Unconscious influences on direct-test performance

From intense interest in implicit memory there have evolved various methods for separating the respective influence of implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) processes on performance of various tasks. Two experiments are reported, utilizing a levels-of-processing (LOP) approach to manipulate encoding level and comparable indirect (word-stem completion) and direct (cued-completion) retention tests. Confidence ratings of recollection were taken for each direct test response. The aim of these experiments was to explore the role that guessing plays in direct-test performance (Experiments 1 and 2) and to contrast this with performance in a comparable indirect test (Experiment 2). Analysis of correctly guessed responses showed that direct-test performance was reliably influenced by unconscious processes, but differently as a function of LOP. Guessing stems of nonsemantically processed words was found to enhance performance, whereas guessing stems of semantically processed words had no effect on performance. Results are discussed in terms of the similarity between guessing in a direct test and engaging in an indirect test, and subjects' unwitting resourcefulness at being able to retrieve words they cannot explicitly remember.     

Expression of nonconscious knowledge via ideomotor actions

Ideomotor actions are behaviours that are unconsciously initiated and express a thought rather than a response to a sensory stimulus. The question examined here is whether ideomotor actions can also express nonconscious knowledge. We investigated this via the use of implicit long-term semantic memory, which is not available to conscious recall. We compared accuracy of answers to yes/no questions using both volitional report and ideomotor response (Ouija board response). Results show that when participants believed they knew the answer, responses in the two modalities were similar. But when they believed they were guessing, accuracy was at chance for volitional report (50%), but significantly higher for Ouija response (65%). These results indicate that implicit semantic memory can be expressed through ideomotor actions. They also suggest that this approach can provide an interesting new methodology for studying implicit processes in cognition.     

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

Various factors could conceivably promote the accuracy of guesses during a recognition test. Two that we identified in previous studies are forced-choice testing format and high perceptual similarity between the repeat target and novel foil. In restricted circumstances, the relative perceptual fluency of the target can be compared with that of the foil and used as a reliable cue to guide accurate responses that occur without explicit retrieval—a phenomenon we referred to as “implicit recognition.” In this issue, Jeneson and colleagues report a failure to replicate accurate guesses and also a tendency on the part of subjects to hazard guesses infrequently, even though testing circumstances were very similar to those that we used. To resolve this discrepancy, we developed a simple manipulation to encourage either guessing or confident responding. Encouraging guessing increased both the prevalence of guesses and the accuracy of guesses in a recognition test, relative to when confident responding was encouraged. When guessing was encouraged, guesses were highly accurate (as in our previous demonstrations of implicit recognition), whereas when confident responding was encouraged, guesses were at chance levels (as in Jeneson and colleagues'' data). In light of a substantial literature showing high accuracy despite low confidence in certain circumstances, we infer that both the prevalence and accuracy of guessing can be influenced by whether subjects adopt guessing-friendly strategies. Our findings thus help to further characterize conditions likely to promote implicit recognition based on perceptual fluency.In several prior experiments, we reported findings indicative of recognition without awareness (Voss et al. 2008; Voss and Paller 2009). The experiments involved recognition tests for colorful and complex geometric shapes (kaleidoscope images). Subjects attempted to discriminate repeat stimuli (targets) from novel stimuli (foils). In some of our experiments, subjects made recognition responses and also rated the quality of their recognition experience or their confidence in their decision. For example, recognition often occurred with awareness of memory retrieval and with some level of confidence. On the other hand, correct recognition of a target sometimes occurred with no discernable awareness of memory retrieval or confidence; essentially, subjects felt that their response was merely a guess—and yet they were correct.Of course, the reason that a guess might be correct in a recognition test might have nothing at all to do with the subject having retrieved relevant information; the response might be merely a “lucky guess.” Our results, however, provided evidence that processes of implicit memory were operative in producing at least a subset of the correct guesses. In recognition tests using a forced-choice format, targets and foils shared a high degree of perceptual similarity and were displayed side-by-side, and we found that, for guess responses, the repeat stimulus was correctly selected remarkably often. With no stored information (and given that the target occurred equally often on the left side and the right side, and that targets and foils were counterbalanced across subjects), the repeat stimulus should be selected correctly 50% of the time in the long run. In our original report, we found that 82% of the guess responses were correct, which was more accurate than responses when trials with high- or low-confidence responses were pooled together (56%; data combined for all study conditions) (Experiment 2 of Voss et al. 2008). We referred to this phenomenon as recognition without awareness or implicit recognition. For the present discussion, we will use the latter term.Indeed, our results provided several additional reasons for linking implicit memory with this phenomenon of implicit recognition. In one experiment, each trial was classified as either (1) a recognition experience in which subjects recollected episodic information from their initial experience with the target; (2) recognition with familiarity for the target, but no other recall of prior information concerning the target; or (3) a guess with no confidence in the accuracy of the response (Voss and Paller 2009). We found that guesses were approximately as accurate as recollection responses (73% vs. 79%, respectively, averaged across encoding conditions), and that guesses were more accurate than decisions based on familiarity (59%, averaged across encoding conditions).Another feature of these experiments was that we contrasted two types of learning conditions. In one condition, to-be-remembered stimuli were viewed while subjects simultaneously performed a verbal working memory task. This task required that the subject listen to a spoken digit on each trial and respond according to whether the digit on the prior trial was odd or even (i.e., a one-back task). In the other condition, there were no spoken digits, and attention could be allocated fully to viewing the to-be-remembered stimuli. In several different experiments, recognition accuracy was higher with divided-attention study than with full-attention study. Although this is a highly unusual outcome for recognition performance, it was clear that divided attention during the study led to relatively less confidence during the recognition test, such that guessing was more prevalent, and these guess responses were highly accurate.Notably, these two key results—highly accurate guessing, and a recognition advantage for divided over full attention at study—were not obtained when recognition was tested with a yes–no format (targets and highly similar foils randomly intermixed and shown one stimulus at a time), or when a forced-choice test was prepared such that each target was paired with a random foil rather than a highly similar foil (Voss et al. 2008). On the basis of these findings, as well as additional results from electrophysiological recordings (described below in the Discussion section), we argued that subjects were able to weigh the relative perceptual fluency of the target and the foil only for forced-choice tests with high target/foil similarity, and then they could use this fluency cue to guide accurate selection of the target (Voss and Paller 2009).We aim to develop a line of reasoning to clarify why implicit recognition might tend to operate preferentially in certain circumstances, such as when the relative perceptual fluency of targets versus foils is likely to serve as a useful cue, and when the ability to remember specific stimulus details does not provide a useful cue (as is the case when these details are largely shared between the target and the foil). In many situations, however, perceptual fluency may not be a good basis for making recognition judgments. Often, accurate recognition reflects conceptual elaboration about the meaning of an event, and the conceptual features are typically remembered more robustly than the set of stimulus features perceived during the course of the event. Thus, implicit recognition may be less likely to guide a response in a recognition test in the presence of confident memory for the target. Dividing attention during encoding resulted in lower confidence during the recognition test, and this may have been one factor that promoted reliance on signals of relative perceptual fluency. Of course, there may be other factors that also promote or inhibit this type of strategy in a recognition test.     

