Deciding about decision models of remember and know judgments: a reply to Murdock (2006)

B. B. Murdock (2006) has interpreted remember-know data within a decision space defined by item and associative information, the fundamental variables in his general recognition memory model TODAM (B. B. Murdock, 1982). He has related parameters of this extended model to stimulus characteristics for several classic remember-know data sets. The authors show that this accomplishment is shared by both one- and two-dimensional signal-detection-based remember-know models (J. C. Dunn, 2004; C. M. Rotello, N. A. Macmillan, & J. A. Reeder, 2004; J. T. Wixted & V. Stretch, 2004), which can be represented in this same decision space and can be related to stimulus characteristics with similar success. Murdock claims that his model, unlike its competitors, is a process model; however, the process aspects of TODAM are not used in his application, and the decision aspects are identical to a previously proposed model. Murdock's claim that one competing model (STREAK; C. M. Rotello et al., 2004) is not fully specified is shown to be false. The new model is not superior to existing ones, but comparisons among the models to date are not definitive. The authors describe several strategies that might be applied to distinguish among them.     

Evidence for alternative strategies of sentence retention

Measurements of pupil size were taken while subjects listened to sentences and either tried to repeat them (R) or answered a question about them (QuA), after either a 3 or 7 sec retention interval. Pupil dilations were larger for R than for QuA, both towards the end of presentation and during the retention interval. Similar results were obtained by Kahneman and Wright (1971) when comparing total and partial recall of word lists. They attributed the differences in pupil dilations to differences in rehearsal strategy. However, the interaction between recall condition and retention interval was less convincing with sentential material, and an alternative explanation is suggested in terms of the level of abstraction at which the sentences are processed. This interpretation is supported by other evidence relating to the existence of alternative sentence retention strategies.

Pupil dilations failed to reveal phrase juncture phenomena, although two levels of ambient illumination were used in the hope of detecting such effects. In a modified question condition (QuB), where the question was given before the sentence, pupil dilations varied as a function of the part of the sentence providing the answer. These data indicated that people did not begin to frame their answer until they encountered in the sentence those words used in the question.     

Verbal short-term memory as an articulatory system: Evidence from an alternative paradigm

In a series of seven experiments, the role of articulatory rehearsal in verbal short-term memory was examined via a shadowing-plus-recall paradigm. In this paradigm, subjects shadowed a word target presented closely after an auditory memory list before they recalled the list. The phonological relationship between the shadowing target and the final item on the memory list was manipulated. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that targets sounding similar to the list-final memory item generally took longer to shadow than unrelated targets. This inhibitory effect of phonological relatedness was more pronounced with tense- than lax-vowel pseudoword recall lists. The interaction between vowel tenseness and phonological relatedness was replicated in Experiment 3 using shorter lists of real words. In Experiment 4, concurrent articulation was applied during list learning to block rehearsal; consequently, neither the phonological relatedness effect nor its interaction with vowel tenseness emerged. Experiments 5 and 6 manipulated the occurrence frequencies and lexicality of the recall items, respectively, instead of vowel tenseness. Unlike vowel tenseness, these non-articulatory memory factors failed to interact with the phonological relatedness effect. Experiment 7 orthogonally manipulated the vowel tenseness and frequencies of the recall items; slowing in shadowing times due to phonological relatedness was modulated by vowel tenseness but not frequency. Taken together, these results suggest that under the present paradigm, the modifying effect of vowel tenseness on the magnitude of slowing in shadowing due to phonological relatedness is indicative of a prominent articulatory component in verbal short-term retention. The shadowing-plus-recall approach avoids confounding overt recall into internal memory processing, which is an inherent problem of the traditional immediate serial recall and span tasks.     

Single-process versus multiple-strategy models of decision making: Evidence from an information intrusion paradigm

When decision makers are confronted with different problems and situations, do they use a uniform mechanism as assumed by single-process models (SPMs) or do they choose adaptively from a set of available decision strategies as multiple-strategy models (MSMs) imply? Both frameworks of decision making have gathered a lot of support, but only rarely have they been contrasted with each other. Employing an information intrusion paradigm for multi-attribute decisions from givens, SPM and MSM predictions on information search, decision outcomes, attention, and confidence judgments were derived and tested against each other in two experiments. The results consistently support the SPM view: Participants seemingly using a “take-the-best” (TTB) strategy do not ignore TTB-irrelevant information as MSMs would predict, but adapt the amount of information searched, choose alternative choice options, and show varying confidence judgments contingent on the quality of the “irrelevant” information. The uniformity of these findings underlines the adequacy of the novel information intrusion paradigm and comprehensively promotes the notion of a uniform decision making mechanism as assumed by single-process models.     

