The influence of learning style and cognitive ability on recall of names and faces in an older population

The present study examined whether, for older adults, a verbal or imagery cognitive style is associated with recall of names and faces learned in an experimental condition. Cognitive abilities that are represented in current models of face recognition and name recall were also examined. Those abilities included picture naming, verbal fluency (i.e., naming items within a given category), vocabulary comprehension, visual memory, and the learning of unassociated word pairs. Fifty older adults attempted to learn first and last names of 20 student actors and actresses pictured on videotapes (40 names total). On average, participants learned the most first names, followed by last names, and the fewest full names. The greater the number of responses on a questionnaire associated with an imagery cognitive style, the more the names of faces were correctly identified by participants. There was no significant relationship between a verbal cognitive style and the number of names and faces recalled. As for cognitive abilities, all of the abilities measured--with the exception of vocabulary comprehension--were significantly associated with the number of names and faces learned. A regression analysis indicated that the best predictor of successful name-face learning was the participants' ability to learn and recall 5 unrelated word pairs. When that cognitive measure was deleted from the regression analysis, delayed visual memory and verbal fluency were the next best predictors of the older adults' ability to learn names and faces.     

The Influence of Learning Style and Cognitive Ability on Recall of Names and Faces in an Older Population

The present study examined whether, for older adults, a verbal or imagery cognitive style is associated with recall of names and faces learned in an experimental condition. Cognitive abilities that are represented in current models of face recognition and name recall were also examined. Those abilities included picture naming, verbal fluency (i.e., naming items within a given category), vocabulary comprehension, visual memory, and the learning of unassociated word pairs. Fifty older adults attempted to learn first and last names of 20 student actors and actresses pictured on videotapes (40 names total). On average, participants learned the most first names, followed by last names, and the fewest full names. The greater the number of responses on a questionnaire associated with an imagery cognitive style, the more the names of faces were correctly identified by participants. There was no significant relationship between a verbal cognitive style and the number of names and faces recalled. As for cognitive abilities, all of the abilities measured—with the exception of vocabulary comprehension—were significantly associated with the number of names and faces learned. A regression analysis indicated that the best predictor of successful name-face learning was the participants' ability to learn and recall 5 unrelated word pairs. When that cognitive measure was deleted from the regression analysis, delayed visual memory and verbal fluency were the next best predictors of the older adults' ability to learn names and faces.     

Are judgments of learning made after correct responses during retrieval practice sensitive to lag and criterion level effects?

Although successful retrieval practice is beneficial for memory, various factors (e.g., lag and criterion level) moderate this benefit. Accordingly, the efficacy of retrieval practice depends on how students use retrieval practice during learning, which in turn depends on accurate metacognitive monitoring. The present experiments evaluated the extent to which judgments of learning (JOLs) made after correct responses are sensitive to factors (i.e., lag and criterion level) that moderate retrieval practice effects, as well as which cues influence JOLs under these conditions. Participants completed retrieval practice for word pairs with either short or long lags between practice trials until items were correctly recalled 1, 3, 6, or 9 times. After the criterion trial for an item, participants judged the likelihood of recalling that item on the final test 1 week later. JOLs showed correct directional sensitivity to criterion level, with both final test performance and JOLs increasing as criterion level increased. However, JOLs showed incorrect directional sensitivity to lag, with greater performance but lower JOLs for longer versus shorter lags. Additionally, results indicated that retrieval fluency and metacognitive beliefs about criterion level--but not lag--influenced JOLs.     

The function of one-word mediators in the recall of word pairs

The problem of demonstrating that natural language mediators play a role in learning and are not epiphenomena resulting from learning is an important problem in cognitive learning theories. Using a cued-recall and a free-recall learning task, Ss were requested to add a one-word mediator to some of the pairs of concrete nouns presented, The mediated pairs were learned better than the control pairs in both tasks. Both words were recalled only when the mediator was also recalled. Also, one-word mediators were the most effective recall cues and were the best recalled words in free recall. A two-stage learning model adequately described the data. However, a counterargument can be made which considers the mediator to be a high associate of one of the words presented and actually has no direct link to the other presented word. A possible experimental resolution of the problem is discussed.     

The replacement effect: Repeating some items while replacing others

We performed three experiments on recognition learning that tested for the existence of a replacement effect (i.e., the benefit accruing to nonrecognized items, or targets, when recognized items are replaced in the next study trial). A reverse Rock substitution procedure was used, and the replacement effect occurred in all three experiments. The results were interpreted in terms of a distributed memory model, the matched-filter model of Anderson (1973), but several modifications were necessary. The original version cannot learn, and a closed-loop modification did not show the repetition effect that was clearly evident in the data. The most satisfactory version was one based on probabilistic encoding of features in the item vectors, and it seemed capable of explaining most aspects of the data.     

