Distinctiveness effects in recall:

Unusual information is generally recalled better than common information (the distinctiveness effect). Differential processing accounts propose that the effect occurs because unusual material elicits encoding processes that are different from those elicited by common material, and strong versions of these accounts predict distinctiveness effects in between-list as well as within-list designs. Experiment 1 employed a between-list design and manipulated presentation rate. Contrary to differential processing predictions, no distinctiveness effect emerged, nor did recall patterns for atypical versus common sentences differ as a function of presentation rate. Experiment 2 further tested differential processing accounts as well as representation accounts via a within-list manipulation and conditions that included experimenter-provided elaborations. Distinctiveness effects emerged in all conditions and, contrary to differential processing predictions, the pattern of recall in the elaborated conditions did not differ from that in the unelaborated conditions. Taken together, the results of this study lend more support to a representation view that suggests mechanisms related to the representation and subsequent retrievability of elements in the memory record play a major role in the distinctiveness effect.     

Cuing effects in short-term recall

Past research indicates that short-term memory can be immune to the effects of proactive interference (PI). Past research also indicates that immunity to PI is found only in those circumstances where phonemic representations of to-be-remembered items are present and provide discriminative information. The first three experiments demonstrate the existence of a further boundary condition. PI is observed only if interfering and target items are subsumed by the same cue. This finding suggests that short-term recall, like long-term recall, is cue dependent. Cuing effects are further explored in two experiments that manipulate category dominance. The finding that category dominance effects parallel PI effects strongly suggests that retrieval cues play a critical role in short-term recall.     

Reexposure breeds recall: effects of experience on 9-month-olds' ordered recall

On the basis of three experiences, 9-month-olds recall specific events after one month. We tested whether multiple experiences are necessary, or merely facilitative, of 9-month-olds' long-term recall. In two experiments, using deferred imitation, infants were exposed to multi-step sequences either one time, two times, or three times prior to a one-month delay. In Experiment 1, regardless of the number of experiences, infants did not demonstrate recall. In Experiment 2, infants were tested on and reexposed to the events after one week; recall was tested again one month later. Performance after 1 week in Experiment 2 was greater than performance after one month in Experiment 1. Moreover, presumably as a function of reexposure after one week, infants recalled the individual actions of the events one month later. Infants in the three-experience condition also evidenced ordered recall after one month. Implications for the developmental status of the neural substrate supporting long-term recall are discussed.     

Cue-dependent effects in recall of categorized lists

Noncued and cued recall of categorized lists are similar in a number of ways: They show the same rate of gain in item recall with increasing category size; they both produce serial position effects within categories; and they both show a “some-or-none” pattern of with-category recall frequency. Cued and noncued recall differ in other respects: There is a great improvement in item and in category recall attendant on the provision of cues, and only noncued recall displays a list position effect. The points of similarity are taken to indicate that both cued and noncued recall measure the same underlying processes. The points of differences suggest the utility of cueing procedures in identifying the origin of characteristics of recall, according to the principle that any feature of noncued recall that is altered by provision of cues must originate in the retrieval process; features resistant to such modification represent encoding or storage effects.     

Balancing and positivity effects in social recall

Three experiments were conducted, in each of which subjects first rated an issue using the evaluation scales of the semantic differential and subsequently wrote sets of arguments concerning the issue They their rated each argument for strength of then-agreement or disagreement with it The results in all studies showed that subjects wrote a greater number of attitude-consistent arguments than attitude-inconsistent arguments (a balancing effect) The preponderance of attitude-consistent arguments increased as attitude became more extreme In all studies strength of agreement with either pro or con arguments was a function of attitude, but strength of disagreement was not Subjects wrote more arguments with which they agreed than arguments with which they disagreed (a positivity effect), but this effect only occurred when subjects were not specifically instructed to partition arguments into those they agreed with and those they disagreed with. Level of dogmatism or intolerance of ambiguity did not affect the number of attitude-consistent versus attitude-inconsistent arguments written or strength of agreement/disagreement with them. Results were discussed in terms of a balance model of information processing and the effects of the social situation on the recall process     

Interpreting semantic clustering effects in free recall

The order in which participants choose to recall words from a studied list of randomly selected words provides insights into how memories of the words are represented, organised, and retrieved. One pervasive finding is that when a pair of semantically related words (e.g., "cat" and "dog") is embedded in the studied list, the related words are often recalled successively. This tendency to successively recall semantically related words is termed semantic clustering (Bousfield, 1953; Bousfield & Sedgewick, 1944; Cofer, Bruce, & Reicher, 1966). Measuring semantic clustering effects requires making assumptions about which words participants consider to be similar in meaning. However, it is often difficult to gain insights into individual participants' internal semantic models, and for this reason researchers typically rely on standardised semantic similarity metrics. Here we use simulations to gain insights into the expected magnitudes of semantic clustering effects given systematic differences between participants' internal similarity models and the similarity metric used to quantify the degree of semantic clustering. Our results provide a number of useful insights into the interpretation of semantic clustering effects in free recall.     