Flexible use of source information: Processing components of the inconsistency effect in person memory

The impact of social expectancies on person memory is investigated in two experiments using a source-recognition paradigm. Multinomial model analyses disentangled effects on item-memory, source-memory, and heuristic reconstructive guessing processes. Cognitive load and retention interval were manipulated. In two pilot studies and Experiment 1, participants were presented equal numbers of consistent and inconsistent statements about two stereotyped targets. Source-memory showed an inconsistency effect that is restricted to conditions with load at encoding and longer retention interval. Consistency biases in reconstructive guessing of statement-person associations emerged under load. Item-memory exhibited only a small inconsistency effect in conditions without load and short retention interval. Experiment 2 yielded similar results, although expectancies were induced on-line via the distribution of positive and negative behaviors across non-stereotyped targets. Findings support a model of flexible use of source information, demonstrate the importance of source memory, and of assessing it separately from item recognition and reconstructive guessing.     

Older adults' use of metacognitive knowledge in source monitoring: spared monitoring but impaired control

While episodic memory declines with age, metacognitive monitoring is spared. The current study explored whether older adults can use their preserved metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses in the absence of source memory. Through repetition, words from two sources (italic vs. bold text type) differed in memorability. There were no age differences in monitoring this difference despite an age difference in memory. Older adults used their metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses but showed a deficit in varying their source guessing based on word recognition. Therefore, older adults may not fully benefit from metacognitive knowledge about sources in source monitoring.     

Input- and output-monitoring in implicit and explicit memory

Previous experiments have shown that the procedure of questioning subjects retrospectively about the input and output status of information (input and output monitoring) is a useful method for assessing the awareness states of subjects during implicit and explicit memory tasks. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the previous findings could be extended to other implicit and explicit memory tasks. We were especially interested in whether differences in input- and output-monitoring performance can be observed when both the implicit and explicit memory tasks are conceptual ones. In a final test phase, the target items from the study phase and new distractor items were presented. In a recognition-like situation, subjects had to decide whether an item had been presented in the study phase (input status), as well as whether they had produced the item in the memory-test phase (output status). In all three experiments judgments about the input status - but only for those items that had been produced in the implicit or in the explicit memory test - were more precise after explicit than after implicit memory testings. This finding was not influenced by the distinction between perceptual and conceptual-memory tasks (Exp. 1), and was obtained under conditions in which the implicit and the explicit memory tasks were both conceptual and differed only in test instructions (Exps. 2 and 3). These results suggest that not only subjects performing a perceptual test of implicit memory, but also subjects in a conceptual implicit test were less aware of using information from a previous study episode than subjects who received memory instructions. It is concluded that requiring judgments about the input status of information is a good method for assessing subjects test awareness and is preferable to the use of a questionnaire (Exp. 3). In contrast, in all three experiments no differences were found with the output-monitoring measure between implicit and explicit test conditions.     