Implicit word activation during prerecognition processing: False recognition and remember/know judgments

Recognition memory for spoken words is influenced by phonetic resemblance between test words and items presented during study. Presentation of derived nonwords (e.g., /d/ransparent or transparen/d/) on a study list produces a higher than normal false recognition rate to base words (e.g., transparent). Test words that share beginning phonemes with studied nonwords have more false recognitions than do those that share ending phonemes. The latter difference has been attributed to familiarity resulting from prerecognition processing of spoken stimuli. As a listener hears/traens/, "transparent" may be activated as a potential solution. In the present experiments, we minimized contributions of postrecognition processing to this phenomenon by presenting a semantically unrelated test word (transportation) that was also expected to be activated during prerecognition stages of processing. The results indicated that false recognition was increased for words presumed to be activated only during prerecognition processing. Remember (R) and know (K) judgments revealed that the majority of studied words were R, and the majority of false recognitions were K. The lowest proportion of R judgments occurred for test words that were not activated during postrecognition processing (e.g., transportation and control words).     

Visual strategies used for time-to-arrival judgments in driving

To investigate the sources of visual information that are involved in the anticipation of collisions we recorded eye movements while participants made relative timing judgments about approaching vehicles at a junction. The avoidance of collisions is a critical aspect in driving, particularly where cars enter a line of traffic from a side road, and the present study required judgments about animations in a virtual driving environment. In two experiments we investigated the effects of (i) the angle of approach of the vehicle and the type of path (straight or curved) of the observer, and (ii) the speed of both the observer and the approaching car. Relative timing judgments depend on the angle of approach of the other vehicle (judgments are more accurate for perpendicular than for obtuse angles). Eye-movement analysis shows that visual strategies in relative timing judgments are characterised by saccadic eye movements back and forth between the approaching car and the road ahead, particularly the side line which may serve as a spatial reference point. Results suggest that observers use the distance of the car from this reference point for their timing judgments.     

Ecosystemic epistemology: an alternative paradigm for diagnosis.

An alternative paradigm for diagnosis based on cybernetics, ecology, and systems theory is proposed. This paradigm, termed "ecosystemic epistemology," suggests that diagnosis focus on knowing problematic situations in an ecological and systemic way. Theoretical statements concerning this approach are delineated with specific references to major family therapists. This discussion provides a foundation for an ecosystemic epistemology for diagnosis that addresses the following issues: (a) the meaning of system; (b) the symptom's presence in the system; (c) the therapist's presence in the system; (d) the ecological relationship system that emerges in diagnosis; and (e) the relation between ecosystemic epistemology and the process of diagnosis. In effect, this paper attempts to formally describe the underlying epistemology inherent in the work of therapists who approach diagnosis in an ecological and systemic way.     

A comparison of the multimemory and detection theories of know and remember recognition judgments

Know and remember recognition judgments were made in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1 either 3 (new, know, remember) or 4 (new, guess, know, remember) judgment alternatives were used. Also, the recognition test was either immediate, delayed 2 days, or delayed 1 week. In Experiment 2 the proportion of test items that were studied items was either .20, .50, or .80. Predictions were made from 2 multimemory theories regarding how proportions of know and remember judgments would change with these manipulations. Predictions were also made from 2 detection theories regarding the values of memory sensitivity and judgment criteria. The results supported the revised detection theory, which assumes unequal variances for studied and unstudied items, more than the multimemory theories. Furthermore, general processing tree versions of the 2 multimemory models were created including guessing processes. These extended models were shown to be inadequate in accounting for the data from the 2 experiments.     

Positive and negative intergroup contact predict Black and White Americans' judgments about police violence against Black Americans

We examined whether past positive and negative interracial contact predict people's views of interracial police violence. White (N = 207) and Black (N = 116) Americans reported on their past intergroup experiences before viewing information about one of two true events involving the death of a Black man at the hands of a White police officer. For White Americans, negative contact predicted a reluctance to blame the officer and a willingness to believe that people's responses to the events involved “playing the race card.” For Black Americans, positive contact predicted marginally less officer blame and lower beliefs that the victim was racially profiled. This suggests the potential for a vicious cycle, whereby past contact experiences color perceptions of intergroup conflict in the present.     

