Long-term effects of testing on the recall of nontested materials

The isolation paradigm is a staple in the study of distinctiveness and memory. Isolated items are better remembered than non-isolated controls, and the standard interpretation of this effect is that subjective experience of salience recruits extraordinary processing to the isolated item. This interpretation is at odds with data showing an isolation effect when the isolate is not perceived as salient (e.g., von Restorff, 1933). All available research on the early isolation effect has tested memory after a relatively short retention interval. Perhaps the effect of salience on memory in the isolation paradigm would be revealed following longer retention intervals. The experiment reported here examines the effect of isolation following a 48-hour retention interval when the isolate evokes an experience of salience compared to when the isolate does not evoke that reaction. The isolation effect was substantial after the 48-hour delay but equally so for early and late isolation. Salience appears to have nothing to do with the memory processes even at the longer retention intervals.     

All of the above: When multiple correct response options enhance the testing effect

Previous research has shown that multiple choice tests often improve memory retention. However, the presence of incorrect lures often attenuates this memory benefit. The current research examined the effects of “all of the above” (AOTA) options. When such options are correct, no incorrect lures are present. In the first three experiments, a correct AOTA option on an initial test led to a larger memory benefit than no test and standard multiple choice test conditions. The benefits of a correct AOTA option occurred even without feedback on the initial test; for both 5-minute and 48-hour retention delays; and for both cued recall and multiple choice final test formats. In the final experiment, an AOTA question led to better memory retention than did a control condition that had identical timing and exposure to response options. However, the benefits relative to this control condition were similar regardless of the type of multiple choice test (AOTA or not). Results suggest that retrieval contributes to multiple choice testing effects. However, the extra testing effect from a correct AOTA option, rather than being due to more retrieval, might be due simply to more exposure to correct information.     

Adaptive memory: enhanced source memory for animate entities

ABSTRACT

The animacy effect refers to enhanced memory for animate over inanimate items. In two studies, we examined whether this memory advantage generalises to source memory. A multinomial processing tree model was used to disentangle item recognition, source memory, and guessing processes. In Study 1, animate and inanimate words were presented at different spatial locations on the screen. Animacy was associated with enhanced source memory for the spatial locations of the items. In Study 2, pseudowords were associated with animate and inanimate properties. Replicating previous results, the pseudowords were better remembered when they were associated with animate properties than when they were associated with inanimate properties. What is more, participants had enhanced source memory for the association between the pseudowords and the animate properties. The results strengthen the idea that animate items are associated with richer mnemonic representations than inanimate items.     

The effect of self-referencing on memory for different kinds of source information

ABSTRACT

Self-referential processing has been proven to be effective in improving source memory. However, it is unclear whether different types of source information would be consistently enhanced when an item is self-referentially processed. In two experiments, the authors examined the influence of the self (compared with other-referencing and semantic processing) as well as learning intention (incidental/intentional learning) on memory for two types of source information (spatial location and colour) that differ in the amount of cognitive resources they require to be encoded in memory. Results show that self-referencing has enhanced memory for spatial location of words whatever this information is learned intentionally or incidentally, whereas it cannot facilitate memory for the colour of words under the intentional learning condition, nor can it under the incidental condition. These findings suggest that self-referential processing is beneficial in memory improvement but not all-powerful, a source self-reference effect is subject to source information type.     

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.     

Stronger evidence for own-age effects in memory for older as compared to younger adults

Three studies examined whether younger and older adults better recall information associated with their own than information related to another age group. All studies compared young and older adults with respect to incidental memory for previously presented stimuli (Studies 1 and 2: everyday objects; Study 3: vacation advertisements) that had been randomly paired with an age-related cue (e.g., photo of a young or an old person; the word “young” or “old”). All three studies found the expected interaction of participants’ age and age-associated information. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the memory bias for information arbitrarily associated with one's own as compared to another age group was significant for older adults only. However, when age-relevance was introduced in a context of equal importance to younger and older adults (information about vacations paired either with pictures of young or older adults), the memory bias for one's own age group was clearly present for both younger and older adults (Study 3).     

When the face fits: Recognition of celebrities from matching and mismatching faces and voices

The results of two experiments are presented in which participants engaged in a face-recognition or a voice-recognition task. The stimuli were face–voice pairs in which the face and voice were co-presented and were either “matched” (same person), “related” (two highly associated people), or “mismatched” (two unrelated people). Analysis in both experiments confirmed that accuracy and confidence in face recognition was consistently high regardless of the identity of the accompanying voice. However accuracy of voice recognition was increasingly affected as the relationship between voice and accompanying face declined. Moreover, when considering self-reported confidence in voice recognition, confidence remained high for correct responses despite the proportion of these responses declining across conditions. These results converged with existing evidence indicating the vulnerability of voice recognition as a relatively weak signaller of identity, and results are discussed in the context of a person-recognition framework.     

Childhood and Offense-Related Trauma in Young People Imprisoned in England and Wales for Murder and Other Acts of Serious Violence: A Descriptive Study

This study describes the prevalence of traumatic childhood experiences and the extent of trauma-related symptomatology in a group of incarcerated young men within the Young People’s prison estate in England. Semistructured interviews using the Trauma History Interview, the Intrusions and Ruminations Interview, and the Impact of Events Scale–Revised were conducted with 34 young men aged 15 to 17 years who had either murdered or committed serious violence and were serving indeterminate or long-term sentences. Many of the young men had experienced high levels of childhood trauma, and some were still experiencing trauma related to the committal of their offenses approximately 18 months after their offenses had been committed. This is an important finding in relation to the prevalence of unrecognized and untreated traumatized young prisoners.     

Visual impressions of forces between objects: Entraining,enforced disintegration,and shattering

When a moving object (A) contacts a stationary one (B) and Object B then moves, visual impressions of force occur along with a visual impression of causality. It is shown that findings about force impressions that occur with launching effect stimuli generalize to other forms of phenomenal causality, namely entraining, enforced disintegration, and shattering stimuli. In particular, evidence is reported for generality of the force asymmetry, in which the amount of perceived force exerted by Object A is greater than the amount of perceived resistance put up by Object B. Effects of manipulations of kinematic variables also resembled those found in previous experiments. Some unpredicted findings occurred. It is argued that these reflect a change in perceptual interpretation when both objects are in motion prior to contact, due to both objects being perceived as in autonomous motion. The results are consistent with a theoretical account in which force impressions occur by a process of matching kinematic information in visual stimuli to stored representations of actions on objects, which supply information about forces.     

Exploring the memory advantage for moving scenes

Recognition memory is better for moving images than for static images (the dynamic superiority effect), and performance is best when the mode of presentation at test matches that at study (the study–test congruence effect). We investigated the basis for these effects. In Experiment 1, dividing attention during encoding reduced overall performance but had little effect on the dynamic superiority or study–test congruence effects. In addition, these effects were not limited to scenes depicting faces. In Experiment 2, movement improved both old–new recognition and scene orientation judgements. In Experiment 3, movement improved the recognition of studied scenes but also increased the spurious recognition of novel scenes depicting the same people as studied scenes, suggesting that movement increases the identification of individual objects or actors without necessarily improving the retrieval of associated information. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results and highlight directions for future investigation.