Bias in conceptual priming

In recent years, Ratcliff, McKoon, and colleagues have argued that priming in perceptual implicit memory tests is the result of biases in information processing. Three experiments are presented that extend this framework to the conceptual implicit memory domain. Participants studied a list of words before receiving a set of general knowledge questions. For some questions, participants studied the correct answer; for others, they studied a similar but incorrect answer. Although study of a correct answer facilitated performance, study of the similar alternative hurt performance. Costs and benefits of previous study were observed in both production and forced-choice tasks. However, there was no benefit of previous study when participants studied both the correct answer and the similar but incorrect alternative. The pattern of results indicates that participants were biased to respond with previously studied words on the conceptual implicit memory test. This pattern is concordant with the biased information-processing approach to priming.     

The use of schematic knowledge about sources in source monitoring

Source monitoring refers to mental processes leading to attributions regarding the origin of information. We tested Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay's (1993) assumption that prior source-relevant knowledge is used in some source-monitoring tasks. In two experiments using different domains of schematic knowledge, two sources presented information that was expected for one source and somewhat unexpected for the other. In a later source-monitoring test, participants decided whether items had been presented by Source A, by Source B, or were new. The results of both experiments show that source identification is better for expected items than for somewhat unexpected items. Multinomial modeling analyses revealed that when participants do not remember the source of information, they guess that it was presented by the expected source. These results provide evidence for the claim that source monitoring can be based on prior knowledge and support a guessing hypothesis.     

贫富阶层刻板印象对源记忆的影响

源检测框架下,在记忆的提取阶段激活刻板印象会导致错误记忆,通过激活贫富刻板印象,考察对源检测记忆的影响,结果发现被试表现出刻板印象一致的错误记忆,通过多项式加工树模型的分析发现,被试在来源判断时利用刻板印象知识表现出猜测反应.     

Memory impairment and source misattribution in postevent misinformation experiments with short retention intervals

The four experiments reported here provide evidence that (1) misleading postevent suggestions can impair memory for details in a witnessed event and (2) subjects sometimes remember sug-gested details as things seen in the event itself. All four experiments used recall tests in which subjects were warned of the possibility that the postevent information included misleading sug-gestions and were instructed to report both what they witnessed in the event and what was men-tioned in the postevent narrative. Recall of event details was poorer on misled items than on control items, and subjects sometimes misidentified the sources of their recollections. Our re-sults suggest that these findings are not due to guessing or response biases, but rather reflect genuine memory impairment and source monitoring confusions.     

When obvious covariations are not even learned implicitly

The present experiments examine the impact of covariation type and attention on implicit covariation learning. Experiments 1 and 2 compare learning of stimulus–stimulus (s–s) and stimulus–response (s–r) covariations. Although stimuli and responses were predicted by a distinct feature of the display, implicit learning neither of s–s nor of s–r covariations was observed. Experiments 3–5 explore the impact of attention on implicit learning of an s–r covariation. Distinct features either of the targets or of an incidental but centrally presented object predicted the responses. Implicit covariation learning was restricted to predictors that were part of to-be-attended targets. Finally, Experiment 6 shows implicit learning of a partial s–r covariation in which only one of two responses is predicted by target features. It is argued that implicit learning is based on the formation of associations between simultaneously activated distinct representations. Because only attended stimuli seem to reach a sufficient level of mental distinctiveness, attending the predictive information most likely is an indispensable prerequisite for implicit covariation learning to occur.     

大学生对穷人的消极刻板印象及猜测偏向

主要考察大学生对穷人的消极刻板印象及猜测偏向。实验1中的两个单类内隐联想测验结果与前人研究基本一致：虽然被试对穷人热情的评价相对积极,但总体上认为穷人低能力、低热情。实验2通过源监测任务发现,在忘记特质词来源的情况下,被试倾向于猜测消极特质词来自贫困者,积极特质词来自小康者。研究不仅证实了大学生对穷人的消极刻板印象,而且进一步发现大学生存在对穷人的消极猜测偏向。     

Evaluating the contributions of task expectancy in the testing and guessing benefits on recognition memory

