Extraversion and task properties as determinants of incidental recall

The present research investigated in a dual task design the effects of extraversion level and structural task properties on the recall of an incidentally learned text. First, the hypothetical relation between arousal level and attentional selectivity was tested. Second, the relation between structural levels in the text and recall of text elements was studied. It was found that (a) extraverts performed significantly better on incidental recall compared to introverts; (b) the nuclear sentences at the top of the hierarchical structure were the best recalled sentences, independently of arousal level; (c) the effect of differences in arousal on recall was only significant in case of the top sentences. The effect was absent in case of specificúsecondary sentences.     

Induced arousal and orienting tasks as determinants of intentional recall.

In this study, the author examined the effects of intention to learn, noise, and different types of orienting tasks on short-term and long-term recall for 15 Hindi paired-associates. Intention to learn improved recall, as did encoding of semantic features, and noise impaired both short-term and long-term recall. The analysis of short-term recall scores indicated that there were no significant interactions between these factors, but the analysis of long-term recall scores indicated that there were significant interactions between noise and orienting tasks and between intentionality and orienting tasks.     

Some structural determinants of melody recall

Sophisticated musicians were asked to recall, using musical notation, a set of unfamiliar folk tunes that varied in rhythmic structure and referents of tonality. The results showed that memory was facilitated by tonic triad members marking phrase endings, but only when their presence was highlighted by a corresponding pattern of temporal accents. Conversely, recall significantly declined when tonal information was either absent or obscured by rhythmic structure. Error analyses further revealed that the retention of overall pitch contour and information at phrase ending points varied as a function of these manipulations. The results are discussed in terms of a framework that links the acts of perceiving and remembering to a common attentional scheme.     

Anticipated Guilt as Behavioral Motivation

The current study posits that messages used to elicit behaviors to help unknown others must present substantial perceptions of a threat and efficacy to be successful. Given that many prosocial helping messages depict a threat to unknown others, the current investigation proposed that anticipated guilt is a motivating force behind individuals' willingness to engage in behaviors to avert the unknown‐other‐directed threat. Specifically, this study hypothesized that messages which induce substantial perceptions of (a) threat, (b) response‐efficacy, and (c) self‐efficacy would result in feelings of anticipated guilt that subsequently motivate behavioral intent and, ultimately, behaviors to avert the threat to unknown others and avoid the future guilt that they might feel personally. Brehm's (1966) psychological reactance theory, however, notes that such appeals might result in reactance and thus decrease compliance with a message's prescribed actions. Two research questions were posed to determine (a) whether or not individuals experience reactance and (b) what effect, if any, reactance has on compliance. Additionally, participants' accuracy in forecasting guilt was assessed. The proposed model and research questions were tested by focusing on the topic of bone marrow donation. Participants were assigned randomly to one of three message conditions (control and two experimental messages), completed a questionnaire and returned to complete a follow‐up survey 7–10 days later. The data were consistent with the proposed model, and additional findings indicated that participants did not experience psychological reactance and were not accurate when forecasting future feelings of guilt.     

Anticipated Emotions as Guides to Choice

When making decisions, people often anticipate the emotions they might experience as a result of the outcomes of their choices. In the process, they simulate what life would be like with one outcome or another. We examine the anticipated and actual pleasure of outcomes and their relation to choices people make in laboratory studies and real-world studies. We offer a theory of anticipated pleasure that explains why the same outcome can lead to a wide range of emotional experiences. Finally, we show how anticipated pleasure relates to risky choice within the framework of subjective expected pleasure theory.     

The recall and use of belief statements as bases for judgments: Some determinants and implications

When people are asked to report their beliefs in a (target) statement, they may search memory for other, “informational” propositions that bear on its validity, and may use their beliefs in these propositions as bases for their judgments. Several factors were hypothesized to affect the particular propositions that subjects are likely to recall under such conditions. Subjects first familiarized themselves with a list of informational and target propositions. Then, they reported either their beliefs in these propositions or their attitudes toward them. In a second session 1 week later, they recalled as many of the propositions as they could. Both informational and target statements were better recalled when the informational propositions were unlikely to be true. In addition, the target statements were better recalled when the informational propositions associated with them had unclear implications for their validity. Recall of one proposition was more likely to cue the recall of the other when subjects had previously reported belief in the target proposition (rather than attitudes toward it). However, it was more likely to occur when subjects had reported attitudes toward the informational proposition (rather than beliefs in it). The effects of these variables were interpreted in terms of their mediating influence on the strength of association between the informational proposition and both (a) the target proposition and (b) contextual and environmental cues in the situation where target beliefs are reported.     

