Memory for sentences: The subject superiority effect

Three experiments are reported on subject noun superiority in cued recall from S-V-O sentences. In Experiment I surface subjects were superior cues across a wide variety of conditions when the order of nouns/pronouns was matched in sentences and probes. The effect was less clear-cut in Experiment II, when cues and responses were confined to single key words.

The final experiment showed that cue superiority depends on the cue which subjects learn to use in retrieving information from sentences, and can be reversed by brief training. Several other aspects of the results, including a contrast in recall and recognition patterns, suggest that subject cue superiority results from the way subjects process remembered sentences rather than from memory trace structure. It is suggested that failure to control the utilisation of cues for memory retrieval may account for the sometimes elusive nature of the subject superiority effect.     

Directed forgetting and directed remembering in visual working memory

A defining characteristic of visual working memory is its limited capacity. This means that it is crucial to maintain only the most relevant information in visual working memory. However, empirical research is mixed as to whether it is possible to selectively maintain a subset of the information previously encoded into visual working memory. Here we examined the ability of participants to use cues to either forget or remember a subset of the information already stored in visual working memory. In Experiment 1, participants were cued to either forget or remember 1 of 2 groups of colored squares during a change-detection task. We found that both types of cues aided performance in the visual working memory task but that observers benefited more from a cue to remember than a cue to forget a subset of the objects. In Experiment 2, we show that the previous findings, which indicated that directed-forgetting cues are ineffective, were likely due to the presence of invalid cues that appeared to cause observers to disregard such cues as unreliable. In Experiment 3, we recorded event-related potentials and show that an electrophysiological index of focused maintenance is elicited by cues that indicate which subset of information in visual working memory needs to be remembered, ruling out alternative explanations of the behavioral effects of retention-interval cues. The present findings demonstrate that observers can focus maintenance mechanisms on specific objects in visual working memory based on cues indicating future task relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Volition in prospective Memory: Evidence against differences between free and fixed target events

Volition is the extent to which actions are generated as a result of internal states in contrast to responses to external conditions or dictated by external events. Delayed intentions about future action are stored in prospective memory until the intended action has to be formed at a later point in time. It is unknown how voluntary choice affects prospective memory. We compared the difference between freely chosen and fixed targets on the reaction times and task performance in the ongoing task and for the target stimuli in a prospective memory task. The task performance and the reaction time was modelled using a Bayesian hierarchical drift–diffusion model. The analysis showed no differences between self-chosen and fixed prospective memory cues on task responses. The result suggests that volition in choosing the cue to act upon or given a fixed cue does not make a difference for prospective memory task performance.     

Comparing older and younger adults in an event-based prospective memory paradigm containing an output monitoring component

Two experiments with younger and older adults were conducted to investigate the output-monitoring component of event-based prospective memory. In the standard form of the task, participants must remember to press a key when a certain class of items is encountered. To evaluate output monitoring, event-based cues were repeated and participants were asked to press a different key if they could remember that an earlier response was made to a particular cue. Younger adults forgot fewer of their successful responses, but displayed a distinct bias to claim that they had responded earlier when actually they had forgotten to respond. By contrast, older adults displayed this bias much less frequently. Elaborated responding to cues had the effect of improving the performance of younger, but not older adults. The results are discussed in terms of natural repetitions and omission errors that might be made in everyday prospective memory tasks.     

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.     

Comparing Older and Younger Adults in an Event-Based Prospective Memory Paradigm Containing an Output Monitoring Component

ABSTRACT

Two experiments with younger and older adults were conducted to investigate the output-monitoring component of event-based prospective memory. In the standard form of the task, participants must remember to press a key when a certain class of items is encountered. To evaluate output monitoring, event-based cues were repeated and participants were asked to press a different key if they could remember that an earlier response was made to a particular cue. Younger adults forgot fewer of their successful responses, but displayed a distinct bias to claim that they had responded earlier when actually they had forgotten to respond. By contrast, older adults displayed this bias much less frequently. Elaborated responding to cues had the effect of improving the performance of younger, but not older adults. The results are discussed in terms of natural repetitions and omission errors that might be made in everyday prospective memory tasks.     

