Predicting performance on the Raven's Matrices: The roles of associative learning and retrieval efficiency

Previous studies have shown that performance on Williams and Pearlberg's (2006) complex associative learning task is a good predictor of fluid intelligence. This task is similar in structure to that used in studying the fan effect (Anderson, 1974), as both tasks involve forming multiple associations and require retrieval in the face of interference. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relations among complex associative learning, working memory, and fluid intelligence. Specifically, we asked whether retrieval efficiency, as measured by the fan effect, could account for the relation between complex associative learning and performance on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices. Consistent with previous findings, complex associative learning predicted Raven's performance, but the fan effect did not account for this relation. Notably, the learning phase of the fan effect task was significantly correlated with both complex associative learning and Raven's performance, providing further support for the importance of learning as a predictor of fluid intelligence.     

Is retrieval-induced forgetting an inhibitory process?

Three experiments investigated memory performance in the retrieval practice paradigm (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994; Anderson & Spellman, 1995). This paradigm produces a retrieval-induced forgetting effect, wherein practicing some members of a studied category decreases the recall of other members of that category relative to a baseline. Our findings indicate that the retrieval-induced forgetting effect is replicable but that previous findings supporting an inhibitory account of this phenomenon may not be.     

When knowing more means less: the effect of fan on metamemory judgments

The authors used a "fan" paradigm (J. R. Anderson, 1974) to test the accessibility and competition models of metamemory using judgments of learning (JOLs). JOLs in this study reflect one's confidence level in subsequently recognizing newly learned material. The number of facts, or "fan," associated with JOL-queried concepts varied from 1 to 3 associates. Results of 3 experiments indicated that as the level of fan increased, the magnitude of JOLs decreased. This finding was observed even when the fan effect (i.e., slower recognition as number of facts increase) was attenuated on a verification task in 2 of the experiments by manipulating the organization of the multiple concepts. The results supported the competition hypothesis (T. A. Schreiber, 1998; T. A. Schreiber & D. L. Nelson, 1998) as an important determinant of JOLs.     

The Role of Short-Term Memory in Semantic Priming

Two theories of priming were compared: spreading activation theories, in particular ACT* (J. R. Anderson, 1983), and compound-cue theories (R. Ratcliff & G. McKoon, 1988). Whereas ACT* assumes that priming is a result of diffusing activation in long-term memory, compound-cue models suggest that priming results from a formation process of prime and target in short-term memory. Thirty-eight participants took part in a study that combined a digit span task with a double lexical decision task consisting of a prime and a target item. Digit span length (low, medium, and high) and prime type (related or unrelated word or nonword) were both within-subject variables. As expected, results showed significant priming effects. In favor of ACT*, no interaction between digit span length and prime type was found. Additionally, a nonword inhibition effect (unrelated versus nonword prime) was found, which was predicted by compound-cue theories. This finding is discussed in terms of the process interference and response competition hypotheses.     

Memory retrieval and suppression: the inhibition of situation models

When people retrieve newly learned facts on a recognition test, they are often increasingly slowed by the number of other newly learned facts that have a concept in common with the probed fact. This is called the fan effect. Assuming that people are using situation models of the learned information, the author considers whether the inhibition of competing representations is one of the processes involved in the fan effect. Evidence was found for negative priming of related but irrelevant situation models, thus supporting the idea that the inhibition of highly related memory traces is used in long-term memory retrieval. As such, this is a form of retrieval-based inhibition.     

A limit on retrieval-induced forgetting

Retrieving some members of a memory set impairs later recall of semantically related but not unrelated members (M. C. Anderson, R. A. Bjork, & E. L. Bjork, 1994; M. C. Anderson & B. A. Spellman, 1995). The authors investigated whether this retrieval-induced forgetting effect would generalize to testing procedures other than category-cued recall. Although the authors demonstrated a retrieval-induced forgetting effect using a category-cued recall task, they failed to show retrieval-induced forgetting on several different memory tests that used item-specific cues, including a category-plus-stem-cued recall test, a category-plus-fragment-cued recall test, a fragment-cued recall test, and a fragment completion task.     

情境模型建构过程中空间信息的作用探讨

本研究采用扇效应技术来进一步探讨空间信息在情境模型建构过程当中的作用。共分为两个分实验。实验1通过在材料中使用同样具有可“移动性”的物体概念（例如快餐车）来探讨“可移动性”是否是“[人]在[大场所]”材料范式下观察不到信息整合的根本原因。实验2将材料中的“大场所”地点替换为“中场所”地点,来进一步探讨空间信息在情境模型建构过程中的作用特点。结果表明“人的可移动性”不是“[人]在[大场所]”材料范式下观察不到信息整合的原因并且在不受个体背景知识衰减的情况下．空间信息对情境模型建构的影响作用强于主人公信息的影响作用。     

Automatic activation of attribute knowledge in heuristic inference from memory

In memory-based decision making, people often rely on simple heuristics such as take-the-best (TTB; Gigerenzer & Goldstein, Psychological Review, 103, 650–669, 1996), which processes information about the alternatives sequentially and stops processing as soon as a decision can be made. In this article, we examine the memory processes associated with TTB—in particular, to what degree the selective memory retrieval of relevant information required by TTB is accompanied by automatic activation of associated but irrelevant information. To address this question, we studied the fan effect (Anderson, Cognitive Psychology, 6, 451–474, 1974), which is assumed to arise from automatic spread of activation, in inferences from memory. Participants were instructed to use TTB when making decisions about objects on the basis of previously memorized attribute information. Both the number of attributes required by TTB and the number of attributes associated with an object (i.e., fan level) were manipulated. As it turned out, response times and the correct execution of TTB were a function not only of the number of required attributes, but also of the number of associated attributes. This suggests that information that TTB “ignores” is nevertheless activated in memory.     

