Differences in encoding for free recall vs. recognition

Three experiments examined effects of test expectancy on memory for relatively unrelated words. In Experiment I, where preliminary recall or recognition practice was given, both recall and recognition were superior when the subjects expected and had practiced for recall. Free study led to better recall and recognition than paced presentation, but did not interact with test expectancy. Experiment II demonstrated that recall was better for subjects expecting a recall vs. a recognition test in the absence of preliminary practice. In Experiment III all subjects practiced both recall and recognition prior to presentation of the critical list. Study time also was varied. With longer study, recall was better when a recall test was expected, with no test expectancy effect on recognition. There were no appreciable expectancy effects with the short study period. Self-reports and other data suggested that the critical encoding differences produced by test expectancy manipulation were quantitative in nature.     

Modes of cognitive control in recognition and source memory: Depth of retrieval

Recognition memory is usually regarded as a judgment based on trace strength or familiarity. But recognition may also be accomplished by constraining retrieval so that only sought after information comes to mind (source-constrained retrieval). We introduce amemory-for-foils paradigm that provides evidence for source-constrained retrieval in recognition memory (Experiment 1) and source memory (Experiment 2). In this paradigm, subjects studied words under deep or shallow encoding conditions and were given a memory test (recognition or source) that required them to discriminate between new items (foils) and either deep or shallow targets. A final recognition test was used to examine memory for the foils. In both experiments, foil memory was superior when subjects attempted to retrieve deep rather than shallow targets on the earlier test. These findings support a sourceconstrained retrieval view of cognitive control by demonstrating qualitative differences in the basis for memory performance.     

Social comparison after success and failure: Biased search for information consistent with a self-serving conclusion

Based on the traditional and attributional perspectives on social comparison, it was hypothesized that the search for social comparison information after performance outcomes is biased so as to provide evidence consistent with a favorable self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to believe that they obtained 16 or 8 out of 20 items correct on a bogus social sensitivity test and were then led to expect that most other students performed either well or poorly on the test. They were then given the opportunity to inspect up to 50 scored answer sheets from previous subjects. Consistent with the hypothesis, failure subjects requested more information when they expected it to reveal that most students performed poorly than when they expected it to reveal that most students performed well; success subjects showed little interest in this additional information, regardless of their expectancies as to what it would reveal. Experiment 2 employed a different approach to manipulating performance outcomes and led subjects to expect that most other subjects performed better, the same, or worse than themselves. Regardless of their own performance, subjects showed the least interest in additional information in the higher score expectancy condition and the most interest in additional information in the lower score expectancy condition. The role that this information search bias may play in producing self-serving attributions for success and failure and maintaining positive self-evaluations was discussed.     

Recognition is used as one cue among others in judgment and decision making

Three experiments with paired comparisons were conducted to test the non-compensatory character of the recognition heuristic (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002) in judgment and decision making. Recognition and knowledge about the recognized alternative were manipulated. In Experiment 1, participants were presented pairs of animal names where the task was to select the animal with the larger population. In Experiment 2, participants chose the safer 1 out of 2 airlines, and 3 knowledge cues were varied simultaneously. Recognition effects were partly compensated by task-relevant knowledge. The compensatory effects were additive. Decisions were slower when recognition and knowledge were incongruent. In Experiment 3, compensatory effects of knowledge and recognition were found for the city-size task which had originally been used to demonstrate the non-compensatory character of the recognition heuristic. These results suggest that recognition information is not used in an all-or-none fashion but is integrated with other types of knowledge in judgment and decision making.     

Cognitive effort and the word frequency effect in recognition and lexical decision

Cognitive effort requirements for high and low frequency words were assessed during study for a recognition test and during the performance of a lexical decision task. Recognition for these words was tested following each task. Low frequency words received greater effort than high frequency words during study for recognition, and these words were subsequently recognized better than high frequency words. Cognitive effort requirements during performance of an incidental lexical decision task were similar to those during study for recognition. Moreover, recognition performance following the lexical decision task resembled performance following a recognition expectancy. Overall, the results indicate that low frequency words require more extensive processing than high frequency words and that this difference in processing may be a factor in recognition word frequency effects.     