Semantic judgments of compressed monosyllables: Evidence for phonetic symbolism

Both frequency and speed of utterance have been implicated in studies of phonetic symbolism. Therefore, these two variables were manipulated independently. Three monosyllables were recorded and distorted by either increasing or decreasing frequency, holding speed constant, and by increasing or decreasing speed, holding frequency constant. The subjects were 15 college students who rated the resulting 15 stimuli (3 monosyllables X fast speed-normal frequency, slow speed-normal frequency, normal speed-high frequency, normal speed-low frequency, and normal speed-normal frequency) using 15 bipolar adjective scales, chosen on the basis of previous semantic differential and phonetic symbolism research. Five separate factor analyses were applied to the data. It was found that the normal speed-low frequency, slow speed-normal frequency, and normal speed-normal frequency stimuli generated approximately the same factors, while the fast speed-normal frequency and normal speed-high frequency stimuli generated factors similar to each other but with some notable differences. Separate analyses of variance were applied to the bipolar adjectives using speed, frequency, and vowels as main effects. The 15 analyses showed that subjects did judge the monosyllables as different on the basis of both speed and frequency. The implications of this study for phonetic symbolism research are discussed.This research was conducted at, and with the support of, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Portions of the research were presented at the meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Tucson, 1980.     

Bilingual comparative judgments: Evidence against the switch hypothesis

The notion that bilinguals possess a language-switching mechanism was examined. Subjects made comparative judgments about concrete concept pairs (e.g., cow-panther) and abstract concept pairs (e.g., joy-sorrow), which were presented either unilingually or in mixed language. There was no significant difference in latencies for unilingual and mixed language concept pairs, whether the pairs were concrete or abstract. The results substantiate neither the general switch hypothesis nor the notion that between-language and within-language associative networks have different transition probabilities.This research was based in part on the author's master's thesis, submitted to the University of Guelph.     

Evidence for auditory temporal distinctiveness: modality effects in order and frequency judgments

Two new, long-lasting phenomena involving modality of stimulus presentation are documented. In one series of experiments we investigated effects of modality of presentation on order judgments. Order judgments for auditory words were more accurate than order judgments for visual words at both the beginning and the end of lists, and the auditory advantage increased with the temporal separation of the successive items. A second series of experiments investigated effects of modality on estimates of presentation frequency. Frequency estimates of repeated auditory words exceeded frequency estimates of repeated visual words. The auditory advantage increased with frequency of presentation, and this advantage was not affected by the retention interval. These various effects were taken as support for a temporal coding assumption, that auditory presentation produces a more accurate encoding of time of presentation than does visual presentation.     

Evidence for age-related equivalence in the directed forgetting paradigm

The directed forgetting paradigm involves, under particular experimental circumstances, inhibitory mechanisms, which operate to the successful forgetting of irrelevant words. The item-by-item cueing method (e.g., Basden & Basden, 1996) was used to investigate the directed forgetting effect in young and old adults. Processing of the experimental words was manipulated between subjects by asking participants to perform either a deep or a shallow orienting task on each word of the study list before the occurrence of the cue (to remember of to forget). Results indicated that the instruction to process deeply both to-be-remembered and to-be-forgotten words led to equivalent directed forgetting effects in young and old adults. These results are discussed with respect to the implications they have for the Inhibitory Deficit theory (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988), which suggests that cognitive aging is mainly characterized by a reduction in the efficiency of inhibitory processes.     

Positive and negative emotions modulate attention allocation in color-flanker task processing: Evidence from event related potentials

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of emotions in conflict processing. Behavioral and event related potential (ERP) data were acquired from twenty participants while they were performing a color-flanker task, in which the stimuli were emotional and neutral words. Through temporal principal component analysis (PCA) of ERP, three PCA components were extracted with their time windows mapped to three ERP components: N1, N2 and P3. Further analysis revealed, when the stimuli were the positive words, N1 was marginally greater for the congruent condition than for the incongruent condition (p = .06); while the stimuli were the negative words, N1 was greater for the incongruent condition than for the congruent condition (p = .02); however, no significant interaction effect involving the valence of words (positive vs. negative) and the color congruency (congruent vs. incongruent) was found on N2, P3 and the behavior data. The result suggested that negative emotion might lead to more attention allocation in the incongruent processing, while positive emotion might lead to more attention allocation in the congruent processing. Furthermore, ERP source analysis in the present study confirmed anterior cingulate cortex was involved in the conflict monitoring mechanism.     

Urgency and negative emotions: Evidence for moderation on negative alcohol consequences

Prior research had shown that impulsivity may enhance the impact of negative emotions on alcohol related problems. However, these studies used broad measures of both negative emotions and impulsivity that may have obscured the effects of more specific constructs of impulsivity or negative emotions. One such construct is urgency, which is defined as the tendency to act impulsively in the face of strong positive emotions (positive urgency) or negative emotions (negative urgency). The present study tested whether urgency moderated the association between separate negative emotions (anger, depression and anxiety) and alcohol related problems. Data were obtained from a large online sample of currently drinking college students attending a large Northwestern university (n = 442). Findings indicated that alcohol related problems were directly associated with anger and both urgency facets. Additionally, positive urgency, but not negative urgency, enhanced the effects of depression, while the buffering effects of positive urgency on the anxiety-consequences association approached significance. These results suggest the importance of emotional context in understanding how dispositions towards rash action may lead to problematic alcohol use.     

