Concreteness effects revisited: The influence of dynamic visual noise on memory for concrete and abstract words

Two experiments are presented that investigate the effects of dynamic visual noise (DVN) on memory for concrete and abstract words. Memory for concrete words is typically superior to that of abstract words and is referred to as the concreteness effect. DVN is a procedure that has been demonstrated to interfere selectively with visual working memory and the generation of images from long-term memory. It was reasoned that if concreteness effects arise because of the ability of the latter to activate visual representations, then DVN should selectively impair memory for concrete words. Experiment 1 found DVN to selectively reduce free recall of concrete words. Experiment 2 investigated recognition memory and found DVN to reduce memory accuracy and remember responses, while increasing know responses to concrete words.     

Effects of divided attention and word concreteness on correct recall and false memory reports

Lists of thematically related words were presented to participants with or without a concurrent task. In Experiments 1 and 2, respectively, English or Spanish word lists were either low or high in concreteness (concrete vs abstract words) and were presented, respectively, auditorily or visually for study. The addition of a concurrent visual or auditory task, respectively, substantially reduced correct recall and doubled the frequency of false memory reports (nonstudied critical or theme words). Divided attention was interpreted as having reduced the opportunity for participants to monitor successfully their elicitations of critical associates. Comparisons of concrete and abstract lists revealed significantly more recalls of false memories for abstract than concrete word lists. Comparisons between two levels of attention, two levels of word concreteness, and two presentation modalities failed to support the "more is less" effect by which enhanced correct recall is accompanied by increased frequencies of false memories.     

Age-related differences in memory as a function of imagery processing.

The effects of aging on imagery production and use--following the learning of concrete and abstract words--and their relations to subsequent memory performance were explored in 2 experiments. Both experiments demonstrated better free recall of concrete than of abstract words (the concreteness effect). Experiment 1 showed this superiority to be greater for young subjects only under explicit imagery instructions. Experiment 2 revealed that the advantage of concrete over abstract words reflects the use of differential imagery production. The results are discussed in terms of age differences in imagery utilization and the effects of visual processing on recall.     

The phonological neighbourhood effect on short-term memory for order

There is a growing body of literature that suggests that long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) structures that were once thought to be distinct are actually co-dependent, and that LTM can aid retrieval from STM. The mechanism behind this effect is commonly argued to act on item memory but not on order memory. The aim of the current study was to examine whether LTM could exert an influence on STM for order by examining an effect attributed to LTM, the phonological neighbourhood effect, in a task that reduced the requirement to retain item information. In Experiment 1, 18 participants completed a serial reconstruction task where neighbourhood density alternated within the lists. In Experiment 2, 22 participants completed a serial reconstruction task using pure lists of dense and sparse neighbourhood words. In Experiment 3, 22 participants completed a reconstruction task with both mixed and pure lists. There was a significant effect of neighbourhood density with better recall for dense than sparse neighbourhood words in pure lists but not in mixed lists. Results suggest that LTM exerts an influence prior to that proposed by many models of memory for order.     

Automatic semantic encoding in verbal short-term memory: Evidence from the concreteness effect

The concreteness effect in verbal short-term memory (STM) tasks is assumed to be a consequence of semantic encoding in STM, with immediate recall of concrete words benefiting from richer semantic representations. We used the concreteness effect to test the hypothesis that semantic encoding in standard verbal STM tasks is a consequence of controlled, attention-demanding mechanisms of strategic semantic retrieval and encoding. Experiment 1 analysed the effect of presentation rate, with slow presentations being assumed to benefit strategic, time-dependent semantic encoding. Experiments 2 and 3 provided a more direct test of the strategic hypothesis by introducing three different concurrent attention-demanding tasks. Although Experiment 1 showed a larger concreteness effect with slow presentations, the following two experiments yielded strong evidence against the strategic hypothesis. Limiting available attention resources by concurrent tasks reduced global memory performance, but the concreteness effect was equivalent to that found in control conditions. We conclude that semantic effects in STM result from automatic semantic encoding and provide tentative explanations for the interaction between the concreteness effect and the presentation rate.     