Recognition vs. classification of ill-defined category exemplars

In Experiment 1, subjects were trained on three ill-defined categories represented by 4, 8, and 12 exemplars. Learning was followed by either a classification test on old, new, and random exemplars or a recognition test in which each learning exemplar was presented with two foils, both equidistant to the learning exemplar, but one more similar to the category prototype than the other. In Experiment 2, category size was manipulated between subjects, followed by the recognition test. Recognition data indicated that increasing the number of learning exemplars did not increase the total amount of exemplar information retained for each category. In addition, the more prototypical foil was incorrectly recognized more often than the less prototypical foil. Classification data replicated previous findings that increasing category size in learning enhances classification of new exemplars. The results were interpreted in terms of the relative amounts of categorical and idiosyncratic information that were retained from the original learning stimuli. It was proposed that categorical information can become a more dominant determinant of performance as category size increases.     

The effects of recall and recognition test expectancies on the retention of prose

The hypothesis that people expecting recall and recognition employ different encoding processes was tested in two experiments using prose materials. In Experiment 1, unrelated sentences were used, and in Experiment 2, a short essay was used. The results indicated that a recall test expectancy led to greater sentence recall than a recognition test expectancy. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that people expecting recall and recognition retained different types of information contained in sentences. In Experiment 2, the effects of test expectancy were analyzed as a function of the structural importance and rated comprehensibility of sentences. A main effect of test expectancy was found in sentence recall, replicating the results of Experiment 1. Also, people expecting recall tended to remember greater detail than did people expecting recognition. The results suggested that encoding processes vary as a function of test expectancy and that the appropriateness of encoding depends on the type of test received.     

Recognition memory performance and residential burglary

This paper reports two studies of recognition memory performance in groups of juvenile residential burglars. Memory performance of the burglars was compared in Experiment 1 with police officers and a group of adult householders. In Experiment 2 a second group of juvenile burglars was compared with a group of juvenile offenders who had no experience of housebreaking. All groups were asked first to identify houses in photographs that would be attractive or otherwise to burglars. Subsequently, subjects were given a surprise recognition test where, in some photographs, physical features had been changed. Recognition memory for information about physical features of houses was significantly better for the burglary group than for the police officers, who in turn were better than members of the law-abiding public. In Experiment 2 the juvenile burglars' recognition memory performance was significantly better than the other offenders. These results are interpreted in terms of the burglary subjects possessing a level of expertise associated with their experience of offending. This is a finding with implications for criminology and for the application of cognitive psychology to crime prevention, an area of considerable practical importance.     

Phonetic-semantic mediated false recognition: does activation fail to spread?

Spoken word recognition involves brief activation of candidate words. Six experiments examined whether words semantically related to phonologically activated words would be falsely recognized. Experiments 1 and 2 involved homophones as test words; Experiment 3 used strong associates for the semantic mediation link. Experiment 4 approximated lists of "strong" converging associates. Experiment 5 expanded the real time needed for word identification by using a gating procedure during study. In Experiment 6, the goal was to create a more sensitive test by requiring participants to indicate which of two lures (mediated or control) was "most likely" to be new. Recognition errors were sensitive to separate phonetic and semantic stages in the mediated chain; however, there was little evidence of mediated false recognition, despite expectations derived from common models of spreading activation.     

