The effects of cueing and constraint instructions on children's free recall performance

The performance of nursery school children was investigated in two experiments involving cued and constrained free recall. Under constrained instructions, subjects were required to recall items by category. Under cued instructions subjects could recall items in any order they wished but the organized nature of the lists was identified and subjects were told that they would remember more if they recalled things from the same category together. No effects of cueing instructions were obtained in either Experiment I or Experiment II. Constrained recall instructions led to enhanced recall and category clustering. However, the beneficial effects were not maintained on later trials with the same list or on a transfer list when the constraints on recall were dropped. In addition, the introduction of constrained recall instructions had identical effects whether they were introduced early or late in practice. The results were discussed in terms of the influences of variables which affect the subjects' use of retrieval strategies and the development of memory.     

On the intentional control of conditioned evaluative responses

The evaluative conditioning (EC) effect is defined as a change in the evaluation of a conditioned stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US). The current research investigated the controllability of EC effects by asking participants to either promote or prevent the influence of CS–US pairings before they provided evaluative ratings of the CS. Experiment 1 showed that instructions to maximize or minimize the influence of CS–US pairings moderated EC effects in line with task instructions. However, this moderation was observed only when participants were able to recall the valence of the US that had been paired with a given CS. When participants failed to remember the valence of the US, significant EC effects emerged regardless of control instructions. Experiment 2 tested whether the influence of CS–US pairings on CS evaluations can be intentionally reversed. The results showed that reversal instructions led to a reverse EC effect when participants were able to recall the valence of the US that had been paired with a given CS, but not when they were unable to recall the valence of the US. Taken together, these results suggest that US valence memory is a necessary precondition for controlling the expression of a conditioned evaluative response, but it is not a necessary precondition for the emergence of EC effects per se.     

The effect of forced recall on illusory recollection in younger and older adults

The effect of an initial forced recall test on later recall and recognition tests was examined in younger and older adults. Subjects were presented with categorized word lists and given an initial test under standard cued recall instructions (with a warning against guessing) or forced recall instructions (that required guessing); subjects were later given a cued recall test for the original list items. In 2 experiments, initial forced recall resulted in higher levels of illusory memories on subsequent tests (relative to initial cued recall), especially for older adults. Older adults were more likely to say they remembered rather than knew that forced guesses had occurred in the original study episode. The effect persisted despite a strong warning against making errors in Experiment 2. When a source monitoring test was given, older adults had more difficulty than younger adults in identifying the source of items they had originally produced as guesses. If conditions encourage subjects to guess on a first memory test, they are likely to recollect these guesses as actual memories on later tests. This effect is exaggerated in older adults, probably because of their greater source monitoring difficulties. Both dual process and source monitoring theories provide insight into these findings.     

Phenomenal characteristics of cryptomnesia

Qualitative characteristics of cryptomnesia, or unintentional plagiarism were investigated. In Experiment 1 we compared accurate and inaccurate source attributions in terms of their level of confidence using instructions that did not require a fixed number of responses. Confidence was lower for plagiarised responses than for correct responses. Nevertheless, participants provided high ratings of certainty for a large proportion of their plagiarised responses. In Experiment 2 the phenomenological differences between plagiarised recall and veridical recall were compared by using an adaptation of the memory characteristics questionnaire (Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988). Correct responses were associated with more experiential detail than plagiarised responses. However, a considerable number of plagiarised responses were accompanied by a confident memory of at least one qualitative characteristic. Results are discussed in terms of the source monitoring framework developed by Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay (1993).     

Effects of Motivation on Young Children's Object Recall and Strategy Use

The study was designed to examine the effects of motivation on young children's recall for object names and early-emerging mnemonic activities. Seventy-two 4-year-old children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 instructional conditions: incidental, intentional, or motivational. Each child was shown 10 small toy objects and provided a 90 s study period prior to recall. The children's mnemonic behaviors were videotaped for subsequent coding. The children in the incidental condition were instructed to simply look at the toys while children in the intentional and motivational condition were given explicit instructions to remember. The motivational group was also told that they could keep whichever toys they remembered. A recognition memory task was employed to examine the extent to which the stimuli were encoded during the study period. The children's recall memory did not vary as a function of instructional condition. Children's use of singular versus multiple strategies was calculated, along with a weighted summary score giving most weight to the participant's use of mature mnemonic strategies. Significant differences in strategy use were found, favoring the motivational condition. Significant positive correlations were found between the weighted summary scores and object recall, and the teacher ratings of mastery motivation and object recall. Mastery motivation was found to be unrelated to the strategic summary scores, failing to mediate strategic behaviors. The results suggest that when providing incentives to remember, children apparently engaged in more effortful mnemonic processing in order to remember the items, even though a greater number of items were not recalled.     

