Context matching and judgments of recency

An experiment was done to test a context-matching explanation of memory for recency under steady-state conditions. Subjects went through a list of 550 names, in which individual names were repeated at lags of 5–30 other items. The names were shown in two different styles or contexts. An old versus new recognition decision was made on each name, and eachold response was followed by a numerical judgment of recency (JOR). When first- and second-presentation contexts were the same, recognition hit rates were higher, and mean JORs were shorter (more recent), than when the two contexts were different. The JOR result is as predicted by the context-matching hypothesis.     

Context effects on remembering and knowing: the expectancy heuristic

Three experiments are reported examining the effect of context on remember-know judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, medium-frequency words were intermixed with high-frequency or low-frequency words at study or at test, respectively. Remember responses were greater for medium-frequency targets when they were studied or tested among high-frequency, as compared with low-frequency, words. The authors proposed a decision-based mechanism called "the expectancy heuristic" to explain why remember responses were more likely when items were studied or tested in the context of words that were relatively less distinct. According to the expectancy heuristic, when items on a recognition test exceed an expected level of memorability they will be given a remember judgment but when they do not, but are still more familiar than new words, they will be given a know judgment. Experiment 3, which varied expectancies about the strength of tested targets, demonstrated the use of the expectancy heuristic, indicating that it operates by selectively influencing the remember criterion rather than by influencing recollection of studied items.     

Recency judgments as a function of word frequency: A framing effect and frequency misattributions

The effects of word frequency on judgments of recency of item presentation were examined in two experiments. Subjects in Experiment 1 were presented two mixed lists of high- and low-frequency words followed by a list assignment task for recognized items. It was found that subjects were biased toward assigning low-frequency words to the more recently presented list. Subjects in Experiment 2 were presented a single mixed list of high- and low-frequency words followed by either a relative recency of presentation judgment task or a relative primacy of presentation judgment task. Each word pair on the tests contained one high-frequency word and one low-frequency word. It was found that, for the recency judgment task, subjects were biased to select the low-frequency item as having been presented more recently. However, on the parallel primacy judgment task, there were no effects of word frequency; moreover, overall accuracy levels were higher with primacy than with recency instructions. We interpret the effects of word frequency on recency judgments in Experiments 1 and 2 in terms of a misattribution of frequency-related differences in recollection-based recognition. The finding that recency and primacy instructions produced different patterns of results provides further evidence (Flexser & Bower, 1974) for an effect on performance of the way in which the temporal judgment task was framed.     

A mechanistic account of the mirror effect for word frequency: a computational model of remember-know judgments in a continuous recognition paradigm

A theoretical account of the mirror effect for word frequency and of dissociations in the pattern of responding Remember vs. Know (R vs. K) for low- and high-frequency words was tested both empirically and computationally by comparing predicted with observed data theory in 3 experiments. The SAC (Source of Activation Confusion) theory of memory makes the novel prediction of more K responses for high- than for low-frequency words, for both old and new items. Two experiments used a continuous presentation and judgment paradigm that presented words up to 10 times. The computer simulation closely modeled the pattern of results, fitting new Know and Remember patterns of responding at each level of experimental presentation and for both levels of word frequency for each participant. Experiment 3 required list discrimination after each R response (Group 1) or after an R or K response (Group 2). List accuracy was better following R responses. All experiments were modeled using the same parameter values.     

Memorability judgments for high- and low-frequency words

Five experiments were conducted in order to examine subjects’ judgments of the memorability of high- (HF) and low-frequency (LF) words in the context of a recognition memory task. In Experiment 1, the subjects were provided study/test experience with a list of HF and LF words prior to making memorability judgments for a new list of HF and LF items. The findings were consistent with previous evidence (Greene & Thapar, 1994; Wixted, 1992) suggesting that subjects are not explicitly aware of the greater recognition memorability of LF words. Experiments 2–5 embedded the memorability judgment task within the recognition test itself. In these experiments, the subjects consistently gave higher memorability ratings to LF items. The contrast between the pattern of results found when the subjects made their judgments at the time of list presentation (Experiment 1) and that when they made their judgments during the recognition test (Experiments 2–5) is consistent with recent evidence that even seemingly highly related metamnemonic judgments (e.g., ease of learning judgments vs. judgments of learning for the same items) may be based on very different factors if they occur at different points in the study/test cycle. The present findings are also consistent with the possibility that very rapid retrieval of memorability information for HF and LF words may affect recognition decisions and may contribute to the recognition memory word frequency effect.     