Concreteness effects in free recall: The roles of imaginai and relational processing

Two experiments reevaluated the possible role of mental imagery in free recall of concrete and abstract words. In Experiment 1, the number and rate of list presentations were manipulated. Incidental recall following an imagery rating task yielded reliable concreteness effects after two presentations but not after a single presentation, regardless of presentation rate. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of relational (categorization) and item-specific (imagery rating) processing tasks on memory for categorically related or unrelated concrete and abstract words. Concreteness effects were obtained when unrelated words were sorted into categories but not when they were rated on imagery. Related words failed to yield concreteness effects under any orienting condition. The results support the view that the presence or absence of concreteness effects in free recall depends on the relative salience of distinctive and relational information. This conclusion constrains theoretical explanations of the role of mental imagery in memory and cognition.     

Retrieval of concrete words involves more contextual information than abstract words: multiple components for the concreteness effect

The current study used the directed forgetting paradigm in implicit and explicit memory to investigate the concreteness effect. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore the neural basis of this phenomenon. The behavioral results showed a clear concreteness effect in both implicit and explicit memory tests; participants responded significantly faster to concrete words than to abstract words. The ERP results revealed a concreteness effect (N400) in both the encoding and retrieval phases. In addition, behavioral and ERP results showed an interaction between word concreteness and memory instruction (to-be-forgotten vs. to-be-remembered) in the late epoch of the explicit retrieval phase, revealing a significant concreteness effect only under the to-be-remembered instruction condition. This concreteness effect was realized as an increased P600-like component in response to concrete words relative to abstract words, likely reflecting retrieval of contextual details. The time course of the concreteness effect suggests advantages of concrete words over abstract words due to greater contextual information.     

The distinctiveness of emotion concepts: a comparison between emotion, abstract, and concrete words

Are the concepts represented by emotion words different from abstract words in memory? We examined the distinct characteristics of emotion concepts in 3 separate experiments. The first demonstrated that emotion words are better recalled than both concrete and abstract words in a free recall task. In the second experiment, ratings of abstract, concrete, and emotion words were compared on concreteness, imageability, and context availability scales. Results revealed a difference between all 3 word types on each of the 3 scales. The third experiment investigated priming in a lexical decision task for homogeneous (abstract-abstract and emotion-emotion) and heterogeneous (abstract-emotion and emotion-abstract) associated word pairs. Priming occurred only for the homogeneous and heterogeneous abstract-emotion word pair conditions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed in terms of the circumplex, hierarchical, and semantic activation models. The results are most consistent with the predictions of the semantic activation model.     

Retrieval of pictures and words from long-term memory: Effects upon short-term memory

On each of a series of Brown-Peterson short-term memory (STM) tests, the presentation of a verbal to-be-remembered (TBR) item (a five-letter quintogram in Experiment 1 and an eight-letter octogram in Experiment 2) was followed immediately by a 10-sec retention interval. During the retention interval, subjects recalled and reproduced previously learned paired associate response triads that consisted of three concrete pictures, concrete words, abstract pictures, or abstract words. Following selective retrieval of one of the four types of response triads from long-term memory (LTM), subjects attempted to recall the TBR items from STM. In both experiments, the intervening retrieval of abstract words resulted in significantly poorer retention of the TBR items than did the intervening retrieval of concrete words; the retrieval of concrete words resulted, in turn, in significantly poorer retention of the TBR items than did the retrieval of concrete or abstract pictures. Retrieval of the latter two types of materials appeared not to interfere with the short-term retention of the TBR verbal material (i.e., the quintograms and octograms). The results reflect the occurrence of selective interference effects, and, except for one discrepant finding, appear to be consistent with Paivio’s 11971) dual-coding hypothesis and Shiffrin and Schneider’s (1977) general theory of memory.     

Independent effects of word concreteness and word valence on immediate serial recall

The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study-test trials with 7-item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non-emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). In serial recall performance, we replicated the typical item concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) and obtained an item valence effect (positive/neutral words are better recalled than negative words). However, there was no concreteness × valence interaction. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness independently contribute to the serial order retention of emotion words in the immediate serial recall task.     