Intelligence as the efficiency of cue-driven retrieval from secondary memory

Complex-span (working-memory-capacity) tasks are among the most successful predictors of intelligence. One important contributor to this relationship is the ability to efficiently employ cues for the retrieval from secondary memory. Presumably, intelligent individuals can considerably restrict their memory search sets by using such cues and can thereby improve recall performance. We here test this assumption by experimentally manipulating the validity of retrieval cues. When memoranda are drawn from the same semantic category on two successive trials of a verbal complex-span task, the category is a very strong retrieval cue on its first occurrence (strong-cue trial) but loses some of its validity on its second occurrence (weak-cue trial). If intelligent individuals make better use of semantic categories as retrieval cues, their recall accuracy suffers more from this loss of cue validity. Accordingly, our results show that less variance in intelligence is explained by recall accuracy on weak-cue compared with strong-cue trials.     

Monitoring the future: object and source memory for real and imagined events

In these experiments a memory‐monitoring decision is made, whereby subjects must decide not only whether or not to‐be‐learned stimuli will be remembered—the focus of all of the past research into the Judgement of Learning (JOL)—but also whether they will be able to assess the source of those stimuli, as assessed by a new measure, Judgement of Source (JOS). In Experiment 1 subjects had to judge whether they would remember the occurrence and the source of items that were either seen or imagined. Although seen items were better remembered and sourced than imagined, subjects were unable to predict this outcome: they underestimated their ability to recall seen items and overestimated their ability to recall imagined items. In Experiment 2 subjects had to discriminate between self‐performed or other‐performed enacted or imagined events. We expected that the motor cues associated with overt performance should provide more sensory information than had the visual input in Experiment 1, and this should help subjects to discriminate between real and imagined items. As predicted, JOL magnitude showed that subjects were now able to predict accurately that they would recall more enacted events than imagined events. JOS magnitude showed that subjects incorrectly predicted that self‐enactment would assist source memory compared to imagination. However, it was the source of other‐focused events which was more accurately remembered. The results are discussed in terms of Koriat's (1997) view about cue utility in making JOLs. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of external cues for endogenous advance reconfiguration in task switching

Most studies of task-set switching rely on cuing paradigms, in which external cues indicate the upcoming task. The present study used an entirely predictable task sequence in a variant of the alternating-runs paradigm of Rogers and Monsell (1995). Preparation effects with purely internal memory cues were compared with those in another experimental group with additional external cues presented prior to the stimulus. External cues led to strongly reduced shift costs with prolonged preparation time. However, this effect was much smaller with internal cues only. To account for this differential effect of preparation time as a function of cue type, it is suggested that internal cues select the next task set, which is sufficient to perform the task. External cues additionally facilitate preparatory retrieval of task-specific stimulus-response rules. This account may also explain why incidental task-sequence learning based on internal cues did not reduce shift costs.     

The development of prospective memory in young schoolchildren: The impact of ongoing task absorption,cue salience,and cue centrality

This study presents evidence that 9- and 10-year-old children outperform 6- and 7-year-old children on a measure of event-based prospective memory and that retrieval-based factors systematically influence performance and age differences. All experiments revealed significant age effects in prospective memory even after controlling for ongoing task performance. In addition, the provision of a less absorbing ongoing task (Experiment 1), higher cue salience (Experiment 2), and cues appearing in the center of attention (Experiment 3) were each associated with better performance. Of particular developmental importance was an age by cue centrality (in or outside of the center of attention) interaction that emerged in Experiment 3. Thus, age effects were restricted to prospective memory cues appearing outside of the center of attention, suggesting that the development of prospective memory across early school years may be modulated by whether a cue requires overt monitoring beyond the immediate attentional context. Because whether a cue is in or outside of the center of attention might determine the amount of executive control needed in a prospective memory task, findings suggest that developing executive control resources may drive prospective memory development across primary school age.     