Age differences in source forgetting: effects on reality monitoring and on eyewitness testimony

Age differences in memory for the source of memories were investigated using two different experimental paradigms. Experiment 1 used a reality monitoring paradigm. A series of actions were either performed, imagined, or watched, and subjects were later tested for their ability to recognize the actions and identify their origins. Elderly subjects made more false positive responses than did young subjects, and they made more source confusion errors, attributing actions to the wrong sources. Both new and imagined actions were most often misclassified as watched. Experiment 2 used an eyewitness testimony paradigm. After watching a film, subjects read a written version of the story. A recognition test showed that elderly subjects were more often misled by false information in the story than were the younger subjects, and were more confident that their erroneous responses were correct. The findings suggest that a decline in memory for sources may diminish the accuracy of elderly witnesses.     

Reprocessing as a recognition cue

The use of mental operations as recognition cues was investigated. Two experiments support the hypothesis that processing details are retained in memory and that a re-creation of those processing details can effectively cue recognition. Four subjects performed a mental arithmetic task that emphasized speed and accuracy while discouraging memorization of the numbers. Recognition was cued either by single numbers or by a pair of numbers that, when added, replicated an episode of the original task. Reprocessing an episode was the most effective recognition cue. Of the two single-number cues, the intermediate subtotals were recognized, whereas the numbers that had been physically displayed were not. The study suggests: (1) that the sequence of mental operations is retained in memory, (2) that reprocessing uses this trace to facilitate performance, and (3) that the detection of facilitated reprocessing aids recognition.     

Similarity of encoding context does not influence resistance to memory impairment following misinformation

Several recent studies have shown that exposure to verbal misleading post-event information does not impair subjects' ability to retrieve originally seen details. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that subjects would be more susceptible to memory impairment if the original and misleading information were presented in similar contextual formats. The results showed that misleading information did not lead to memory impairment when both original and misleading information were presented in the context of slides (Experiment 1) or when both original and misleading information were presented in the context of narratives (Experiment 2). Furthermore, resistance to memory impairment was observed both at relatively low levels of memory for the original information (Experiment 1) and at relatively high levels of memory for the original information (Experiment 2). The implications of the present results for interference principles of forgetting are discussed.     

Effects of imagining speakers’ voices on the retention of words presented visually

Subjects were introduced to one male and one female voice by a tape recording with instructions to attend to characteristics of the voices. Then 18 pairs of words were presented visually on slides. The subject’s task during each 10-sec interslide interval was to repeat silently the pair of words over and over again in the male voice, in the female voice, or in the subject’s own voice. A surprise recognition test for the words indicated that the words were more likely to be recognized if they were spoken in the same Voice at test as was used to repeat them during presentation. Recognition of the words repeated in the subject’s own voice was not affected by the sex of the speaker at test. In Experiment 2, different speakers were used at test than those used by the subjects to repeat the words. The interaction between the sex of voice used at encoding and at test was again significant, but recognition was generally lower than in Experiment 1. It was concluded that it is not necessary to assume that subjects have literal copies of spoken words in memory but speaker’s voice does form an integral part of the verbal memory code and its influence is specific to a given speaker as well as to a given class of speakers (male or female).     

Memory for lateral orientation of slides in picture stories

Three picture stories were constructed by taking slides of people involved in three different activities. Two sequences of these slides were presented. Subjects were asked whether or not each slide in the second sequence was in the same lateral orientation as in the first sequence. Experiment 1 presented the slides in correct or random sequence and in correct or random lateral orientation (2 by 2 design). The two groups who received correct orientation excelled in recognition of orientation in the test series. Experiment 2 replicated the random orientation condition, found that pre-warning of the recognition task had no effect on performance, and suggested that these subjects did not make use of the events in determining laterality. Experiment 3 replicated the correct order and orientation condition and further revealed that new but appropriate slides in the test series were accurately judged as to lateral orientation which fit the context of the original stories.     

