How varying cue duration influences item-method directed forgetting: A novel selective retrieval interpretation.

A series of four experiments tested the assumptions of the most prominent and longstanding account of item-method directed forgetting: the selective rehearsal account. In the item-method directed forgetting paradigm, each presented item is followed by its own instructional cue during the study phase - either to-be-forgotten (F) or to-be-remembered (R). On a subsequent test, memory is poorer for F items than for R items.

Recognition memory: The probe, the returned signal, and the decision.

In an attempt to better understand recognition memory we look at how three approaches (dual processing, signal detection, and global matching) have addressed the probe, the returned signal and the decision in four recognition paradigms. These are single-item recognition (including the remember/know paradigm), recognition in relational context, associative recognition, and source monitoring. The contrast, with regards to the double-miss rate (the probability of recognizing neither item in intact and rearranged pairs) and the effect of the oldness of the other member of the test pair, between identifying the old words in test pairs (the relational context paradigm) and first identifying the intact test pairs and then identifying the old words (adding associative recognition to the relational context paradigm) suggests that the retrieval of associative information in the relational context paradigm is unintentional, unlike the retrieval of associative information in associative recognition.

A conceptual-perceptual distinctiveness processing account of the superior recognition memory of pictures over environmental sounds.

Researchers have proposed a coarser or gist-based representation for sounds, whereas a more verbatim-based representation is retrieved from long-term memory to account for higher recognition performance for pictures. This study examined the mechanism for the recognition advantage for pictures. In Experiment 1A, pictures and sounds were presented in separate trials in a mixed list during the study phase and participants showed in a yes-no test, a higher proportion of correct responses for targets, exemplar foils categorically related to the target, and novel foils for pictures compared with sounds.

Using preexperimental familiarity to compare the ICE and cue-overload accounts of context-dependent memory in item recognition.

In recognition, context effects often manifest as higher hit and false-alarm rates to probes tested in an old context compared with probes tested in a new context; sometimes, this concordant effect is accompanied by a discrimination advantage. According to the cue-overload account of context effects (Rutherford, 2004), context acts like any other cue, and thus context effects should be larger with lighter context loads. Conversely, the Item, Associated Context, and Ensemble (ICE) account (Murnane et al.

Two dichotomies of recognition memory.

Murdock (1974, Lawrence Erlbaum) distinguished between the encoding and retrieval of item information (the representation of individual events) and associative information (the representation of relations between separate events). Mandler (1980, ) proposed that recognition decisions could be based on the sense of familiarity engendered by the stimulus or on the retrieval of conceptual, semantic, and contextual information about the target. These two distinctions have motivated a considerable amount of research over the past 40 years and have provided much of the bases for our current understanding of recognition memory.

Stimulus-based mirror effects revisited.

The mirror effect is the finding that in recognition tests, a manipulation that increases the hit rate also decreases the false alarm rate. For example, low frequency words have a higher hit rate and a lower false alarm rate than high frequency words. Because the mirror effect is held to be a regularity of memory, it has had a pronounced influence on theories of recognition.

Testing a Strategy-Disruption Account of the List-Strength Effect.

Presenting items multiple times on a study list increases their memorability, a process known as item strengthening. The list-strength effect (LSE) refers to the finding that, compared to unstrengthened (pure) lists, lists for which a subset of the items have been strengthened produce enhanced memory for the strengthened items and depressed memory for the unstrengthened items. Although the LSE is found in free recall (Tulving & Hastie, 1972), it does not occur in recognition (Ratcliff et al.

In support of selective rehearsal: Double-item presentation in item-method directed forgetting.

Despite the substantial evidence highlighting the role of selective rehearsal in item-method directed forgetting, recent work has suggested that forgetting may occur as a function of an active inhibitory mechanism that is more effortful than elaborative rehearsal processes. In the present work, we test this hypothesis by implementing a double-item presentation within the item-method directed forgetting paradigm. Participants studied two unrelated items at a time.

The list-length effect occurs in cued recall with the retroactive design but not the proactive design.

An ongoing debate in the memory literature concerns whether the list-length effect (better memory for short lists compared with long lists) exists in item recognition (Annis, Lenes, Westfall, Criss, & Malmberg, 2015; Dennis, Lee, & Kinnell, 2008). This debate was initiated when Dennis and Humphreys (2001) showed that, when confounds present in earlier list-length experiments were controlled, the list-length effect disappeared. The issue has yet to be settled.

Diffusion modeling of interference and decay in auditory short-term memory.

Decay and interference are two leading proposals for the cause of forgetting from working and/or short-term memory, and mathematical models of both processes exist. In the present study, we apply a computational model to data from a simple short-term memory task and demonstrate that decay and interference can co-occur in the same experimental paradigm, and that neither decay nor interference alone can account for all cases of forgetting.

Item-based directed forgetting for categorized lists: Forgetting of words that were not presented.