Influence of emotional state on irrelevant thoughts

The fan effect paradigm was used to investigate the influence of emotional mood state on longterm memory retrieval (Anderson, 1983). Subjects learned target facts embedded in unrelated sentences to a specified criterion and were then given a happy, sad, or neutral mood induction. Mean response times (RTs) and error rates were analyzed in a speeded recognition test in which subjects distinguished between the learned facts and foil facts (foil facts were constructed by recombining the same concepts). A follow-up lexical decision task indicated that mean RT was positively correlated with an increase in the weighted proportion of irrelevant thoughts produced by subjects in an induced sad mood. Results suggest that irrelevant thoughts associated with the sad mood state interfered with more relevant, task-oriented, thoughts and support the notion that sad mood is related to a failure to inhibit irrelevant information.     

Make mild moments memorable: add a little arousal

In a recent paper Anderson and colleagues reported that emotionally arousing stimuli enhance long-term memory of immediately preceding neutral stimuli. The findings fit well with the perseveration-consolidation hypothesis and with extensive evidence from both human and animal studies indicating that arousal-induced modulation of memory is mediated by beta-noradrenergic activation of the amygdala.     

A progress report on the inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting

Remembering and forgetting reflect fundamentally interdependent processes in human memory (Bjork, 2011). This interdependency is particularly apparent in research on retrieval-induced forgetting, which has shown that retrieving a subset of information can cause the forgetting of other information (Anderson et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 20:1063-1087, 1994). According to one prominent theoretical account, retrieval-induced forgetting is caused by an inhibitory process that acts to resolve competition during retrieval. Specifically, when cues activate competing, contextually inappropriate responses, those responses are claimed to be inhibited in order to facilitate the retrieval of target responses (Anderson Journal of Memory and Language 49: 415-445, 2003; Levy & Anderson Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6: 299-305, 2002; Storm, 2011b). Interest in retrieval-induced forgetting has grown steadily over the past two decades. In fact, a search of the abstracts at the 5th International Conference on Memory (ICOM, York University, 2011) revealed 40 presentations specifically mentioning "retrieval-induced forgetting," and nearly twice that number referring to the concept of inhibition. Clearly, researchers are interested in the empirical phenomenon of retrieval-induced forgetting, and inhibition is gaining increasing attention as a mechanism involved in memory. The goal of the present progress report is to critically review the inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting and to provide direction so that future research can have a more meaningful impact on our understanding of human memory.     

No retrieval-induced forgetting using item-specific independent cues: evidence against a general inhibitory account

Retrieval practice with particular items from memory can impair the recall of related items on a later memory test. This retrieval-induced forgetting effect has been ascribed to inhibitory processes (M. C. Anderson & B. A. Spellman, 1995). A critical finding that distinguishes inhibitory from interference explanations is that forgetting is found with independent (or extralist) cues. In 4 experiments, the authors tested whether the forgetting effect is cue-independent. Forgetting was investigated for both studied and unstudied semantically related items. Retrieval-induced forgetting was not found using item-specific independent cues for either studied or unstudied items. However, forgetting was found for both item types when studied categories were used as cues. These results are not in line with a general inhibitory account, because this account predicts retrieval-induced forgetting with independent cues. Interference and context-specific inhibition are discussed as possible explanations for the data.     

Long-term memory for pictures and sentences

Two experiments were conducted to examine the fan effect in recognition memory for pictures and sentences. Subjects in the first experiment memorized sets of pictures (N= 13) or sentences (N=13) in which the study items comprised concept combinations (e.g., the clock is on the television) that could be unambiguously depicted in each modality. The fan effect, contrasting study items involving unique- and shared-concepts combinations, was observed in the recognition reaction time data for sentences but not for pictures. Subjects in the second experiment (N= 17) memorized sets of pictures and sentences in which, in addition to the unique and shared intramodality conditions used in Experiment 1, subjects memorized items in each modality that shared concepts with items in the alternative modality. Although the fan effect was reduced for sentences in the second experiment, the intramodality results were qualitatively comparable to those obtained in Experiment 1. The results in the intermodality conditions indicated that, although pictorial study items influenced reaction time to sentences with which they shared a concept, the reverse was not the case. The results were thought to be inconsistent with the view that pictures and sentences enjoy a common representational format in long-term memory.     

Contextual variability and serial position effects in free recall.