Transfer-appropriate processing in the testing effect

The testing effect is the finding that taking a review test enhances performance on a final test relative to restudying the material. The present experiment investigated transfer-appropriate processing in the testing effect using semantic and orthographic cues to evoke conceptual and data-driven processing, respectively. After a study phase, subjects either restudied the material or took a cued-recall test consisting of half semantic and half orthographic cues in which the correct response was given as feedback. A final, cued-recall test consisted of the identical cue, or a new cue that was of the same type or different type of cue (semantic/orthographic or orthographic/semantic) as that used for that target in the review test. Testing enhanced memory in all conditions. When the review cues and final-test cues were identical, final recall was higher for semantic than orthographic cues. Consistent with test-based transfer-appropriate processing, memory performance improved as the review and final cues became more similar. These results suggest that the testing effect could potentially be caused by the episodic retrieval processes in a final memory test overlapping more with the episodic retrieval processes in a review test than with the encoding operations performed during restudy.     

The effect of perceptual distinctiveness on the prospective and retrospective components of prospective memory in young and old adults.

In two experiments, the effect of perceptual distinctiveness of cues on prospective memory performance was examined. Young and older adults completed a visual search task with embedded prospective memory instructions. On each trial, participants were asked to indicate the position of a target letter in a letter string, unless either of two letters previously identified as prospective memory cues was presented. Each prospective cue was associated with a specific response. Perceptual distinctiveness was manipulated by spatially displacing a single letter. The prospective component (successful detection of the cue) and the retrospective memory component (recalling the correct response when a cue is detected) were measured separately. Perceptual displacement of cues modulated performance of the prospective component but not the retrospective component. Young adults successfully detected a larger proportion of cues (prospective component) than older adults. However, there were minimal effects of age and no effect of cue displacement on participants' ability to recall the intention once they detected a cue (retrospective component performance). Results are discussed within the context of current theoretical models of prospective memory.     

To Forget or Not to Forget: The Effect of Probability of Test on Directed Forgetting

Two experiments investigated how individuals use explicit memory cues that designate different probabilities of test. As in typical directed forgetting studies, subjects received words explicitly cued as having either a 0% or a 100% chance of being on a subsequent memory test (i.e. forget and remember cues, respectively). In addition, some words were explicitly cued as having the potential to be either forgotten or remembered (i.e. a 50% cue). Recall of 50% words was between that of 0% and 100% words. In addition, the presence of 50% words lowered recall of the 100% words compared to that of a control group that did not receive the 50% words, but received the same number of 100% words. A think-aloud task indicated that these results were due to the 50% words being treated like either 100% or 0% words at encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of different probabilities of test on the strategic processing and representation of information.     

Attention and memory cues in concept learning as a function of task complexity and age

The effects of attention and memory cues on concept learning performance were investigated as a function of task complexity and grade level of Ss. It was found that: (1) the attention and memory cues were closely interrelated in their effects upon performance with both significantly improving performance at all but the lowest levels of complexity; (2) both types of cues considerably lessened the effect of stimulus complexity upon performance; and (3) the attention cue elicited the best performance from Ss in the first through ninth grades, while the memory cue elicited the best performance from 4-year-old and kindergarten Ss.     

工作记忆中的部分线索效应:任务呈现方式的影响

以往研究主要在长时记忆中考察部分线索效应,很少关注工作记忆中的部分线索效应及其作用机制。本研究采用项目再认任务,考察了工作记忆中提供部分学习项目作为提取线索,对存储在工作记忆中的已有表征的影响。结果发现：有、无部分线索试次分组呈现时,相较于无部分线索条件,有部分线索条件下再认正确率和d'降低,β升高,反应时间延长;有、无部分线索试次随机混合呈现时,有部分线索条件下再认正确率降低,β升高,但反应时间并无显著延长。结果表明：工作记忆中部分线索的提供降低了目标项目的表征强度;研究结果可用提取抑制假说解释,但工作记忆中部分线索的作用可能受注意资源有限性制约。     

Individual differences in event-based prospective memory: Evidence for multiple processes supporting cue detection

The multiprocess view proposes that different processes can be used to detect event-based prospective memory cues, depending in part on the specificity of the cue. According to this theory, attentional processes are not necessary to detect focal cues, whereas detection of nonfocal cues requires some form of controlled attention. This notion was tested using a design in which we compared performance on a focal and on a nonfocal prospective memory task by participants with high or low working memory capacity. An interaction was found, such that participants with high and low working memory performed equally well on the focal task, whereas the participants with high working memory performed significantly better on the nonfocal task than did their counterparts with low working memory. Thus, controlled attention was only necessary for detecting event-based prospective memory cues in the nonfocal task. These results have implications for theories of prospective memory, the processes necessary for cue detection, and the successful fulfillment of intentions.     