A statistical description of verbal learning

Free-recall verbal learning is analyzed in terms of a probability model. The general theory assumes that the probability of recalling a word on any trial is completely determined by the number of times the word has been recalled on previous trials. Three particular cases of this general theory are examined. In these three cases, specific restrictions are placed upon the relation between probability of recall and number of previous recalls. The application of these special cases to typical experimental data is illustrated. An interpretation of the model in terms of set theory is suggested but is not essential to the argument.     

A revised spatial serial learning and memory procedure using Corsi's Block-tapping apparatus

The purpose of this study was to use Corsi's Block Tapping Test as a spatial analog of Benton's Serial Digit Learning Test, using the cognitive neuroscience approach utilized in the California Verbal Learning Test. 60 normal participants, ages 19-52 years, were included and administered an 8-block sequence for 9 trials or until they recalled the entire sequence for 3 consecutive errorless trials. The score was the number of blocks tapped in the correct serial order. An interference trial was administered. Following a 10-min. delay, free recall of the original sequence, cued recall, and recognition measures were obtained. Retroactive interference was significant, but no proactive interference emerged. Scores showed a strong primacy effect. Most participants who learned the sequence to the criterion of three successive errorless trials recalled the sequence after the 10-min. delay. Scores on the cued recall and recognition trials tended to support their validity as less demanding retrieval tasks. The use of this spatial learning and memory procedure allows finer discriminations among nonverbal memory deficits and may facilitate direct comparisons with scores on verbal memory tasks such as Serial Digit Learning and the California Verbal Learning Test.     

One-trial learning with control of item-difficulty

Ratings of difficulty were obtained for each of 2,500 letter-number pairs. The ratings were used to construct three pools of items: Homogeneous Easy, Homogeneous Difficult, and Heterogeneous. Rock's (1957) experiment was conducted thrice, once with each pool of rated items. Each replication used 30 subjects. The manipulation of rated item-difficulty permitted a direct attack on the widely discussed problem of item-selection in Rock's procedure. Notwithstanding the control of item-selection, the performance of subjects in the drop-out condition did not differ significantly from the performance of those who learned in the ordinary way, with repetition. The geometric distribution provided a good fit to the obtained distributions of waiting times to the first correct response to an item. This finding accords well with an all-or-none view of associative learning.     

Stimulus modality and working memory performance in Greek children with reading disabilities: Additional evidence for the pictorial superiority hypothesis

This study investigated the effects of stimulus presentation modality on working memory performance in children with reading disabilities (RD) and in typically developing children (TDC), all native speakers of Greek. It was hypothesized that the visual presentation of common objects would result in improved learning and recall performance as compared to the auditory presentation of stimuli. Twenty children, ages 10–12, diagnosed with RD were matched to 20 TDC age peers. The experimental tasks implemented a multitrial verbal learning paradigm incorporating three modalities: auditory, visual, and auditory plus visual. Significant group differences were noted on language, verbal and nonverbal memory, and measures of executive abilities. A mixed-model MANOVA indicated that children with RD had a slower learning curve and recalled fewer words than TDC across experimental modalities. Both groups of participants benefited from the visual presentation of objects; however, children with RD showed the greatest gains during this condition. In conclusion, working memory for common verbal items is impaired in children with RD; however, performance can be facilitated, and learning efficiency maximized, when information is presented visually. The results provide further evidence for the pictorial superiority hypothesis and the theory that pictorial presentation of verbal stimuli is adequate for dual coding.     

Moon illusion simulated in complete darkness: planetarium experiment reexamined

In 1962, Kaufman and Rock reported that the moon illusion did not occur in the darkness of a planetarium or in a completely dark room. The present study reexamined their findings. Two pairs of light points, separated by 3.5 degrees, were presented on the dome screen of a planetarium. Subjects compared the distance between the two light points presented in the horizontal direction with the distance between the two light points at the zenith. Three illumination conditions were used: The inside of the planetarium was completely dark, was lighted, or was projected with the silhouette of a city under a starry sky. The effect of eye elevation on the illusion was also examined. Contrary to Kaufman and Rock's results, a size discrepancy comparable to the moon illusion was obtained in the horizon-and-stars condition and even in the complete-darkness condition. Little or no illusion was obtained in the lighted-room condition. The results also showed that eye elevation affected the magnitude of the illusion.     