The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long-term memory for word sequences

It has been shown that short-term memory (STM) for word sequences is grossly impaired when acoustically similar words are used, but is relatively unaffected by semantic similarity. This study tests the hypothesis that long-term memory (LTM) will be similarly affected. In Experiment I subjects attempted to learn one of four lists of 10 words. The lists comprised either acoustically or semantically similar words (A and C) or control words of equal frequency (B and D). Lists were learned for four trials, after which subjects spent 20 min. on a task involving immediate memory for digits. They were then asked to recall the word list. The acoustically similar list was learned relatively slowly, but unlike the other three lists showed no forgetting. Experiment II showed that this latter paradox can be explained by assuming the learning score to depend on both LTM and STM, whereas the subsequent retest depends only on LTM. Experiment III repeats Experiment I but attempts to minimize the effects of STM during learning by interposing a task to prevent rehearsal between the presentation and testing of the word sequences. Unlike STM, LTM proved to be impaired by semantic similarity but not by acoustic similarity. It is concluded that STM and LTM employ different coding systems.     

Orthographic neighborhood and concreteness effects in the lexical decision task

The experiment reported here investigated the sensitivity of concreteness effects to orthographic neighborhood density and frequency in the visual lexical decision task. The concreteness effect was replicated with a sample of concrete and abstract words that were not matched for orthographic neighborhood features and in which concrete words turned out to have a higher neighborhood density than abstract words. No consistent effect of concreteness was found with a sample of concrete and abstract words matched for orthographic neighborhood density and frequency and having fewer neighbors and higher-frequency neighbors than the words of the first sample. Post hoc analyses of the results showed that orthographic neighborhood density was not a nuisance variable producing a spurious effect of concreteness but, instead, that the existence of higher-frequency neighbors constitutes a necessary condition for concreteness effects to appear in the lexical decision task. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that semantic information is accessed and used to generate the responses in lexical decision when inhibition from orthographic forms delays the target word recognition.     

The interval for interference in conscious visual imagery

Three experiments are described that use dynamic visual noise (DVN) to interfere with words processed under visual and verbal processing instructions. In Experiment 1 DVN is presented to coincide with the encoding of the words or to coincide with the interval between encoding and recall. The results show that while DVN is a robust disruptor when it is applied during encoding to words processed under visual instruction, it has no effect during encoding when the words are processed under rote instruction. Moreover, DVN has no effect when it is applied during the retention interval, no matter what means are employed to encode the words. Experiment 2 extends these findings by again showing no effect of DVN during the retention interval, yet showing robust interference effects for visually processed words during recall. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrates that the results of Experiments 1 and 2 cannot be explained by a difference in the time duration associated with application of DVN during the retention interval compared to during encoding and recall. Moreover, the differing decay functions for visually and verbally processed words during the intervals used in Experiment 3 suggest that any failure to cause interference is not because the two processing instructions resulted in words being retained in the same medium. The functions are consistent with word storage mechanisms reflecting appropriately verbal and visual properties. The results are discussed in terms of current models of visual working memory. It is argued that a full interpretation of the results requires a buffer mechanism as an important component of any model of visual working memory.     

The interval for interference in conscious visual imagery

Three experiments are described that use dynamic visual noise (DVN) to interfere with words processed under visual and verbal processing instructions. In Experiment 1 DVN is presented to coincide with the encoding of the words or to coincide with the interval between encoding and recall. The results show that while DVN is a robust disruptor when it is applied during encoding to words processed under visual instruction, it has no effect during encoding when the words are processed under rote instruction. Moreover, DVN has no effect when it is applied during the retention interval, no matter what means are employed to encode the words. Experiment 2 extends these findings by again showing no effect of DVN during the retention interval, yet showing robust interference effects for visually processed words during recall. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrates that the results of Experiments 1 and 2 cannot be explained by a difference in the time duration associated with application of DVN during the retention interval compared to during encoding and recall. Moreover, the differing decay functions for visually and verbally processed words during the intervals used in Experiment 3 suggest that any failure to cause interference is not because the two processing instructions resulted in words being retained in the same medium. The functions are consistent with word storage mechanisms reflecting appropriately verbal and visual properties. The results are discussed in terms of current models of visual working memory. It is argued that a full interpretation of the results requires a buffer mechanism as an important component of any model of visual working memory.     