Remembering ads: The effects of encoding strategies,retrieval cues,and emotional response

This study uses the encoding specificity principle ( Tulving & Thomson, 1973 ) and the distinction between episodic and semantic knowledge to test predictions about the effects of processing goals and retrieval cues on memory for emotional and neutral TV commercials. Subjects viewed five emotional and five neutral ads embedded in programming. Encoding instructions asked subjects to either (a) evaluate each product or (b) “just watch” as they viewed the ads. Retrieval cues were either the opening scene of each ad (executional cue) or the product category (categorical cue). Both recall and response-time measures were used to index ad memory-trace accessibility. The results showed that when encoding and retrieval conditions were compatible (evaluation instructions with categorical cue, and just-watch instructions with executional cue) ad memory traces were retrieved more rapidly than when encoding and retrieval conditions were incompatible. In addition, subjects who “just watched” emotional ads were able to retrieve those ad memory traces more rapidly when given an executional cue compared to a categorical cue, whereas subjects who evaluated neutral ads at encoding recalled more ads, and retrieved them more rapidly, when given a categorical cue compared to an executional cue. Finally, we show that searching memory first with an executional cue and then with a product-category cue leads to an increase in ad recall for both emotional and neutral ads, whereas searching first with a categorical cue and then with an executional cue leads to a decrease in ad recall for neutral ads.     

Evidence for a Multiple-process Account of the Generation Effect

In a naturalistic study, we aimed to uncover the relationship between thinking about and remembering intentions. Electronic badges allowed us to track the activities of subjects within their work environment. Over two weeks, subjects were asked to respond using a button on their badges (1) every two hours (Time task); (2) whenever they were in a particular room (Place task). In addition, whenever they thought about the task, they were asked to indicate this with their badges. Although subjects thought about the Time task more, they forgot to respond more often than in the Place task. In the Time task, there was a marked absence of thoughts about the task following successful remembering. When subjects remembered the Place task, thoughts increased with proximity to the target location. In both tasks, thoughts about intentions occurred more in places such as stairwells than in locations where people tended to settle. On the basis of these findings, possible mechanisms for prospective memory are discussed.     

Cue familiarity but not target retrievability enhances feeling-of-knowing judgments.

Two hypotheses concerning people's ability to predict later memory performance for unrecalled items were investigated. The target retrievability hypothesis states that feeling-of-knowing judgments (FKJs) are based on partial target information; and the cue familiarity hypothesis asserts that they are based on recognition of the cues. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects either generated or read the targets of paired associates. Half of the cues had been primed in a pleasantness-rating task. The generation manipulation increased recall but had no effect on FKJs. Cue priming had no effect on recall but increased FKJs. In Experiment 3, using general information questions, primed after the initial recall attempt, both cue and target priming increased FKJs. Experiment 4, which remedied difficulties in Experiment 3, showed no effect of target priming whereas cue priming increased FKJs. The results favor the cue familiarity hypothesis.     

记忆抑制在正常人群与抑郁人群中的研究进展

抑郁症认知障碍的突出表现之一为患者的负性记忆偏向。已有研究常关注患者对负性信息自下而上的选择性注意,往往忽略了自上而下执行控制障碍对记忆的影响。近年研究提示,抑郁症患者和抑郁状态个体的记忆抑制缺陷在其负性记忆偏向的形成和维持中起到了重要作用,无法有效地主动抑制负性记忆可能是患者持续性负性反刍的主要原因。从抑郁症自上而下的执行控制缺陷入手,研究患者的记忆抑制障碍与其主要症状－负性反刍间的相关性,不仅能从理论上丰富Beck的抑郁症认知模型,还能指导临床建立更准确的预后评估指标,同时制定更有效的治疗方案。本文分别介绍了健康成人及抑郁症患者和抑郁状态个体的记忆抑制研究现状,并就当前在抑郁人群研究领域亟待解决的三个问题进行了探讨。