Verbal learning across the lifespan: an analysis of the components of the learning curve

Previous studies on the acquisition process of verbal material, conducted separately on child and adult populations, reveal that the lifespan is characterized by an inverted-U performance curve with similar achievements at its two poles. To clarify the acquisition mechanism across the entire lifespan, the learning curve for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was reproduced for participants aged 8–91. The study utilized typical trial summary scores and a more refined analysis of trial-by-trial single-word recalls, including omissions (missed words that were previously recalled), additions (recalled words previously missed), and touched words (a count for the first recall time only, for each word during the five learning trial). A clear age effect was shown for the number of words recalled – symmetrically increases during childhood and decreases in adulthood. Similarly, increased turnover of words omitted and added characterized both incremental and decremental age differences. Measurement patterns differed for the age segments on the two sides of the lifespan, despite the similar total number of words recalled by the two sides. Acquisition pattern in children was characterized by a higher number of touched words and higher turnover than for adult groups. In contrast, older adults achieved fewer touched words and lower turnover than the child groups. This study shows that it is possible to reach the same quantitative results via different cognitive processes. The results are interpreted in terms of specific mechanisms of maturational characteristics.     

Components of verbal learning in children: Analysis by selective reminding

Free recall verbal learning by 5- and 8-year-old children was analyzed by selectively reminding them only of items not recalled on the preceding trial (instead of continuing to present the entire list before each recall trial) to show learning by retrieval from long-term storage without presentation. Concurrent analysis of long-term storage, consistent and random retrieval from long-term storage, and recall from short-term storage indicates that, while 5-year-olds showed slower acquisition than 8-year-olds, lower recall by 5-year-olds also was due to less effective retrieval from longterm storage. Repeated retrieval, without any further presentation after an item has been recalled just once, indicates that lower recall by 9-year-old children than by adults also reflects retrieval difficulty, since these children showed storage and retention of almost as many items as adults by eventual spontaneous retrieval without further presentation.     

Revisiting the “strong but wrong“ effect

In the 1930s, J. M. Stephens found that strong verbal associations called wrong are more likely to be changed than weak verbal associations called wrong, relative to items with no feedback. The present study produced a much larger "strong but wrong" effect, apparently as a result of defining "strong" in terms of meanings presumably stored in long-term memory. It was also found that such items are followed by high recall of feedback on the next trial, and that, indeed, when feedback recall is statistically controlled, the effect disappears. An explanation of why feedback is better recalled for "strong but wrong" items is offered, and several predictions are generated, some of which are tested (and confirmed) from the present data.     

A test of the minimum principle requires a perceptual coding system

The minimum principle states that a perceiver will see the simplest possible interpretation of a pattern. Some theorists of human perception take this principle as a core explanatory concept. Others, especially Rock and Hochberg, hold the view that a perceptual minimum principle is untenable. Rock presents a great number of demonstrations which, in his opinion, rule out the minimum principle. Hochberg states that 'impossible' figures especially present a difficulty for this principle. It is argued here that, in order to test the minimum principle, a method is needed to describe interpretations of patterns in such a way that they can be ordered according to simplicity. To achieve this, Leeuwenberg's coding system was used. The analyses reported here of the patterns which Rock produces as evidence against the principle show that, contrary to Rock's claim, the way these patterns are preferentially perceived provides strong support for the minimum principle. Next, it is demonstrated that interpreting certain patterns as 'impossible' figures is not incompatible with the principle. Finally, it is argued that a test of the minimum principle is necessarily conflated with two other hypotheses, one concerning the metric of simplicity and one concerning the task conception of the experimental subjects.     

Sex differences in elaborative strategies: a developmental analysis.

The present study examined sex differences in the use of elaboration in paired associate learning in adolescence and young adulthood. In Experiment 1, 48 eighth grade and 48 tenth grade students were asked to recall 24 word pairs, half of which were high frequency pairs, and half low frequency pairs. After recall, students reported the type of strategy used for each word pair (reading the pairs carefully, rehearsing the words, using imagery or constructing a verbal connection). Females used elaborative strategies more often, were more likely to recall elaborated pairs, and recalled more word pairs than males at both ages. These effects were observed in both high and low frequency word pairs. There was also a main effect of frequency, with elaboration more common with high frequency word pairs. In Experiment 2, college students performed the same paired-associates learning task, but with the added instruction to describe their elaborations in a sentence. At this age, there was a sex by materials interaction, with sex differences in strategy use only present with low frequency word pairs. These findings indicate that sex differences diminish under more favorable task conditions that encourage strategy use (high frequency word pairs) as males and females become more proficient strategy users, but remain under less favorable circumstances. An examination of the types of elaborations generated by college students indicated although males and females produced similar types of elaborations to the word pairs, sex differences in the recallability of low frequency words appeared with less interactive and more idiosyncratic elaborations.     