The bilingual L2 advantage in recognition memory

To better understand the mechanisms by which bilingual proficiency impacts memory processes, two recognition memory experiments were conducted with matched monolingual and bilingual samples. In Experiment 1, monolingual speakers of English and Spanish studied high- and low-frequency words under full attention or cognitive load conditions. In Experiment 2, Spanish–English bilingual participants studied high- and low-frequency words under full-attention conditions in each language. For both monolinguals and bilinguals, low-frequency words were better recognized than high-frequency words. The central new findings were that bilingual recognition was more accurate in the less fluent language (L2) than in the more fluent language (L1) and that bilingual L2 recognition was more accurate than monolingual recognition. The bilingual L2 advantage parallels word frequency effects in recognition and is attributed to the greater episodic distinctiveness of L2 words, relative to L1 words.     

中国大学生的记忆的自我参照效应

记忆的自我参照效应是指记忆材料与自我相联系时的记忆效果优于其它编码条件的现象,这种优势主要体现在以回忆经验为特征的R反应(“记得”)上。西方一些研究表明,自我参照的记忆成绩优于参照母亲的记忆。本研究以中国大学生为被试,得到参照父亲和母亲的记忆与自我参照有同样好的成绩,显著优于参照名人的记忆,并且父母之间无差异。这支持了独立型／依赖型自我概念模型中的东方文化下的自我概念包括父母的观点。     

Event-related potential evidence for multiple causes of the revelation effect

Asking people to discover the identity of a recognition test probe immediately before making a recognition judgment increases the probability of an old judgment. To inform theories of this "revelation effect," event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for revealed and intact test items across two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a revelation effect paradigm where half of the test probes were presented as anagrams (i.e., a related task) and the other items were presented intact. The pattern of ERP results from this experiment suggested that revealing an item decreases initial familiarity levels and caused the revealed items to elicit similar levels of activity. In Experiment 2, half of the probes were preceded by an addition task (i.e., an unrelated task). The pattern of ERP effects in this study were distinct from those observed in Experiment 1. More specifically, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact ERPs at frontal electrodes and more positive at parietal electrodes early in the interval. Later in the epoch, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact items. These data suggest that related tasks decrease familiarity and alter the signal-to-noise ratio of old and new items, whereas unrelated tasks affect processing in a different way (perhaps by changing decision processes) that also results in the revelation effect. The implications for current theories of the revelation effect are discussed.     

A bias in favor of the positive response to high-frequency words in recognition memory

A relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words and a violation of the mirror effect for hit and false-alarm rates were found in a yes-no recognition-memory test. Subjects more frequently responded "old" to high-frequency words than to low-frequency words. Four experiments were conducted to determine the causes of the different response biases and of the violation of the mirror effect. The word-frequency effect on hit rates did not appear, whereas the false-alarm rate for low-frequency words was lower than that for high-frequency words. When low- or high-frequency words were presented separately in distinct halves of a recognition-memory test, the relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words was diminished. A model for recognition judgment is proposed that assumes the use of a common criterion for low- and high-frequency words.     

Effects of processing fluency on comparative performance judgments

Research has shown that performance predictions are biased by the impact of processing fluency. However, existing data are inconclusive with regard to comparative judgments of performance. In five experiments, participants in an easy condition gave more favorable comparative judgments than participants in a difficult condition. Participants judged their performance more favorably if they named colors of non-color words rather than non-matching color words (Experiment 1), if they had to generate six words of a category rather than 12 words (Experiment 2), if they had to run in place for 15 s rather than 2 min (Experiment 3), but the latter result holds only true if participants were not active in sports (Experiment 4). When 67% of the items in a recognition test were old words, participants thought that their recognition performance was better than when 33% of the items were old words, although recognition performance did not differ between groups (Experiment 5). We discuss this result in the light of recent theories about effects of processing fluency on judgments.     

