Judging the reality of others' memories.

Interpersonal reality monitoring (IRM) refers to our ability to evaluate whether other people's memories reflect real or imagined events. The current work examined IRM and whether or not it can be affected by training and feedback. We found that people are better than chance and that the ability to accurately make this judgement can be improved or reduced with appropriate and inappropriate training, respectively.

The effects of free recall testing on subsequent source memory.

The testing effect is the finding that prior retrieval of information from memory will result in better subsequent memory for that material. One explanation for these effects is that initial free recall testing increases the recollective details for tested information, which then becomes more available during a subsequent test phase. In three experiments we explored this hypothesis using a source-monitoring test phase after the initial free recall tests.

Noncriterial recollection influences metacognitive monitoring and control processes.

When retrieving information from memory, temporarily irrelevant material may influence future retrieval endeavours. According to an accessibility account, the amount and intensity of this information can be used to predict the availability of related material. A dual-source paradigm was used to investigate whether information that was not relevant (i.

The valence of event-based prospective memory cues or the context in which they occur affects their detection.

Event-based prospective memory tasks entail detecting cues or reminders in our environment related to previously established intentions. If they are detected at an opportune time, then the intention can be fulfilled. In Experiments 1a-1c, we gave people 3 different nonfocal intentions (e.

Recognition memory for valenced and arousing materials under conditions of divided attention.

Two experiments are reported that examined the effect of both valence and arousal on recognition memory performance. Each experiment used two classes of negative items that differed in arousal, as well as a neutral and non-arousing set of items. In Experiment 1 a difficult divided attention task was crossed with the learning and test phases of the experiment.

Memory for intention-related material presented in a to-be-ignored channel.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the fate of intention-related material processed in a to-be-ignored channel. Participants were given an intention to respond to cues in a visual-processing stream while simultaneously trying to ignore information being presented in an auditory stream. Subsequent to the ongoing activity, a surprise recognition test for information presented in the to-be-ignored auditory modality was administered.

Learning is impaired by activated intentions.

Two experiments examined the task interference that sometimes accrues from having an intention. In standard prospective memory tasks, latency is often slower to an ongoing task performed concurrently with having an intention than it is when no intention is given. If the locus of this slowing resulted from different attentional allocation policies in the two cases, we predicted that the process of learning a word list would be impaired if participants had an intention rather than if they did not.

Concreteness and item-to-list context associations in the free recall of items differing in context variability.

Context variability can be defined as the number of preexperimental contexts in which a given concept appears. Following M. Steyvers and K.