Association and categorisation effects on free recall

Lists of 18 words which varied in mean associative strength, the category membership of the associations and in word frequency were presented to subjects 3 times with recall required after each presentation. Recall efficiency increased with association level and with similarly categorised associates. In lists of High mean associative strength which consisted of similarly categorised words, the recall of high frequency word lists was facilitated but at low levels of associative strength, with similarly categorised words, recall was facilitated at both levels of word frequency used. Clustering and errors which were associatively related to the items being learned were greater in lists which contained sets of similarly categorised associates.     

The effects of autobiographical elaboration on noun recall

Four experiments demonstrate that autobiographical elaboration is a rich and powerful encoding process. Autobiographical elaboration was induced by using a modified free-association procedure. Subjects were presented stimulus words and were instructed to think of a personal experience that the words reminded them of and to date the remembered experience on a 7-point temporal-category scale (i.e., minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, never). Unexpected free recall of the stimulus words showed a recency effect (Experiments 1, 3, and 4), autobiographical orienting produced better noun recall than either a semantic or a structural orienting task (Experiments 2 and 3), and the recency effect observed in Experiments 1, 3, and 4 appears to have been due to differences in autobiographical elaboration (Experiment 4).     

The mnemonic effects of recall on immediate retention

In three experiments, we investigated the mnemonic effects of an initial recall on later recall in an immediate memory setting. Recall is generally assumed to interfere with the recall of subsequent items (output interference), but previous experiments have failed to control for the confounding effects of time. In the experiments reported here, the passage of time was held constant on all trials; what varied was whether an additional item was recalled (or simply presented) during the retention interval. The results revealed clear evidence of recall's mnemonic effects, but output interference seemed strongest when the initial recall was of an item that followed the target item in the memory list. When participants initially recalled an item immediately preceding the target, target recall improved. This pattern of results places constraints on current models of immediate retention.     

Topicalization effects in cued recall of technical prose

The perceived topic of a passage should determine what information is given priority in storage effort for later recall. The topic should also determine how effective a later recall cue should be, in that recall should be best if the cue is the same as the passage topic. These issues were studied by investigating cued recall of passages that contained information about two candidate topic items, either of which could be marked as the passage topic by initial mention or the sentence surface subject position. The recall cue was either the item marked as the topic or the nontopic item. If the cue was the topic, recall about the topic item was greater than recall about the nontopic item. If the cue was the nontopic item, recall about the two items was roughly the same, unaffected by the topic marking. But the topic and nontopic cues produced the same overall level of recall. In contrast to the original hypothesis, the results are interpreted as the topic marking and recall cue acting as instructions for what information the subject should emphasize in recall. It is argued that the two-topic passages used in this work are processed differently from the usual one-topic passages in prose memory studies.     

Context effects and the recall of comparative sentences

Clark and Card (1969) have proposed that semantic components underlie memory for comparative (C) sentences. To test this hypothesis, six groups of 15 Ss each were given different sets of C sentences. In line with the theory, Ss tended to remember unmarked adjectives better than marked ones and positive constructions better than negatives. However, contrary to the theory, they also tended to bias their responding either toward the negative or the equative form. A two-stage theory of recall, based on the memory schema-memory trace distinction, is proposed to account for these data.     

Serial position effects in recall of television commercials

Does the position of a television commercial in a block of commercials determine how well it will be recalled? The findings of naturalistic studies can be affected by uncontrolled presentation, viewing, and retention variables. In the present article, college students viewed lists of 15 commercials in a laboratory simulation and recalled the product brand names. In an immediate test, the first commercials in a list were well recalled (a primacy effect), as were the last items (a recency effect), in comparison with the recall of middle items. In an end-of-session test, the primacy effect persisted, but the recency effect disappeared. Embedding lists within a television program again produced better recall of the first items during end-of-session tests of recall and recognition. These results offered convergent validity for the naturalistic studies of commercial memory, and they supported the usefulness of combining laboratory and field methods to answer questions about everyday memory.     