Inhibition of associates and activation of synonyms in the rare-word paradigm: Further evidence for a center-surround mechanism

Two experiments investigated semantic priming effects in a modified version of the Dagenbach, Carr, and Barnhardt (1990) rare-word paradigm. After learning a list of rare words to a criterion of 50% recall, subjects participated in a lexical decision task in which the rare words served as primes. When the targets were associatively related to the primes, lexical decision responses were facilitated following recalled definitions and inhibited following unrecalled definitions. When the targets were synonyms of the rare words, facilitation occurred following both recalled and unrecalled definitions. The results were interpreted as supporting a center-surround model of attentional retrieval that may serve an adaptive role in new learning.     

Levels-of-processing effects in subject-performed tasks

In memory for subject-performed tasks (SPTs), subjects encode a list of simple action phrases (e.g., thumb through a book, knock at the door) by performing these actions during learning. In three experiments, we investigated the size of the levels-of-processing effects in SPTs as compared with those in standard verbal learning tasks (VTs). Subjects under SPT and VT conditions learned lists of action phrases in a surface or a conceptual orienting task. Under both encoding conditions, the subjects recalled fewer items with surface orienting tasks than with conceptual orienting tasks, but the levels-of-processing effects were strongly reduced in the SPT condition. In the SPT condition, items that were encoded in a surface orienting task were still substantially recalled. The items were recalled almost as well as the conceptually encoded items in the VT condition. The distinct reduction of the levels-of-processing effect is caused by the fact that, in SPT encoding even with a verbal surface orienting task, subjects process conceptual information in order to perform the denoted action. We attribute the small conceptual advantage, which remains with SPT despite the conceptual processing for performing, to the fact that items are not as well integrated into memory as they are when conceptual processing is focused on the action component, rather than on the semantic contexts. This lower integration reduces the accessibility of items in the verbal surface task, even with SPT encoding.     

Effect of memory perspective on retrospective causal attributions

Two studies examined whether people's retrospective causal attributions might be mediated by the visual perspective from which events are recalled. In Study 1, pairs of Ss participated in "get-acquainted" conversations and made a series of attribution ratings for their performance. They returned 3 weeks later to rerate their performance on the same attribution scales and to indicate the perspective from which they remembered their earlier conversation. Ss reported either "observer" memories in which they could "see" themselves from the outside or "field" memories in which their field of view matched that of the original situation. Study 2 was identical to Study 1 with the exception that Ss' memory perspectives were manipulated via verbal instructions. In both experiments, conversations that were recalled from an observer's perspective were attributed more dispositionally. These results suggest that the different perspectives from which events can be recalled function much like the divergent visual perspectives available to actors and observers in immediate, everyday experience. Discussion of these results focuses on how they further understanding of the contradictory findings reported in the literature on temporal shifts in attributions.     

Chunk limits and length limits in immediate recall: a reconciliation

Whereas some research on immediate recall of verbal lists has suggested that it is limited by the number of chunks that can be recalled (e.g., N. Cowan, Z. Chen, & J. N. Rouder, 2004; E. Tulving & J. E. Patkau, 1962), other research has suggested that it is limited by the length of the material to be recalled (e.g., A. D. Baddeley, N. Thomson, & M. Buchanan, 1975). The authors investigated this question by teaching new paired associations between words to create 2-word chunks. The results suggest that both chunk capacity limits and length limits come into play. For the free recall of 12-word lists, 6 pre-learned pairs could be recalled about as well as 6 pre-exposed singletons, suggesting a chunk limit. However, for the serially ordered recall of 8-word lists, 4 pre-learned pairs could be recalled about as well as 8 pre-exposed singletons, suggesting a length limit. Other conditions yielded intermediate results suggesting that sometimes both limits may operate together.     

Recall of common and distinctive features of verbal and pictorial stimuli

Subjects first rated similarity of verbal and of pictorial stimuli. The same pairs of stimuli were presented again, without one common component and one distinctive component. Subjects were asked to recall the missing components and identify them as common or distinctive. The results show that components encoded as common are recalled relatively better than components encoded as distinctive, and the difference in recall is significantly greater in verbal than in pictorial stimuli.