Retrieval contexts and the concreteness effect: Dissociations in memory for concrete and abstract words

Decades of research on the concreteness effect, namely better memory for concrete as compared with abstract words, suggest it is a fairly robust phenomenon. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to limiting retrieval contexts. Two experiments evaluated intentional memory for concrete and abstract word lists in three retrieval contexts: free recall, explicit word-stem completion, and implicit word-stem completion. Concreteness effects were observed in free recall and in explicit word-stem completion, but not in implicit word-stem completion. These findings are consistent with both a bidirectional version of the relational-distinctiveness processing framework (Ruiz-Vargas, Cuevas, & Marschark, 1996) and a second framework combining insights from dual coding theory (Paivio, 1971, 1986) and the transfer appropriate processing framework (Roediger, Weldon, & Challis, 1989). Also, consistent with the relational-distinctiveness framework, the second experiment suggested that concreteness effects might depend on relational processing at encoding: Concreteness effects were observed in explicit memory for related word lists but not for unrelated word lists.     

情绪名词的具体性效应：来自ERP的证据

词汇的具体性和情绪性是影响词汇加工的不同因素, 高具体性和情绪性都能够促进词汇的加工。本研究同时操纵词汇的具体性和情绪性, 使用词汇判定任务和愉悦度判断任务, 探讨了情绪名词的具体性效应及其具体性效应是否受词汇情绪信息的影响。结果发现：情绪名词的具体性效应受内隐或外显情绪条件的影响, 具体的情绪词比抽象的情绪词反应时间更短、正确率更高, 诱发了更大的N400和减小的LPC, 但LPC的具体性效应只表现在内隐情绪任务中。词汇的具体性和情绪性的相互影响发生在内隐情绪任务中的语义加工阶段, 正性、负性的具体词和抽象词的加工在N400成分上差异不显著, 而中性具体词和抽象词在N400成分上差异显著, 说明词汇的情绪信息为抽象词的加工提供了充分的语境, 因此消除了具体词的加工优势。     

Long‐term memory effects on verbal short‐term memory: A replication study

The influence of lexico‐semantic language representations stored in long‐term memory (LTM) on short‐term memory (STM) performance has been studied extensively in adults. However, there are relatively few data on lexico‐semantic LTM effects on STM in children. On the other hand, the influence of phonological LTM effects on STM has been studied more extensively in children than in adults. In this study, we explored whether these different LTM effects on verbal STM could be replicated in both adults and children by administering immediate serial recall tasks (ISR) for high‐ and lowfrequency words, for high‐ and low‐imageability words, for words and non‐words, and for high and low phonotactic frequency non‐words to 6‐, 8‐, and 10‐year‐old children, to adolescents and to adults. Significant word frequency, lexicality and phonotactic frequency effects were observed in all age groups, as well as a word imageability effect which was, however, weaker than the other three effects. Our data suggest that LTM effects on STM are equivalent in both children and adults.     

Dynamic visual noise reduces confidence in short-term memory for visual information

Previous research has shown effects of the visual interference technique, dynamic visual noise (DVN), on visual imagery, but not on visual short-term memory, unless retention of precise visual detail is required. This study tested the prediction that DVN does also affect retention of gross visual information, specifically by reducing confidence. Participants performed a matrix pattern memory task with three retention interval interference conditions (DVN, static visual noise and no interference control) that varied from trial to trial. At recall, participants indicated whether or not they were sure of their responses. As in previous research, DVN did not impair recall accuracy or latency on the task, but it did reduce recall confidence relative to static visual noise and no interference. We conclude that DVN does distort visual representations in short-term memory, but standard coarse-grained recall measures are insensitive to these distortions.     

Free recall of concrete and abstract words in poor and normal readers

The present study compared poor and normal readers in second and sixth grade on free recall of concrete and abstract words. On the basis of the assumption that memory for abstract words relies more heavily upon linguistic coding ability than does memory for concrete words, it was expected that poor readers would have much greater difficulty on recall of abstract words than would normal readers, but would more closely approximate the normal readers on recall of concrete words. The hypothesis was confirmed at the second-grade level but not at the sixth-grade level, wherein the magnitude of group differences on concrete words was comparable to that on abstract words. Post hoc analyses of intrusion errors suggested that the linguistic coding hypothesis may be a viable explanation of reader group differences on memory tasks only at lower age levels.