The role of conscious memory in the category-production task

This study reported two experiments using the category-production task to examine the role of conscious memory in the conceptual indirect test of memory. Experiment 1 tested participants on both the category-production and recall tasks and found that, when participants were given ample time to do the production task, their production performance could be fully accounted for by their recall performance. On the other hand, priming was still found in the early production when intentional retrieval was unlikely to occur, indicating the influence of involuntary memory. Experiment 2 replicated the main finding of Experiment 1. More importantly, evidence from the exclusion instruction condition showed that there was no involuntary unconscious memory. These two experiments also demonstrated a dissociation of the delay effect between the category-production and recall tests, as well as a parallel levels-of-processing effect on these two tests. Results are discussed in terms of the nature of priming in the conceptual indirect test.     

Dissociating word stem completion and cued recall as a function of divided attention at retrieval

The aim of this study was to investigate the widely held, but largely untested, view that implicit memory (repetition priming) reflects an automatic form of retrieval. Specifically, in Experiment 1 we explored whether a secondary task (syllable monitoring), performed during retrieval, would disrupt performance on explicit (cued recall) and implicit (stem completion) memory tasks equally. Surprisingly, despite substantial memory and secondary costs to cued recall when performed with a syllable-monitoring task, the same manipulation had no effect on stem completion priming or on secondary task performance. In Experiment 2 we demonstrated that even when using a particularly demanding version of the stem completion task that incurred secondary task costs, the corresponding disruption to implicit memory performance was minimal. Collectively, the results are consistent with the view that implicit memory retrieval requires little or no processing capacity and is not seemingly susceptible to the effects of dividing attention at retrieval.     

The effect of encoding variables on the free recall of words and action events

On the basis of previously determined properties, it was hypothesized that, whereas the free recall of words is a strategic memory test, the free recall of action events in the form of tasks performed by the subject is nonstrategic. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1, some presented items were designated as being more important to remember than others. Although this encoding manipulation had a marked effect on word recall, its effect on task recall was minimal In Experiment 2, the encoding impact of events was measured by having subjects rate, during presentation, how likely they were to recall each event on a subsequent test. The ratings showed good predictive power for the recall of words, but not of action events. These results were accepted as further support for a strategic/nonstrategic distinction between word and task recall.     

Viewing instructions impact emotional memory differently in older and young adults

The current study examines how the instructions given during picture viewing impact age differences in incidental emotional memory. Previous research has suggested that older adults' memory may be better when they make emotional rather than perceptual evaluations of stimuli and that their memory may show a positivity bias in tasks with open-ended viewing instructions. Across two experiments, participants viewing photographs either received open-ended instructions or were asked to make emotionally focused (Experiment 1) or perceptually focused (Experiment 2) evaluations. Emotional evaluations had no impact on older adults' memory, whereas perceptual evaluations reduced older adults' recall of emotional, but not of neutral, pictures. Evidence for the positivity effect was sporadic and was not easier to detect with open-ended viewing instructions. These results suggest that older adults' memory is best when the material to be remembered is emotionally evocative and they are allowed to process it as such.     

Timing matters: Negative emotion elicited 5 min but not 30 min or 45 min after learning enhances consolidation of internal-monitoring source memory

Two experiments examined the time-dependent effects of negative emotion on consolidation of item and internal-monitoring source memory. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 121) learned a list of words. They were asked to read aloud half of the words and to think about the remaining half. They were instructed to memorize each word and its associative cognitive operation (“reading” versus “thinking”). Immediately following learning they conducted free recall and then watched a 3-min either neutral or negative video clip when 5 min, 30 min or 45 min had elapsed after learning. Twenty-four hours later they returned to take surprise tests for item and source memory. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that participants, without conducting an immediate test of free recall, took tests of source memory for all encoded words both immediately and 24 h after learning. Experiment 1 showed that negative emotion enhanced consolidation of item memory (as measured by retention ratio of free recall) regardless of delay of emotion elicitation and that negative emotion enhanced consolidation of source memory when it was elicited at a 5 min delay but reduced consolidation of source memory when it was elicited at a 30 min delay; when elicited at a 45 min delay, negative emotion had little effect. Furthermore, Experiment 2 replicated the enhancement effect on source memory in the 5 min delay even when participants were tested on all the encoded words. The current study partially replicated prior studies on item memory and extends the literature by providing evidence for a time-dependent effect of negative emotion on consolidation of source memory based on internal monitoring.     

