowing, whereas arousing positive materials can lead to memory broadening.     

Needs and subjective well-being around the world

Across a sample of 123 countries, we examined the association between the fulfillment of needs and subjective well-being (SWB), including life evaluation, positive feelings, and negative feelings. Need fulfillment was consistently associated with SWB across world regions. Life evaluation was most associated with fulfilling basic needs; positive feelings were most associated with social and respect needs; and negative feelings were most associated with basic, respect, and autonomy needs. Societal need fulfillment predicted SWB, particularly for life evaluation, beyond individuals' fulfillment of their own needs, indicating the desirability of living in a flourishing society. In addition, the associations of SWB with the fulfillment of specific needs were largely independent of whether other needs were fulfilled. These trends persisted when household income was taken into account. The emergent ordering of need fulfillment for psychosocial needs were fairly consistent across country conditions, but the fulfillment of basic and safety needs were contingent on country membership.     

Adaptive memory: enhanced location memory after survival processing

Two experiments investigated whether survival processing enhances memory for location. From an adaptive perspective, remembering that food has been located in a particular area, or that potential predators are likely to be found in a given territory, should increase the chances of subsequent survival. Participants were shown pictures of food or animals located at various positions on a computer screen. The task was to rate the ease of collecting the food or capturing the animals relative to a central fixation point. Surprise retention tests revealed that people remembered the locations of the items better when the collection or capturing task was described as relevant to survival. These data extend the generality of survival processing advantages to a new domain (location memory) by means of a task that does not involve rating the relevance of words to a scenario.     

Schizotypy and verbal memory in the adolescent general population

The following study examines the relationship between verbal memory deficits and schizotypal traits measured psychometrically from a non- clinical adolescent population. In this transversal analytical study participated 139 subjects. They were secondary school students, with ages ranging from 13 to 16 years old (mean= 14, 35; Sta.Dev.= 0, 548). After administrating the scales O-LIFE (psychometrical schizotypy), CVLT (verbal memory), and Letters and Numbers subtest of WAIS-III (working memory), data was analyzed utilizing Pearson correlations and mean comparison test. Results showed lack of relations between schizotypy measures and working memory. Nonetheless, some of the O-LIFE dimensions correlated with verbal memory. These findings support partly the literature reviewed. Yet, more work focused on schizotypy and cognitive deficits as risk factors are suggested.