Revisiting distinctive processes in memory

In three experiments, we examined the relationship between orthographic and phonological distinctiveness and incidental recall. In each experiment, participants were given a surprise free recall test after they read words aloud as quickly and accurately as possible. The pattern of results replicated those reported in Cortese, Watson, Wang, and Fugett (2004) for intentional and explicit free recall and recognition memory tasks in which items were read silently. Specifically, we found that phonological-to-orthographic neighborhood size influenced recall performance, whereas orthographic-to-phonological consistency and phonological-to-orthographic consistency did not. Also, we failed to replicate the orthographic-tophonological consistency effect reported by Hirshman and Jackson (1997), and argue that their results were due to a confounding of consistency with phonological neighborhood size. Our results suggest that the processing of words sharing both orthography and phonology with a large number of words produces interference that reduces one’s ability to remember them.     

Encoding and retrieval processes in the memory for conceptually distinctive events

Memory for conceptually isolated (distinctive) words was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, recognition of distinctive targets was compared with recognition of targets from homogeneous lists and with recognition of background information. Distinctive targets were better recognized than the same words presented in homogeneous lists. No effects of distinctiveness on the recognition accuracy of background items were observed. These results fail to support the hypothesis that distinctive information receives extra resources during encoding at the expense of surrounding background information. In Experiment 2 the effects of distinctiveness on recall were evaluated. Distinctive targets were more likely to be recalled than targets from homogeneous lists. However, unlike the effects found in recognition, background items were more poorly recalled from lists containing distinctive targets than from homogeneous lists. Organizational processes in recall were also evaluated. There was greater subjective organization for target and background items from lists containing distinctive targets than from lists containing nondistinctive targets. These results were discussed in terms of encoding and retrieval explanations of the effects of distinctiveness.     

Relating distinctive orthographic and phonological processes to episodic memory performance

Three experiments examined the role of three distinctive perceptual factors in recognition and recall memory. Using a subject-paced presentation rate, the first two experiments (recognition and recall) examined (1) the number of phonological-to-orthographic neighbors, (2) phonological-to-orthographic consistency, and (3) orthographic-to-phonological consistency. The third experiment (recall) reexamined the number of phonological-to-orthographic neighbors, using an experimenter-paced presentation rate of 2 sec per item. In both recognition and recall memory tasks, the number of phonological-to-orthographic neighbors influenced memory performance, whereas the two types of consistency did not. The results indicate that having fewer phonological-to-orthographic neighbors (i.e., having distinct mappings between orthography and phonology, and between phonology and orthography, e.g., pulp) relieve words from interference in episodic memory tests for such words. Furthermore, words that are indistinct in terms of these mappings (e.g., tuck) are subject to interference from words with similar representations (e.g., luck, buck, stuck), and this weakens the memory trace for a particular word.     

Adult age differences in memory for distinctive information: Evidence from the bizarreness effect

Two experiments examined age-related differences in memory for bizarre and common pictures. In Experiment 1, a facilitative effect of bizarreness was obtained for young adults and one of the older groups, but not for the oldest group (over age 70). However, the bizarreness effect was found for even the oldest group when predominantly common lists were used in Experiment 2. It is concluded that older adults suffer from deficits in distinctive processing, but those deficits can be reduced by providing a more uniformly common context in which differences can be processed.     

The influence of age on memory for distinctive events

We examined whether memory for distinctive events is influenced by aging. To do so, we used a semantic isolation paradigm in which people show superior memory for a word when it is presented in a list of items from a different semantic category (e.g., the word table is presented in a list of all bird exemplars) as compared with when the same word (table) is presented in a list of unrelated words. Results showed that both younger and older adults demonstrated an isolation effect in memory, although older adults showed a numerically smaller isolation effect than did younger adults. Results suggest that in contrast with previous findings (Cimbalo & Brink, 1982), older adults can take advantage of this type of distinctiveness to aid memory performance.     

Recognition memory and awareness: An experiential approach

Abstract

This article reviews recent studies that have adopted an experiential approach to recognition memory and awareness. This approach measures two subjective states of awareness in recognition memory, remembering (or conscious recollection) and knowing (or familiarity). There is now evidence of quite a few experimental dissociations between these two states of awareness. These dissociations impose additional constraints on theories about relations between awareness and memory systems or processes.     