On the contribution of perceptual fluency and priming to recognition memory

Repetition priming has been shown to be independent of recognition memory. Thus, the severely amnesic patient E.P. has demonstrated intact stem completion priming and perceptual identification priming, despite at-chance performance on recognition memory tasks. It has also been shown that perceptual fluency can influence feelings of familiarity, in the sense that items perceived more quickly tend to be identified as familiar. If studied items are identified more fluently, due to perceptual priming, and fluency leads to familiarity, why do severely amnesic patients perform no better than chance on recognition memory tasks? One possibility is that severely amnesic patients do not exhibit normal fluency. Another possibility is that fluency is not a sufficiently strong cue for familiarity. In two experiments, 2 severely amnesic patients, 3 moderately amnesic patients, and 8 controls saw words slowly clearing from a mask. The participants identified each word as quickly as possible and then made a recognition (old/new) judgment. All the participants exhibited fluency, in that old responses were associated with shorter identification times than new responses were. In addition, for the severely amnesic patients, priming was intact, and recognition memory performance was at chance. We next calculated how much priming and fluency should elevate the probability of accurate recognition. The tendency to identify studied words rapidly (.6) and the tendency to label these rapidly identified words old (.6) would result in 36% of the studied words being labeled old. Other studied words were identified slowly (.4) but were still labeled old (.4), resulting in an additional 16% of studied words labeled old. Thus, the presence of fluency increases the probability of accurate recognition judgments to only 52% (chance = 50%). This finding explains why amnesic patients can exhibit both priming and fluency yet still perform at chance on recognition tests.     

Effects of study list composition on the word frequency effect and metacognitive attributions in recognition memory

In two experiments, study-list composition was manipulated and its impact was observed on metacognitive judgements associated with recognition hits (Hs) and false alarms (FAs). Both studies involved recognition of high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) words, and focused on the FA portion of the word frequency effect. Our hypothesis was that participants can actively reject items that are distinctive from the study list, and that this effect may be strong enough to overcome the FA word frequency effect. Experiment 1 manipulated list composition with a conjunctive rule and Experiment 2 varied it by having participants study either HF or LF items prior to a test consisting of words of both frequencies. In each study H rate, FA rate, and metacognitive attributions underlying recognition decisions were investigated. In both studies, participants reported rejecting test items predominantly through a process of active rejection, which was more often reported for LF items. This effect was strong enough to reverse the FA portion of the word frequency effect in Experiment 2, but not Experiment 1. The results are discussed in terms of metacognitive rejection mechanisms in recognition memory.     

Effects of study list composition on the word frequency effect and metacognitive attributions in recognition memory

In two experiments, study-list composition was manipulated and its impact was observed on metacognitive judgements associated with recognition hits (Hs) and false alarms (FAs). Both studies involved recognition of high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) words, and focused on the FA portion of the word frequency effect. Our hypothesis was that participants can actively reject items that are distinctive from the study list, and that this effect may be strong enough to overcome the FA word frequency effect. Experiment 1 manipulated list composition with a conjunctive rule and Experiment 2 varied it by having participants study either HF or LF items prior to a test consisting of words of both frequencies. In each study H rate, FA rate, and metacognitive attributions underlying recognition decisions were investigated. In both studies, participants reported rejecting test items predominantly through a process of active rejection, which was more often reported for LF items. This effect was strong enough to reverse the FA portion of the word frequency effect in Experiment 2, but not Experiment 1. The results are discussed in terms of metacognitive rejection mechanisms in recognition memory.     

Memory with and without awareness: performance and electrophysiological evidence of savings.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded on the scalp were shown to be sensitive indicators of the strength of a memory trace on both implicit and explicit tests of memory. In explicit recognition tests, the amplitude of a positive potential identified as P300 was larger for "old" than for "new" words regardless of whether the subject categorized the items correctly. This effect, however, was statistically reliable only when the recognition memory (d') was relatively high. In contrast to ERPs, the reaction times in explicit recognition were sensitive to accuracy but not to repetition. In implicit tests, lexical decisions to repeated words were faster than to newly presented words. The magnitude of the repetition effect varied neither with elapsed time since the last repetition nor with the number of previous repetitions. In contrast, the P300 elicited by the same words were sensitive to both lag and recency of repetition, suggesting that they were influenced by the episodic memory strength of the items.     

Event-related brain potentials dissociate repetition effects of high-and low-frequency words

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects detected nonwords interspersed among sequences of words of high or low frequency of occurrence. In Phase 1, a proportion of the words were repeated after six intervening items. In Phase 2, which followed after a break of approximately 15 min, the words were either repeats of items presented in the previous phase or new. Unrepeated low-frequency words evoked larger N400 components than did high-frequency items. In Phase 1, this effect interacted with repetition, such that no frequency effects were observed on N400s evoked by repeated words. In addition, the post-500-msec latency region of the ERPs exhibited a substantial repetition effect for low-frequency words, but did not differentiate unrepeated and repeated high-frequency words. In Phase 2, ERPs evoked by "old" and "new" high-frequency words did not differ in any latency region, while those evoked by old and new low-frequency words differed only after 500 msec. The interactive effects of frequency and repetition suggest that these variables act jointly at multiple loci during the processing of a word. The specificity of the post-500-msec repetition effect for low-frequency words may reflect a process responsive to a discrepancy between words' intra and extraexperimental familiarity.     