A tale of two audiences: Narcissism,failure reactivity,and perceived criticism from the self and others as internalized audiences

We proposed a conceptual model which postulates that anticipating greater destructive (vs. constructive) criticism from the self and others partially explains the differentiation of narcissists’ failure reactivity as a function of narcissism subtype. Participants simulated failure, rated the likelihood of experiencing destructive and constructive criticism from social audiences (self and others [important other, unimportant other, social world]), and indicated failure reactivity (indexed as change in negative affect) following failure. Results generally supported our model. Vulnerable (grandiose) narcissism related to enhanced (reduced) failure reactivity and greater (less) anticipated destructive vs. constructive criticism from audiences, particularly the self. Controlling for perceived criticism from audiences attenuated relations between each narcissism subtype and failure reactivity, supporting the theoretical merit of our model.     

Anticipated compatibility as a function of attitude or status similarity1

Two experiments explored the effects of self-other discrepancies in attitude or status on judgments of another's desirability as a companion It was found that increasing discrepancy in status or attitudes led to lower judgments of compatibility and liking In one experiment, similarity of attitudes of another was found to correlate with liking him, desire to befriend him, do favors for him, and possibly conform to him. The contribution of some personality measures to the relationship between similarity and anticipated compatibility was a major focus of the study The inhibitory effect of a target's status discrepancy was more pronounced for subjects who were more sensitive to rejection Also, between targets of equally discrepant status, there was a general preference to affiliate with the one whose status was higher than the one whose status was lower–an effect which was even more pronounced for subjects who were sensitive to rejection More anxious subjects judged themselves as generally less acceptable to others, particularly to others of higher status. When predicting attitudes on the basis of limited information, females showed a greater tendency than males to see others as similar to themselves Finally, persons holding different attitudes from one's own were judged as more harmful socially, a bias which was more pronounced in females than in males.     

The Relative Importance of Anticipated Test Format and Anticipated Test Difficulty on Performance

In this investigation, the relative importance of the effects of anticipated test format and anticipated test difficulty on performance was examined by simultaneously manipulating both. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that test performance was affected more by anticipated test format than by anticipated test difficulty. This suggests that the superior performance of subjects who had anticipated a recall test versus those who had anticipated a recognition test, reported here and in previous studies, is more likely to be due to anticipating a recall format than to anticipating a more difficult test. Experiment 2 showed that subjects who had anticipated a recall test studied longer than subjects who had anticipated a recognition test, even when recall tests were less difficult than recognition tests. One explanation for this finding is that subjects inaccurately monitor the relative difficulty of tests across test formats. Subjects rated recall items as more difficult than recognition items, even when recall items are actually less difficult (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that a priori metacognitive knowledge may reduce the accuracy of on-line metacognitive monitoring.     

Rehearsal strategy as a function of recall expectation

The subjects were divided into three groups with respect to their expectations concerning a recall task given after the final trial of the usual STM distractor procedure. Group 1 were told only that they would have to recall during each trial's recall interval, thus did not expect to have to recall again. Group 2 were told that they would have to recall all the words presented in the experiment at the end of the last trial, in addition to the trial-by-trial recall. Group 3 were told only that they would have to recall after all words had been presented and they sat passively through the presentation trials. In addition to their recall expectations, half of the subjects in each group received a 2-s presentation and half received a 5-s presentation interval. It was found that the length of the presentation interval had an effect on the number of words recalled at the end of all trials, but recall expectancy did not. However, expectancy did determine the rehearsal strategies of subjects and hence the serial positions from which items were recalled.     

Recognition and recall as measures of long-term retention

Acquisition and retention of a list of paired associates were measured either by cued recall or by multiple-choice recognition. The method of testing used during original learning was combined factorially with the type of test administered after a 1-week interval. Speed of learning to criterion under the two procedures was comparable. Long-term recognition was substantially higher than recall. This difference did not interact significantly with the method of learning. Recall benefited substantially from a prior test of recognition, but there was little effect when the order of tests was reversed. It is concluded that (a) both occurrence and retrieval information were stored under each condition of learning, and (b) occurrence information is less subject to forgetting than retrieval information.