Recognition failures and free-recall failures: Implications for the relation between recall and recognition

Experiments showing that in cued recall subjects can recall words that they had previously failed to recognize have been taken to refute generate-recognize theories of recall, for those theories predict that recall is dependent on recognition. None of these experiments, however, has provided an appropriate test of Bahrick’s (1970, 1979) generate-recognize theory, which explicitly refers to words that are accessible to cued recall but not to free recall, that is, tofree-recall failures. When the experimental procedure was modified so as to provide tests of this theory, no evidence was found of any greater dependency between recall and recognition of free-recall failures than between recall and recognition overall. Free-recall failures do not, therefore, constitute any exception to many previous experimental findings that conform with the Tulving-Wiseman law, and so the account offered by Bahrick’s generate-recognize theory may be rejected. The results also suggest an explanation for some other conflicting evidence on whether recall and recognition are dependent or independent.     

A microcomputer-based tracking task for examination of the spatial and temporal organization of perceptual motor skill

A microcomputer-based tracking task is described in detail. The program that controls this task was written in Pascal and 6502 assembler language and was designed to run on an Apple IIe computer. The program was designed to allow the experimenter to vary such parameters as the velocity of the stimulus signal. In addition, several indicants of performance are recorded simultaneously and are averaged over selected time intervals during each trial. The paper also illustrates the applications of this particular computer program in the study of motor control and learning.     

Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects usedremember andknow responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection, for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally, but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.     

Maintenance rehearsal affects knowing,not remembering; elaborative rehearsal affects remembering,not knowing

In a directed-forgetting paradigm, each word in a study list was followed by a cue designating that word as eitherlearn orforget. This cue appeared after either a short or a long delay. It was assumed that a long delay would increase maintenance rehearsal of all the words, and that only the words followed by a learn cue would be rehearsed elaboratively. Moreover, because the interval between the words was constant, a short cue delay should allow more time for elaborative rehearsal. In a subsequent test, subjects maderemember orknow responses to indicate whether recognition of each word was accompanied by conscious recollection or by feelings of familiarity in the absence of conscious recollection. The hypothesis was that remembering depends on elaborative rehearsal, and knowing depends on maintenance rehearsal. In accord with this hypothesis, the learn-versus-forget designation influenced remember but not know responses, and there were more remember responses after the short cue delay; cue delay influenced know responses, regardless of word designation.     

Priming and aging: further evidence of preserved memory function

Priming effects in word-stem completion were compared with cued recall in young and older adults. Cued recall showed large effects of age and also of levels of processing, but these variables had little influence on priming in word-stem completion. Free recall showed large effects of age as well as superior recall for words that had been generated rather than read at study, but priming in word-stem completion was little influenced by age, and it was greater for words that had been read at study rather than generated. These findings were interpreted as providing further evidence that age-related impairments in memory performance are greatly reduced in implicit compared with explicit tests. They also provide convergent evidence for classifying word-stem completion as a data-driven rather than conceptually driven task.     

Memory awareness following speeded compared with unspeeded picture recognition

A remember-know paradigm was used to assess memory awareness following speeded and unspeeded yes/no picture recognition. The beneficial effects of picture size congruency at study and test occurred with speeded as well as with unspeeded recognition. In each case, they were associated with remembering, not with knowing, which remained invariant. Thus, size congruency effects were associated with remembering even when recognition occurred more automatically and hence may be more dependent on a relatively fast familiarity process. In a second experiment, speeded remember responses were compared with remember responses that followed speeded yes/no recognition. There was more remembering when it was the remember responses that were speeded, contrary to what might be expected if remembering reflects a relatively slow recollection process. These results have implications for the ability of dual-process models of recognition memory to account for memory awareness.     

Maternal Agreeableness Moderates Associations Between Young Children's Emotion Dysregulation and Socioemotional Functioning at School

The goal of this study was to explore associations among maternal agreeableness, child temperament (i.e., emotion dysregulation), and children's social adjustment at school. Participants were 146 children in kindergarten and Grade 1 (76 girls; M_age = 67.78 months, SD = 10.81 months). Mothers provided ratings of their own agreeableness and their child's temperament, and teachers assessed indices of children's socioemotional functioning at school. Among the results, maternal agreeableness moderated associations between child dysregulation and aspects of adjustment at school. Specifically, at higher levels of maternal agreeableness, the relations between child dysregulation and both anxiety with peers and their prosocial behavior were attenuated. Overall, the results suggest that maternal agreeableness may serve as a protective factor for dysregulated children. Implications for research and practice are discussed.