Recently, we have shown that two types of initial testing (recall of a list or guessing of critical items repeated over 12 study/test cycles) improved final recognition of related and unrelated word lists relative to restudy. These benefits were eliminated, however, when test instructions were manipulated within subjects and presented after study of each list, procedures designed to minimise expectancy of a specific type of upcoming test [Huff, Balota, & Hutchison, 2016. The costs and benefits of testing and guessing on recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42, 1559–1572. doi:10.1037/xlm0000269], suggesting that testing and guessing effects may be influenced by encoding strategies specific for the type of upcoming task. We follow-up these experiments by examining test-expectancy processes in guessing and testing. Testing and guessing benefits over restudy were not found when test instructions were presented either after (Experiment 1) or before (Experiment 2) a single study/task cycle was completed, nor were benefits found when instructions were presented before study/task cycles and the task was repeated three times (Experiment 3). Testing and guessing benefits emerged only when instructions were presented before a study/task cycle and the task was repeated six times (Experiments 4A and 4B). These experiments demonstrate that initial testing and guessing can produce memory benefits in recognition, but only following substantial task repetitions which likely promote task-expectancy processes.     

A comparison of attentional biases and memory biases in women with social phobia and major depression

Cognitive processes play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety and depression. Current theories differ, however, in their predictions regarding the occurrence of attentional biases and memory biases in depression and anxiety. To allow for a systematic comparison of disorders and cognitive processes, 117 women (35 with generalized social phobia, 27 with major depression, and 55 healthy controls) participated in a test of visual attention (visual search), an explicit memory test (free recall), and an implicit memory test (anagram solving). Both clinical groups exhibited attentional biases for disorder-related words, whereas only depressed participants showed clear evidence of explicit and implicit memory biases. The implications of these results for competing theories are discussed.     

Stimulus exposure time and perceptual memory

The recent explosion of research on implicit memory has facilitated the examination of perceptual and conceptual processes in the encoding of information. Nevertheless, stimulus exposure time—the amount of time that a stimulus is physically available to a perceiver’s scrutiny—has received little attention. In the present paper, we examine the effect of stimulus exposure time on three implicit memory measures (word-fragment completion, perceptual identification, and general knowledge) and two explicit memory measures (graphemic cued recall and semantic cued recall). In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that increases in exposure time lead to increases in implicit perceptual memory, but not to implicit conceptual memory, when the encoding task focuses on perceptual features of the stimulus. We replicated this effect in Experiment 2 and demonstrated that increases in exposure time lead to increases in perceptualand conceptual memory when the measures are explicit. Thus, the current experiments demonstrate that manipulations of exposure time lead to dissociations in implicit, but not explicit, memory.     

Implicit memory bias,explicit memory bias,and anxiety

Abstract

Normals high, medium, and low in trait anxiety performed two encoding tasks (one predominantly data-driven and the other conceptually driven) on threat-related and neutral words, followed by tests of word completion, cued recall, and free recall. Memory performance indicated the existence of negative memory biases in the high trait-anxious group, but it was generally not possible to decide whether the biases were associated with trait anxiety rather than with depression. The biases were obtained mainly when there was a match between the processes at encoding and those at the time of test, whether the matching processes were predominantly data-driven or conceptually driven. Implications of these findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with high trait anxiety are discussed.     

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.     

提取干扰对不同类型内隐记忆的影响

以往研究关于提取阶段的干扰是否会影响内隐记忆存在着异义, 其中一个重要因素可能源于所采用的内隐记忆测验类型的差异。本研究采用学习-测验范式, 通过4个实验, 分别考察了提取干扰对识别式知觉内隐测验、识别式概念内隐测验、产生式知觉内隐测验和产生式概念内隐测验的影响, 以期对提取干扰和内隐记忆之间的关系有着更全面的了解。结果表明: (1)词汇判断任务(识别式知觉)和语义分类任务(识别式概念)的启动效应在提取干扰下消失了, (2)而产生式词汇判断任务(产生式知觉)和产生式语义分类任务(产生式概念)在提取干扰下仍发现了明显的启动效应, 但与无干扰条件相比, 启动效应量也有着明显的减少。由此可见, 不同类型的内隐记忆都会受到提取干扰的影响, 相比于产生式启动, 识别式启动更容易受到提取干扰的破坏。     

Remembering the place with the tiger: Survival processing can enhance source memory

Rating the relevance of words for survival in the grasslands of a foreign land often leads to a memory advantage. However, it is as yet unclear whether the survival processing effect generalizes to source memory. Here, we examined whether people have enhanced source memory for the survival context in which an item has been encountered. Participants were asked to make survival-based or moving-based decisions about items prior to a classical source memory test. A multinomial model was used to measure old–new discrimination, source memory, and guessing biases separately. We replicated the finding of a survival advantage in old–new recognition. Extending previous results, we also found a survival-processing advantage in source memory. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival processing advantage and with an adaptive perspective on memory.