A functionalistic approach to memory: theory and data

The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual frame of reference for memory research on the basis of two recent lines of development. One such key development is that of a functional orientation of memory research focusing on processing and function rather than structure and memory entities. The other line of development concerns information storage as distributed rather than localized. A functionalistic frame of reference involving a notion of distributed storage is proposed. According to this view remembering is seen as an interaction between available cognitive capabilities and demands of the task in which the individual is remembering something. Encoding is conceived of as an interaction between "affordances" of the environment and "functional dispositions" of the individual. Retrieval is seen as a re-activation of functional dispositions. The formation of unique combinations of functional dispositions plays a crucial role in obtaining perfect recall performance. The viability of the overall conceptual framework is demonstrated in three experimental studies. The development of the design and procedure for these experiments was a second purpose of this paper, namely to outline an experimental setting which could serve as a complement to computer simulations in studying notions of distributed storage.     

Raven's matrices and working memory: A dual-task approach

The cognitive system does not just act as a mirror from the sensory input; instead, it tends to normalize this information. Given that letter processing seems to be much more specialized than digit processing in the cortex, we examined whether the regularization process occurs differently from digits to letters than from letters to digits: We employed a masked priming same/different experiment (e.g., probe, VESZED; prime, V35Z3D ; and target, VESZED). When embedded in letter strings, digits that resemble letters (e.g., 3 and 5 in V35Z3D -VESZED) tend to be encoded in a letter-like manner, whereas when embedded in digit strings, letters that resemble digits (e.g., E and S in 9ES7E2–935732) tend not to be encoded in a digit-like manner.     

Predicting memory benefits in the production effect: the use and misuse of self-generated distinctive cues when making judgments of learning

The production effect occurs when reading a word aloud leads to better memory for the item, relative to words that are read silently. In the present study, we assessed the degree to which judgments of learning (JOLs) are sensitive to the production effect, to determine whether people are aware of how distinctive cues can enhance memory. If the act of saying a word aloud is used as a cue for later memorability, then JOLs should be sensitive to production. Experiment 1 demonstrated that this was the case, as participants provided higher JOLs for produced items than for those read silently. This pattern of JOLs was also evident when participants silently mouthed words (Exp. 2). In Experiment 3, participants instead made a nonunique response as the production component (saying “yes” instead of the word itself). JOLs were still higher under production, although memory performance did not differ from that in a silent condition. The results suggest that the presence of both specific and nonspecific self-generated cues is used to make metacognitive judgments, likely due to the high accessibility of this information, but that participants are not precisely aware of how distinctiveness enhances encoding and retrieval. Such findings have implications for how distinctiveness is perceived by learners and for what cues would appropriately be incorporated when predicting future memory performance.     

Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach.

A study was conducted in which 133 participants performed 11 memory tasks (some thought to reflect working memory and some thought to reflect short-term memory), 2 tests of general fluid intelligence, and the Verbal and Quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Structural equation modeling suggested that short-term and working memories reflect separate but highly related constructs and that many of the tasks used in the literature as working memory tasks reflect a common construct. Working memory shows a strong connection to fluid intelligence, but short-term memory does not. A theory of working memory capacity and general fluid intelligence is proposed: The authors argue that working memory capacity and fluid intelligence reflect the ability to keep a representation active, particularly in the face of interference and distraction. The authors also discuss the relationship of this capability to controlled attention, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.     

Misleading postevent information and working memory capacity: an individual differences approach to eyewitness memory

The present study examines how individual differences in working memory capacity relate to the effect of misleading postevent information on memory for the original event. Participants were shown a film of a crime event and were then asked to unscramble a narrative that included misinformation regarding some of the film's details. Additionally, the working memory capacity of the participants was measured using the operation‐word span task. Finally, in a free recall test, participants recalled fewer correct details in the misinformation condition compared to the control condition. This effect was negatively correlated with working memory capacity. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implicit bias and social schema: a transactive memory approach

To what extent should we focus on implicit bias in order to eradicate persistent social injustice? Structural prioritizers argue that we should focus less on individual minds than on unjust social structures, while equal prioritizers think that both are equally important. This article introduces the framework of transactive memory into the debate to defend the equal priority view. The transactive memory framework helps us see how structure can emerge from individual interactions as an irreducibly social product. If this is right, then debiasing interventions are structural interventions. One upshot is that the utility of the individual versus structural distinction is not apparent for the purposes of intervention.

