Spaced Retrieval Enhances Memory for a Name–Face–Occupation Association in Older Adults With Probable Alzheimer's Disease

The authors trained 4 older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease to recall a name–face–occupation association using the spaced retrieval technique. Six training sessions were administered over a 2-week period. On each trial, participants selected a target photograph and stated the target name and occupation at increasingly longer retention intervals, contingent upon successful recall. Two transfer tasks were included to determine whether the trained association transferred to the person whose picture served as the training stimulus. Results yielded a positive effect of spaced retrieval on memory for the trained association. Analyses of errors revealed that participants remembered the target person's occupation more often than his or her name. There was modest evidence of transfer of the name–face–occupation association to the actual person. Implications of these data for memory remediation and quality of life in cognitively impaired older adults are considered.     

Word-specific repetition effects revealed by MEG and the implications for lexical access

This magnetoencephalography (MEG) study investigated the early stages of lexical access in reading, with the goal of establishing when initial contact with lexical information takes place. We identified two candidate evoked responses that could reflect this processing stage: the occipitotemporal N170/M170 and the frontocentral P2. Using a repetition priming paradigm in which long and variable lags were used to reduce the predictability of each repetition, we found that (i) repetition of words, but not pseudowords, evoked a differential bilateral frontal response in the 150–250 ms window, (ii) a differential repetition N400m effect was observed between words and pseudowords. We argue that this frontal response, an MEG correlate of the P2 identified in ERP studies, reflects early access to long-term memory representations, which we tentatively characterize as being modality-specific.     

Verbal fluency and creativity: General and specific contributions of broad retrieval ability (Gr) factors to divergent thinking

The Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence views creativity as a first-level factor within the second-level factor of broad retrieval ability (Gr), alongside other first-level abilities such as ideational fluency and word fluency. Traditional methods of measuring creativity, however, confound idea quality with idea quantity, which might exaggerate the relationship between creativity scores and verbal fluency factors. Participants (n = 131 adults) completed two divergent thinking tasks (unusual uses for a rope and a box), which were scored using newer methods that effectively separate creativity (scored via subjective ratings) and fluency (scored as number of responses). They then completed 16 verbal fluency tasks that assessed six lower-order Gr factors: word fluency, associational fluency, associative flexibility, ideational fluency, letter fluency, and dissociative ability. Viewed singly, many of the lower-order factors significantly predicted creative quality and fluency. General Gr had substantial effects on creative quality (standardized β = .443) and fluency (β = .339) in a higher-order model as well as in a bifactor model (quality β = .380, fluency β = .327). Moreover, general Gr was the only significant predictor in the bifactor model, suggesting that it, not the specific factors, was most important. All effects were essentially the same after controlling for typing speed and vocabulary knowledge. The findings thus support the CHC view of creativity/originality as a lower-order component of Gr, illuminate the relationships between creativity and first-level Gr factors, extend the study of creativity and intelligence beyond fluid intelligence, and further indicate that creativity is more closely tied to cognitive abilities than creativity research has yet recognized.     

尝试提取复杂信息失败的学习：吃一堑长一智？

摘 要：在学习中,提取失败能否产生对知识的有效学习是一个很有意义的研究课题。以事实和概念类知识为实验材料,三个实验采用经典范式探讨了复杂意义条件下的提取失败后的学习效果。结果显示仅在尝试提取事实类题目失败后,促进了知识的保持和迁移;在迁移成绩上延时反馈优于即时反馈的效果。表明尝试提取复杂材料的信息失败后,知识的类型和反馈的时机决定了学习效果。     

Time-of-day affects prospective memory differently in younger and older adults

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of circadian arousal on prospective memory performance as a function of age. We tested a younger (18–34 years) and an older group (56–95 years) of participants on- and off-peak with regard to their circadian arousal patterns in a computer-based laboratory experiment. For the prospective memory task, participants had to press a particular key whenever specific target words appeared in an ongoing concreteness-judgment task. The results showed that prospective memory performance was better on- than off-peak in younger but not older participants. Younger participants consistently outperformed older participants in all conditions. We conclude that prospective remembering underlies time-of-day effects which most likely reflect controlled processes.     