Encoding information for future action: Memory for to-be-performed tasks versus memory for to-be-recalled tasks

What is the nature of the representation underlying memory for future tasks such as calling the doctor or buying milk? If this representation consists of a verbal instruction that is translated into action at the time of retrieval, then memory should be better when tested via verbatim recall of the instruction than when tested via actual performance. Three experiments rejected this possibility, indicating better memory for a perform mode of report than for a recall mode of report. This was true in Experiment 1 in which subjects saw a series of verbal instructions (e.g., “move the eraser,” “lift the cup,” “touch the ashtray”), with advance information regarding the mode of report required during testing. In Experiment 2, the advance cue was valid only in 75% of the trials. Memory depended more heavily on the expected mode of report thanon the actual mode ofreport, suggesting that the perform superiority is due to processes that occur during encoding. In Experiment 3, subjects learned 20 phrases depicting minitasks were remembered by subjects tested via performance than by subjects tested via verbatim recall. A second part of Experiment 3 also indicated superior memory when a perform test was expected, regardless of which mode of report was actually required. The results were compared with the finding that subject-performed tasks are better remembered thanare their verbal instructions, which suggeststhat the representation underlying memory for future assignments-may-take advantage of the imaginal-enactive properties ofthe envisagedacts. Other possible differences between memory for to-be-recalled tasks and memory for to-be-performed tasks are discussed.     

Factors modulating the effect of divided attention during retrieval of words

In this study, we examined variables modulating interference effects on episodic memory under divided attention conditions during retrieval for a list of unrelated words. In Experiment 1, we found that distracting tasks that required animacy or syllable decisions to visually presented words, without a memory load, produced large interference on free recall performance. In Experiment 2, a distracting task requiring phonemic decisions about nonsense words produced a far larger interference effect than one that required semantic decisions about pictures. In Experiment 3, we replicated the effect of the nonsense-word distracting task on memory and showed that an equally resource-demanding picture-based task produced significant interference with memory retrieval, although the effect was smaller in magnitude. Taken together, the results suggest that free recall is disrupted by competition for phonological or word-form representations during retrieval and, to a lesser extent, by competition for semantic representations.     

Dissociating word stem completion and cued recall as a function of divided attention at retrieval

The aim of this study was to investigate the widely held, but largely untested, view that implicit memory (repetition priming) reflects an automatic form of retrieval. Specifically, in Experiment 1 we explored whether a secondary task (syllable monitoring), performed during retrieval, would disrupt performance on explicit (cued recall) and implicit (stem completion) memory tasks equally. Surprisingly, despite substantial memory and secondary costs to cued recall when performed with a syllable-monitoring task, the same manipulation had no effect on stem completion priming or on secondary task performance. In Experiment 2 we demonstrated that even when using a particularly demanding version of the stem completion task that incurred secondary task costs, the corresponding disruption to implicit memory performance was minimal. Collectively, the results are consistent with the view that implicit memory retrieval requires little or no processing capacity and is not seemingly susceptible to the effects of dividing attention at retrieval.     

Further evidence on the similarity of memory processes in the process dissociation procedure and in source monitoring

Buchner, Erdfelder, Steffens, and Martensen (1997) proposed that the memory processes involved in recognition judgments in the process dissociation procedure are the same as those involved in standard source monitoring tasks. Two extensions of that research are presented here. First, following a line of reasoning recently brought forward by Jacoby (1998), the instructions in the earlier study could have triggered different processes from those triggered by his instructions. However, with instructions conforming as closely as possible to those reported by Jacoby (1991), Experiment 1 replicated the earlier recognition judgment finding almost perfectly. Second, the memory processes underlying fame judgments in the process dissociation procedure could also resemble those involved in source monitoring tasks. Indeed, the results of Experiment 2 are compatible with the hypothesis that the same processes are involved in fame judgments given a source monitoring or a process dissociation procedure.     