Gender stereotyping and decision processes: extending and reversing the gender bias in fame judgments

M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald (1995) demonstrated a gender bias in fame judgments--that is, an increase in judged fame due to prior processing that was larger for male than for female names. They suggested that participants shift criteria between judging men and women, using the more liberal criterion for judging men. This "criterion-shift" account appeared problematic for a number of reasons. In this article, 3 experiments are reported that were designed to evaluate the criterion-shift account of the gender bias in the false-fame effect against a distribution-shift account. The results were consistent with the criterion-shift account, and they helped to define more precisely the situations in which people may be ready to shift their response criterion on an item-by-item basis. In addition, the results were incompatible with an interpretation of the criterion shift as an artifact of the experimental situation in the experiments reported by M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald.     

Lexical decision and aphasia: Evidence for semantic processing

Wernicke's and Broca's-Conduction aphasics and a Global aphasic were presented with a lexical-decision task in which English words and pronounceable nonwords were preceded by semantically related, unrelated, or nonword primes. The patients were also given a simple semantic-judgment task using the word pairs from the lexical-decision task. Wernicke's aphasics performed similar to normals and Broca's-Conduction aphasics showing significantly shorter latencies in making real-word identifications when preceded by a semantically related word. In addition, both superordinate and coordinate associates showed semantic-priming effects. Performance on the semantic-judgment task showed significantly more impairment in the aphasic group than in the normal controls. These results suggest that aphasics with even severe language impairments retain stored semantic information that may be automatically activated, yet is inaccessible to conscious semantic decision during metalinguistic tasks.     

How the measurement of memory processes can affect memory performance: the case of remember/know judgments

Relatively little attention has been paid thus far in memory research to the effects of measurement instruments intended to assess memory processes on the constructs being measured. The current article investigates the influence of employing the popular remember/know (R/K) measurement procedure on memory performance itself. This measurement procedure was extensively used in the past to assess the respective contributions of 2 processes to memory judgments, one based on familiarity and the other on recollection. Two experiments using unrelated word pairs showed that the use of an R/K procedure can alter memory performance. Specifically, the R/K procedure improved associative memory among older but not younger adults compared to conditions in which participants were not asked to provide R/K judgments. Such an effect was not observed in item memory performance. Potential mechanisms mediating these differential memory measurement effects are outlined, and the measurement effects' implications for memory and cognitive research are discussed.     

Decision strategies for the two-alternative forced choice reminder paradigm

The decision strategy adopted by an observer in a psychophysical procedure may be established by comparing estimates of sensitivity obtained by using detection-theoretic models based on each of the available decision strategies. Estimates of sensitivity obtained from 10 observers on auditory-level discrimination tasks using the yes/no, two-alternative forced choice (2AFC), and 2AFC with reminder (2AFCR; sometimes called duo-trio) procedures were compared in order to determine the decision strategy used by the judges in the 2AFCR procedure. 2AFCR permits at least three decision strategies: differencing, likelihood ratio, and comparison of distances. The latter strategy has frequently been assumed in the analysis of duo-trio data in the sensory evaluation literature. The present study demonstrates that the comparison-of-distances strategy was not used by 9 of the 10 observers in this auditory experiment. The nature of the instructions given to the observers had no measurable impact on the decision strategy that they adopted.     

Social inference and individual differences in aggression: Evidence for spontaneous judgments of hostility

This research examined the hypothesis that aggressive vs. nonaggressive individuals differ in their spontaneous trait inferences, i. e., inferences made without any conscious intention of inferring characteristics of an actor. We anticipated that spontaneous processing conditions would be more revealing of aggressive/nonaggressive differences than would conditions that prompt deliberate inference processes. We used a cued-recall paradigm. Aggressive and nonaggressive subjects were instructed to memorize sentences that were open to either hostile or nonhostile interpretations. Sentence recall was then cued by either hostile dispositional terms or by words that were linked semantically to the element of the sentences. Within the spontaneous inference condition, semantic cues prompted twice as much recall as hostile cues among nonaggressive subjects, whereas dispositional cues aided recall more than semantic cues among aggressive subjects. As predicted, within the delinerate inference conditions there were no aggressive/nonaggressive differences. The nature of spontaneous vs. deliberate inferential processes and the advantages of spontaneous inference paradigms for testing predictions about schema-based processing in aggression are discussed. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.