A decrease in conjunction error rates across lags on a continuous recognition task: a robust pattern

In four experiments, the lag retention interval from parent words (e.g., blackmail, jailbird) to a conjunction word (blackbird) was manipulated in a continuous recognition task. Alterations to the basic procedure of Jones and Atchley (2002) were employed in Experiments 1 and 2 to bolster recollection to reject conjunction lures, yet conjunction error rates still decreased across lags of 1 to 20 words. Experiment 3 and a multiexperiment analysis examined the increments of forgetting in familiarity across lags of 1-20 words. Finally, in Experiment 4, participants attempted to identify conjunction probes as "old", and the data were contrasted with those from a previous experiment (Jones & Atchley, 2002, Exp. 1), in which participants attempted not to identify conjunction probes as "old". In support of earlier findings, the decrease in familiarity across lags of 1-20 words appears robust, with a constant level of weak recollection occurring for parent words.     

Word frequency effects in associative and item recognition

The word frequency effect (WFE) has been taken as evidence that recall and recognition are in some way fundamentally different. Consequently, most models assume that recall and recognition operate via very different retrieval mechanisms. Experiment 1 showed that the WFE reverses for associative recognition, which requires discrimination between intact test pairs and recombinations of study list words from different study pairs. Experiment 2, in which word triples were used, revealed an interaction between word frequency and test type: for item recognition, performance was better for low-frequency words; however, for associative recognition and free recall, performance was better for high-frequency words. In Experiment 3, item recognition was tested: although overall performance was better for low-frequency words, the recognition advantage for items in intact pairs was larger for high-frequency words, suggesting two components in recognition memory. These results imply common mechanisms in recall and recognition. Theoretical implications are discussed within the framework of the SAM model.     

Examining the contributions of desirable difficulty and reminding to the spacing effect

Although substantial evidence indicates that spacing repeated study events with intervening material generally enhances memory performance relative to massing study events, the mechanism underlying this benefit is less clear. Two experiments examined the role of reminding difficulty during the acquisition of material in modulating final memory performance for spaced repetitions utilizing recognition (Experiment 1) and recall tests (Experiment 2). Specifically, participants studied a list of words presented one or two times separated by one or five items. On each trial participants reported whether the item had been previously presented (i.e., repetition detection judgment), and the response latency served as a proxy for reminding difficulty such that longer response latencies reflected more difficult reminding. A third experiment extended this paradigm with the inclusion of a massed condition and novel lag conditions (three and ten items). Results revealed significant lag effects in final test performance across experiments despite comparable repetition detection difficulty between lag conditions during acquisition. Moreover, results from within-participant point-biserial analyses and mediation analyses converged on overall performance measures in suggesting that repetition detection difficulty failed to modulate final test performance in the current paradigm. Discussion considers the implications of the current results for mechanisms proposed to underlie the benefits of spaced study and spaced retrieval practice.     

Discovery misattribution: when solving is confused with remembering

This study explored the discovery misattribution hypothesis, which posits that the experience of solving an insight problem can be confused with recognition. In Experiment 1, solutions to successfully solved anagrams were more likely to be judged as old on a recognition test than were solutions to unsolved anagrams regardless of whether they had been studied. Experiment 2 demonstrated that anagram solving can increase the proportion of "old" judgments relative to words presented outright. Experiment 3 revealed that under certain conditions, solving anagrams influences the proportion of "old" judgments to unrelated items immediately following the solved item. In Experiment 4, the effect of solving was reduced by the introduction of a delay between solving the anagrams and the recognition judgments. Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that anagram solving leads to an illusion of recollection.     

Does "whole-word shape" play a role in visual word recognition?

To analyze the impact of outline shape on visual word recognition, the visual pattern of the stimuli can be distorted by size alternation. Contrary to the predictions of models that rely on outline shape (Allen, Wallace, & Weber, 1995), the effect of size alternation was greater for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words in a lexical decision task (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the effect of case type (lowercase vs. UPPERCASE) occurred for low-frequency words, but not for high-frequency words. The effect of neighborhood size was remarkably similar in the two experiments. The results can be readily explained in the framework of a resonance model (Grossberg & Stone, 1986), in which a mismatch between the original sensory pattern and the abstract orthographic code slows down the formation of a stable percept.