Time-limited effects of emotional arousal on item and source memory

Two experiments investigated the time-limited effects of emotional arousal on consolidation of item and source memory. In Experiment 1, participants memorized words (items) and the corresponding speakers (sources) and then took an immediate free recall test. Then they watched a neutral, positive, or negative video 5, 35, or 50?min after learning, and 24 hours later they took surprise memory tests. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that (a) a reality monitoring task was used; (b) elicitation delays of 5, 30, and 45?min were used; and (c) delayed memory tests were given 60?min after learning. Both experiments showed that, regardless of elicitation delay, emotional arousal did not enhance item recall memory. Second, both experiments showed that negative arousal enhanced delayed item recognition memory only at the medium elicitation delay, but not in the shorter or longer delays. Positive arousal enhanced performance only in Experiment 1. Third, regardless of elicitation delay, emotional arousal had little effect on source memory. These findings have implications for theories of emotion and memory, suggesting that emotion effects are contingent upon the nature of the memory task and elicitation delay.     

Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction

Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars more than meaningless irrelevant sound (Experiment 1). This effect was exacerbated when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material (Experiment 2). Importantly, however, these effects of meaningfulness and semantic relatedness were shown to arise only when instructions emphasized recall by category rather than by serial order (Experiments 3 and 4). The results favor a process-oriented, rather than a structural, approach to the breakdown of attentional selectivity and forgetting: performance is impaired by the similarity of process brought to bear on the relevant and irrelevant material, not the similarity in item content.     

Midazolam amnesia and short-term/working memory processes

We examined whether midazolam impairs short-term/working memory processes. We hypothesize that prior dissociations in midazolam's effects on short-term/working memory tasks and episodic memory tasks arise because midazolam has a larger effect on episodic memory processes than on short-term/working memory processes. To examine these issues, .03 mg/kg of participant's bodyweight of midazolam was administered in a double-blind placebo-controlled within-participant design. Performance on the digit span and category generation/recall tasks was examined. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that: (1) midazolam impaired performance on the digit span task; (2) midazolam did not impair performance on the category generation task; (3) midazolam impaired performance on the category recall task; and (4) midazolam's effect on category recall was four times as large as its effect on digit span. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that midazolam did not impair digit span performance when the digit span task was administered at a later time. These results suggest that midazolam can impair short-term/working memory processes, but these effects are substantially smaller than midazolam's effect on episodic memory processes. Moreover, they demonstrate that conscious awareness of materials during study is not sufficient to produce episodic memory.     

Memory organization of action events and its relationship to memory performance

Previous research yielded inconsistent results regarding the memory organization of self-performed actions. The authors propose that task performance changes the very basis of memory organization. Enactment during study and test (Experiment 1) yielded stronger enactive clustering (based on motor-movement similarities), whereas verbal encoding yielded stronger conceptual clustering (based on semantic-episodic similarities). Enactment enhanced memory quantity and memory accuracy. Both measures increased with enactive clustering under self-performance instructions but with conceptual clustering under verbal instructions. Enactment only during study (Experiment 2) or only during testing (Experiment 3) also enhanced enactive clustering. It is proposed that different conditions affect the relative salience of different types of memory organization and their relative contribution to recall.     

The first signs of prospective memory

We conducted a study to examine the impact of motivation and length of delay on performance on prospective memory (PM) tasks in 2-year of children. A total of 158 children aged exactly 24 months were asked to perform a naturalistic PM task. Length of delay (10?min; 35?min) and motivation (high; very high) were between-subjects factors. Two thirds of children had to be excluded from the analysis because of poor retrospective memory for the PM task instructions which were no longer remembered at the end of the session. For the children who did remember the instructions, both motivation and delay had significant effects on PM. Also, their PM performance was reliably above zero, even after the long delay. The findings indicate that when children as young as 24 months are able to remember the PM task instructions they can reliably succeed in PM tasks that are intrinsically motivating for them.     

Here's looking at me: the effect of memory perspective on assessments of personal change

Five studies manipulated the memory perspective (1st-person vs. 3rd-person) individuals used to visually recall autobiographical events and examined its effects on assessments of personal change. Psychotherapy clients recalled their first treatment (Study 1), and undergraduates recalled past social awkwardness (Study 2). Participants who were induced to recall from the 3rd-person perspective believed, and acted as though (Study 2), they had changed more since the events occurred. Subsequent studies revealed a crucial moderator: Third-person recall produces judgments of greater self-change when people are inclined to look for evidence of change, but lesser self-change when they are inclined to look for evidence of continuity. This pattern emerged when motivation (Studies 1 and 2), goals (Study 3), instructions (Study 4), and self-esteem (Study 5) determined participants' focus on change versus continuity. Results have implications for constructivism in memory and judgment and for the ability to sustain self-improvement efforts.