     

Determinants of capacious memory: a process-dissociation and experiential approach

The aim of this study is to delineate some important circumstances where exceptionally good memory performance, or capacious memory occurs. A further aim is to study memory processes involved in this memory phenomenon. In a first experiment, participants looked through two series of pictures differing in number and were evaluated in two-alternative forced-choice and yes-no recognition memory tasks combined in a process-dissociation procedure. Moreover, participants were asked to provide remember and know responses to tap recollective experience. The results as to forced-choice recognition task accuracy and according to process-dissociation procedure estimates were replicated in a second experiment with a more intrinsic contextual manipulation, and in a third, forgetting experiment. In addition to replicating previous findings, the results show (a) that capacious memory is associated with strong feelings of recollection; and (b) that familiarity (in terms of the process-dissociation framework) contributes to this phenomenon.     

Autobiographical memory specificity and affect regulation: an experimental approach

This study investigated J. M. G. Williams's (1996) affect-regulation hypothesis that level of specificity of autobiographical memory (AM) is used to minimize negative affect. It was found that a negative event leads to more reports of subjective stress in high- as compared with low-specific participants. Also, afterward, high-specific participants rated their unprompted memories for the event as more unpleasant. The results indicate that, relative to high specificity, being less specific in the retrieval of AMs is associated with less affective impact of a negative event. Results are discussed within the affect-regulation model. It is suggested that future research take a more functional perspective on AM specificity.     

On the division of working memory and long-term memory and their relation to intelligence: A latent variable approach

The present study examined the extent to which working (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) reflect the same, related, or completely different constructs and how they relate to other cognitive ability constructs. Participants performed various WM, recall, recognition, general fluid (gF) and general crystallized intelligence (gC) measures. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the memory measures could be grouped into three separate yet correlated factors (WM, recall, and recognition) and that these factors were strongly related to gF, but were related less so with gC. Furthermore, it was found that the common variance from the three memory factors could be accounted for by a higher-order memory factor which was strongly related to gF, but less so with gC. Finally, structural equation modeling suggested that both the variance common to the WM tasks and the variance common to all the memory tasks accounted for a unique variance in gF. These results are interpreted within an embedded process model of memory and suggest that WM and LTM tasks measure both shared and unique processes, which are important for intelligence.     

Effects of distinctive context on memory for objects and their locations in young and elderly adults

Sharps and Gollin (1987, 1988) reported that older adults' memory for both objects and their spatial location is more facilitated than that of young adults when items are studied in a distinctive visual context. They also reported that age differences in spatial memory and item memory can be ameliorated if the items are studied in a distinctive context. The goal of this study was to verify and extend these findings by examining memory for everyday objects when the objects were studied on a (a) plain surface, (b) black-and-white schematic map, or (c) colored model. In Experiment 1, item memory was examined, and in Experiment 2, spatial memory was studied. The results indicated that spatial memory improved with the addition of distinctive context but item memory did not. Moreover, there was no evidence that elderly adults were more facilitated by the distinctive context than were the young.     

A processing approach to the working memory/long-term memory distinction: evidence from the levels-of-processing span task

Recent theories suggest that performance on working memory (WM) tasks involves retrieval from long-term memory (LTM). To examine whether WM and LTM tests have common principles, Craik and Tulving's (1975) levels-of-processing paradigm, which is known to affect LTM, was administered as a WM task: Participants made uppercase, rhyme, or category-membership judgments about words, and immediate recall of the words was required after every 3 or 8 processing judgments. In Experiment 1, immediate recall did not demonstrate a levels-of-processing effect, but a subsequent LTM test (delayed recognition) of the same words did show a benefit of deeper processing. Experiment 2 showed that surprise immediate recall of 8-item lists did demonstrate a levels-of-processing effect, however. A processing account of the conditions in which levels-of-processing effects are and are not found in WM tasks was advanced, suggesting that the extent to which levels-of-processing effects are similar between WM and LTM tests largely depends on the amount of disruption to active maintenance processes.