Reduction and elimination of format effects on recall

Two experiments investigated whether the recall advantage of pictures and spoken words over printed words in working memory (Foos & Goolkasian, 2005; Goolkasian & Foos, 2002) could be reduced by manipulating letter case and sequential versus simultaneous presentation. Participants were required to remember 3 or 6 items presented in varied presentation formats while verifying the accuracy of a sentence. Presenting words in alternating uppercase and lowercase improved recall, and presenting words simultaneously rather than successively removed the effect of presentation format. The findings suggest that when forcing participants to pay attention to printed words you can make them more memorable and thereby diminish or remove any disadvantage in the recall of printed words in comparison with pictures and spoken words.     

The effects of social pressure on group recall

In two experiments, individual subjects worked in conjunction with two perceived group members to recall six 30-item categorized word lists. The perceived group members' recall levels were manipulated to establish either high or low group standards. After participating in the perceived group, subjects completed a surprise final individual recall test that covered all of the presented material. On the basis of the hypothesis that the subjects' performance would be affected by social pressure, it was predicted that subjects working in high-performing groups would recall more words than subjects working in low-performing groups on both the group recall tests and the final individual recall test. These predicted results were observed. Thus, a complete analysis of the group recall environment should include a consideration of conformity theory whereby subjects' memories can be affected by their group members' output levels.     

Recency effects in delayed recall of mouthed stimuli

Auditory presentation leads to greater recency effects in recall than does visual presentation. This phenomenon (the modality effect) is found in both free and serial recall and in both immediate and delayed recall. Silent mouthing of visually presented stimuli also leads to enhanced recency effects in immediate serial recall. Two experiments reported here extend the generality of the mouthing effect by demonstrating that enhanced recency effects of mouthed stimuli occur in delayed serial and free recall. These results are inconsistent with theories that attribute the modality effect to a purely auditory sensory memory.     

The effects of vocal variation on listener recall

The effects of variations in speaker rate and pitch on listener recall were studied. One hundred and twenty participants listened to an audiotape of one of two individuals speaking in one of four different styles-low variation in both rate and pitch, variation in rate but not in pitch, variation in pitch but not in rate, and variation in both rate and pitch. After hearing the audiotape, listeners were tested on the information in the presentation; they also completed questionnaires rating the speaker's benevolence and competence. Results indicated that the combined effect of pitch and rate variety significantly increased listener recall over no variety or pitch variety or rate variety alone. Additionally, pitch variety and combined pitch and rate variety significantly increased attributions of speaker competence over no variety or rate variety alone, but significantly decreased attributions of speaker benevolence.     

The effects of effort toward comprehension on recall

Four experiments examined free recall of generally incomprehensible sentences with appropriate cues that made the sentences comprehensible. A distinction is made between processes involved in an effort toward comprehension and elaboration processes that occur following comprehension. It was found that providing additional time for effort toward comprehension enhanced recall, while providing additional time for elaboration following comprehension did not enhance recall. It was also shown that the effects of effort toward comprehension were contingent upon eventual understanding of the sentence.     

Backward recall and benchmark effects of working memory

Working memory was designed to explain four benchmark memory effects: the word length effect, the irrelevant speech effect, the acoustic confusion effect, and the concurrent articulation effect. However, almost all research thus far has used tests that emphasize forward recall. In four experiments, we examine whether each effect is observable when the items are recalled in reverse order. Subjects did not know which recall direction would be required until the time of test, ensuring that encoding processes would be identical for both recall directions. Contrary to predictions of both the primacy model and the feature model, the benchmark memory effect was either absent or greatly attenuated with backward recall, despite being present with forward recall. Direction of recall had no effect on the more difficult conditions (e.g., long words, similar-sounding items, items presented with irrelevant speech, and items studied with concurrent articulation). Several factors not considered by the primacy and feature models are noted, and a possible explanation within the framework of the SIMPLE model is briefly presented.     

The effects of collaboration on recall of social information

Three experiments examined the effects of passage type on both individual and collaborative memory performance. In Experiment 1, both individuals and collaborative groups recalled more information from passages containing social information than non-social information. Furthermore, collaborative inhibition (CI) was observed for both types of passages. In Experiment 2, which included a social passage that did not contain gossip, significant main effects of both gossip (gossip > non-gossip) and sociability (explicit > implicit) were observed. As in Experiment 1, CI was observed across all conditions. Experiment 3 separately manipulated gossip and the interest level of the passages and both of these factors enhanced memory performance. Moreover, robust CI was again observed across all conditions. Taken together, the present results demonstrate a mnemonic benefit for social information in individuals and collaborative groups.