Memory for objects in real scenes: The development of recognition and recall

Subjects examined crowded semirealistic layouts of toy objects, or photographs of these layouts, and then tried to identify added, moved or deleted items. The main study, involving 1st-, 3rd, 6th-graders, and adults, showed that although successful recognition of added items was superior to both recall of deleted items and recognition of moved ones, all three scores improved with age. In addition, false reports of “new” items decreased markedly in the older groups. The results argue against the widely held view that recognition memory undergoes little or no developmental improvement. No significant difference between real layouts and photographs appeared either in the main experiment or in replications involving shorter exposure (Experiment 2) or retarded subjects (Experiment 3).     

Acquisition-test interactions between

The effects of changes in context on recognition memory were investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1 target items were embedded in congruous or incongruous sentence frames and then tested in the original, new congruous, or new incongruous contexts. Experiment 2 included a third encoding condition; targets were also embedded in abstract definitional sentences. Both experiments revealed a reliable crossover interaction between the initial encoding condition and the mode of the changed context. Congruous items were recognized better in new congruous contexts, whereas incongruous items were recognized better in new incongruous contexts. Recognition of definitional items was equally impaired by both context changes. The results suggest the importance of the symmetry between acquisition and test encoding dimensions. These experiments also point out the need to distinguish between different ways in which the concept “integration” is used in current research.     

Picture memory: recognizing added and deleted details

When people are presented simple and complex pictures and then tested in a same-changed recognition test with a simple or complex form of each, d' is greater for the simple than the complex picture (Pezdek & Chen, 1982). The results of three experiments confirm the robustness of this "asymmetric confusability effect" and test a model of the processes underlying this effect. According to the model, pictures are schematically encoded such that the memory representation of both simple and complex pictures is similar to the simple form of each. In Experiment 1, a sentence was presented that described the central schema in the picture prior to subjects' viewing each picture. This manipulation exaggerated the asymmetric confusability effect; schematic processing thus underlies the effect. Results of Experiment 2 refute the hypothesis that the effect results from subjects erroneously anticipating a recall test rather than a recognition test. Furthermore, although some of the nonschematic elaborative information in complex pictures is stored in memory, it is difficult to retrieve to verify that something is missing when complex presentation pictures are changed to simple test pictures (Experiment 3). Thus, although people are able to distinguish large sets of old pictures from new distractor pictures, their ability to detect missing elaborative visual details is more limited.     

Interactive processes in sentence comprehension and recognition

Two experiments examined the roles played by semantic and surface information in reading and recognizing sentences. Subjects read sentences in normal and inverted typography. Their recognition of meaning and other sentence features was tested using sentences whose typography, wording, and/or meaning were either the same as or different from that in the first set of sentences. In Experiment 1, subjects either read aloud or performed a sentence continuation task. For originally inverted sentences, recognition of meaning was high, irrespective of task demands. For originally normal sentences, recognition was low for Read Aloud subjects and high for Sentence Continuation subjects. Sentence recognition was affected by repetition of wording and typography. Experiment 2 replicated the results with the read aloud task and showed the second reading of originally inverted sentences to be equally swift for paraphrase and verbatim test forms. It was concluded that reading and recognition are interactive processes, involving conceptually driven and data driven operations. The interaction of operations may be either automatic or controlled. While processing of normal typography is automatic, inverted typography induces controlled processing, resulting in better retention. Furthermore, semantic and surface information are conceptualized as interacting components of comprehension and memory processes.     

Some deleterious consequences of the act of recollection

Two experiments investigated the impact of responding to recognition test items that do not include a correct alternative. In Experiment 1, subjects who were given exclusively incorrect response alternatives were less likely than control subjects to favor the correct alternatives on a second recognition test. Analysis of subjects’ responses indicated that commitments, rather than distractor familiarity, was the main source of this effect. In Experiment 2, an impairing effect of committing to an incorrect alternative was observed even when the initial distractors were excluded from the final test. Thus, this decreased performance cannot simply be attributed to a bias toward remaining consistent. One interpretation of these results is that committing to a distractor causes subjects to remember a false detail that can interfere with their later ability to access the original information. Other potential theoretical and applied implications of these results are explored.