In immediate free recall, words recalled successively tend to come from nearby serial positions. M. J. Kahana (1996) documented this effect and showed that this tendency, which the authors refer to as the lag recency effect, is well described by a variant of the search of associative memory (SAM) model (J. G. W. Raaijmakers & R. M. Shiffrin, 1980, 1981). In 2 experiments, participants performed immediate, delayed, and continuous distractor free recall under conditions designed to minimize rehearsal. The lag recency effect, previously observed in immediate free recall, was also observed in delayed and continuous distractor free recall. Although two-store memory models, such as SAM, readily account for the end-of-list recency effect in immediate free recall, and its attenuation in delayed free recall, these models fail to account for the long-term recency effect. By means of analytic simulations, the authors show that both the end of list recency effect and the lag recency effect, across all distractor conditions, can be explained by a single-store model in which context, retrieved with each recalled item, serves as a cue for subsequent recalls.     

Differential fan effect and attentional focus

As people study more facts about a concept, it takes longer to retrieve a particular fact about that concept. This fan effect (Anderson, 1974) has been attributed to competition among associations to a concept. Alternatively, the mental-model theory (Radvansky & Zacks, 1991) suggests that the fan effect disappears when the related concepts are organized into a single mental model. In the present study, attentional focus was manipulated to affect the mental model to be constructed. One group of participants focused on the person dimension of personlocation pairs, whereas the other group focused on the location dimension. The result showed that the fan effect with the focused dimension was greater than the fan effect with the nonfocused dimension, which is contrary to the mental-model theory. The number of associations with a concept is indeed crucial during retrieval, and the importance of the information seems to be accentuated with attentional focus.     

Models for within-proposition representation tested by cued recall

A model is presented to account for the data from incremental cuing experiments that have been carried out to identify the representation of propositions in memory. In such experiments subjects first learn a list of sentences and are afterward cued for recall with words from the learned sentences. The model proposed distinguishes between a memory structure and stimulus and response processes. The all-or-none tendency in the data is captured by a Gestalt-like memory code. The model is compared with the stochastic theory of Anderson and Bower and the fragmentation hypothesis of Jones.     

Forgetting to forget: On the duration of voluntary suppression of neutral and emotional memories

Can we control the content of our memory and forget what we do not want to think about by an act of will? If so, is forgetting temporary or permanent, and is it independent of the nature of what we wish to forget? Using Anderson and Green’s (2001) “think/no-think” paradigm with neutral and emotional nouns, we found in agreement with other studies that memory for neutral words was reduced instantly upon repeated attempts at suppression. However, the effect was temporary and vanished after a period of one week, which strongly suggests that intended memory suppression interferes with immediate retrieval but does not lead to long-term forgetting. Furthermore, the amount of training that clearly reduced immediate recall of neutral items did not at all reduce recall of emotional items. This finding is in accordance with the notion that emotional items have a higher degree of salience and tend to attract more attention than neutral items.     

A Neuronal Basis for the Fan Effect

The fan effect says that “activation” spreading from a concept is divided among the concepts it spreads to. Because this activation is not a physical entity, but an abstraction of unknown lower‐level processes, the spreading activation model has predictive but not explanatory power. We provide one explanation of the fan effect by showing that distributed neuronal memory networks (specifically, Hopfield networks) reproduce four qualitative aspects of the fan effect: faster recognition of sentences containing lower‐fan words, faster recognition of sentences when more cues are provided, faster acceptance of studied sentences than rejection of probes, and faster recognition of sentences studied more frequently. These are all a natural result of the dynamics of distributed associative memory.     

Competitive short-term and long-term memory processes in spatial habituation

Exposure to a spatial location leads to habituation of exploration such that, in a novelty preference test, rodents subsequently prefer exploring a novel location to the familiar location. According to Wagner's (1981) theory of memory, short-term and long-term habituation are caused by separate and sometimes opponent processes. In the present study, this dual-process account of memory was tested. Mice received a series of exposure training trials to a location before receiving a novelty preference test. The novelty preference was greater when tested after a short, rather than a long, interval. In contrast, the novelty preference was weaker when exposure training trials were separated by a short, rather than a long interval. Furthermore, it was found that long-term habituation was determined by the independent effects of the amount of exposure training and the number of exposure training trials when factors such as the intertrial interval and the cumulative intertrial interval were controlled. A final experiment demonstrated that a long-term reduction of exploration could be caused by a negative priming effect due to associations formed during exploration. These results provide evidence against a single-process account of habituation and suggest that spatial habituation is determined by both short-term, recency-based memory and long-term, incrementally strengthened memory.     

The demise of short-term memory revisited: empirical and computational investigations of recency effects

In the single-store model of memory, the enhanced recall for the last items in a free-recall task (i.e., the recency effect) is understood to reflect a general property of memory rather than a separate short-term store. This interpretation is supported by the finding of a long-term recency effect under conditions that eliminate the contribution from the short-term store. In this article, evidence is reviewed showing that recency effects in the short and long terms have different properties, and it is suggested that 2 memory components are needed to account for the recency effects: an episodic contextual system with changing context and an activation-based short-term memory buffer that drives the encoding of item-context associations. A neurocomputational model based on these 2 components is shown to account for previously observed dissociations and to make novel predictions, which are confirmed in a set of experiments.