提取练习效应的产生机制:编码、提取的整合演变

提取练习效应指相比同等时间的重复学习,对所学材料进行提取练习(即使无反馈)可使被试在之后的回忆测验中表现更好。早期研究从编码或提取单维度地对提取练习效应进行了描述性解释,新近以来,研究者整合了编码和提取在提取练习效应中的作用,从记忆加工全过程的角度考察了提取练习效应的产生机制,并得到诸多研究证据的支持。论文梳理了提取练习效应产生机制的各类假说,并重点分析比较了精细提取假说和情景背景假说,指出后者在解释提取练习效应上的优势。未来研究可结合认知神经科学的研究技术为情景背景假说提供更直接的证据,有关提取练习对于短期和长期记忆促进效果的争议也有待进一步解释厘清,同时如何在揭示其原理的基础上将其更高效地加以应用亦有待实践探索。     

When deception influences memory: the implication of theory of mind

When deceiving, one should remember to whom a falsified story was previously told; otherwise he or she may include inconsistencies, and the deception will probably be discovered. Bearing this in mind, we investigated the potential relationship between deception and the ability to remember to whom a piece of information was previously told (i.e., destination memory). Forty-one adults were given a destination memory task in which they had to decide to whom proverbs had previously been told. They were also given a questionnaire about deception (e.g., “I sometimes tell lies if I have to) and a cognitive theory of mind task in which they had to predict the behaviour of protagonists who hold a mistaken belief about the state of the world. Results showed a positive correlation between deception and destination memory (p <?.001), a relationship that was further mediated by cognitive theory of mind ability (p?<?.01). Deception requires monitoring and inferring what targets know, suspect, and believe. This monitoring ability (i.e., cognitive theory of mind) results in better processing of the target and consequently better destination memory. By showing the involvement of deception and theory of mind in destination memory, our findings emphasize the memory variations in social and interpersonal interactions.     

Brief wakeful resting can eliminate directed forgetting

When cued to intentionally forget previously encoded memories, participants typically show reduced recall of the memories on a later recall test. We examined how such directed forgetting is affected by a brief period of wakeful resting between encoding and test. Encoding was followed by a “passive” wakeful resting period in which subjects heard emotionally neutral music or perceived neutral pictures, or it was followed by an “active” distraction period in which subjects were engaged in counting or calculation tasks. Whereas typical directed forgetting was present after active distraction, the forgetting was absent after wakeful resting. The findings indicate that the degree to which people can intentionally forget memories is influenced by the cognitive activity that people engage in shortly after learning takes place. The results provide first evidence on the interplay between wakeful resting and intentional forgetting.     

The roles of encoding strategies and retrieval practice in test-expectancy effects

We investigated whether expectations for different kinds of memory tests induce qualitatively different encoding strategies. In Experiment 1, participants studied four lists of words and after each list completed a cued-recall test that contained either all semantic or all orthographic cues so as to build up an expectancy for receiving the same type of test for the fifth critical study list. To rule out that the test-expectancy effects in Experiment 1 were due to differences in retrieval practice, in Experiment 2, participants received three practice tests each for both cue-types. Participants’ test expectancy for all lists was induced by telling them before each list the type of cue they would receive for the upcoming study list. In both experiments, the critical test contained both expected and unexpected cues. In Experiment 1, participants who expected semantic cues had better recall to the semantic cues than to the orthographic cues and vice versa for those who expected orthographic cues. However, in Experiment 2, there was no effect of test expectancy. These findings suggest that the test-expectancy effects in Experiment 1 were due to more retrieval practice on the expected than unexpected tests rather than to qualitatively different test-expectancy-induced encoding strategies.