The effect of item-based directed forgetting (DF) on recognition memory for categorized word lists was examined. For half of the categories, all studied exemplars were followed by a remember cue; for the other half of the categories, all studied exemplars were followed by a forget cue. In Experiment 1, a 2-alternative forced-choice recognition test showed decreased recognition for to-be-forgotten items.

Listening to the Picture-Superiority Effect.

The picture-superiority effect (PSE) refers to the finding that, all else being equal, pictures are remembered better than words ( Paivio & Csapo, 1973 ). Dual-coding theory (DCT; Paivio, 1991 ) is often used to explain the PSE. According to DCT, pictures are more likely to be encoded imaginally and verbally than words.

Directed forgetting for categorised pictures: recognition memory for perceptual details versus gist.

Item-based directed forgetting (DF) was tested using 2-alternative forced-choice recognition to examine the effects of forgetting instructions on memory for perceptual detail and gist of categorised pictures of scenes and objects in three experiments. When the distractor is from the same category as the target (exemplar test condition), discrimination must be based on memory for perceptual details, whereas recognition can be based on gist or general category information when the distractor is from a novel category (novel test condition). Recognition accuracy was greater for Remember-cued than Forget-cued pictures when discrimination must be based on perceptual details in the exemplar test condition but not when discrimination could be based on gist in the novel test condition.

Effects of free choice and outcome valence on the sense of agency: evidence from measures of intentional binding and feelings of control.

Everyday actions can be characterized by whether they are freely chosen or commanded by external stimuli, and whether they produce pleasant or unpleasant outcomes. To assess how these aspects of actions affect the sense of agency, we asked participants to perform freely selected or instructed key presses which could produce pleasant or unpleasant chords. We obtained estimates of the key press-chord intervals and ratings of the feeling of control (FoC) over the outcomes.

The effects of freedom of choice in action selection on perceived mental effort and the sense of agency.

Previous research showed that increasing the number of action alternatives enhances the sense of agency (SoA). Here, we investigated whether choice space could affect subjective judgments of mental effort experienced during action selection and examined the link between subjective effort and the SoA. Participants performed freely selected (among two, three, or four options) and instructed actions that produced pleasant or unpleasant tones.

The effects of context in item-based directed forgetting: Evidence for "one-shot" context storage.

The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presented against different background pictures and were followed by a cue to remember (R) or forget (F) the target item. The effects of incidental and intentional encoding of context on recognition of the study words were examined in Experiments 1 and 2.

Effects of varying presentation time on long-term recognition memory for scenes: Verbatim and gist representations.

Konkle, Brady, Alvarez and Oliva (Psychological Science, 21, 1551-1556, 2010) showed that participants have an exceptional long-term memory (LTM) for photographs of scenes. We examined to what extent participants' exceptional LTM for scenes is determined by presentation time during encoding. In addition, at retrieval, we varied the nature of the lures in a forced-choice recognition task so that they resembled the target in gist (i.

Distinguishing familiarity from fluency for the compound word pair effect in associative recognition.

We examined whether processing fluency contributes to associative recognition of unitized pre-experimental associations. In Experiments 1A and 1B, we minimized perceptual fluency by presenting each word of pairs on separate screens at both study and test, yet the compound word (CW) effect (i.e.

A computational account of the production effect: Still playing twenty questions with nature.

People remember words that they read aloud better than words that they read silently, a result known as the production effect. The standing explanation for the production effect is that producing a word renders it distinctive in memory and, thus, memorable at test. By 1 key account, distinctiveness is defined in terms of sensory feedback.

Overwriting and intrusion in short-term memory.

Studies of interference in working and short-term memory suggest that irrelevant information may overwrite the contents of memory or intrude into memory. While some previous studies have reported greater interference when irrelevant information is similar to the contents of memory than when it is dissimilar, other studies have reported greater interference for dissimilar distractors than for similar distractors. In the present study, we find the latter effect in a paradigm that uses auditory tones as stimuli.

Intentional and incidental encoding of item and associative information in the directed forgetting procedure.

The intentional and incidental encoding of individual words and associations between pairs of words was examined using the item-based directed forgetting procedure. Item and associative recognition were both greater for word pairs followed by a remember (R) cue than a forget (F) cue. Associative discrimination for F-cued pairs was above chance in most conditions, demonstrating that relational informational is encoded incidentally.

A shared short-term memory system for stimulus duration and stimulus frequency.

Recent research has suggested the existence of a modality-independent memory system that is responsible for storing representations of simple, scalar stimulus attributes, such as the frequency of an auditory pure tone or the duration of a stimulus. In the present study, we modify an existing computational model of short-term memory (STM) for stimulus frequency to allow it to perform STM tasks for both stimulus frequency and stimulus duration, supporting the notion of a common scalar STM system. We further demonstrate the utility of the model by showing that it can reproduce the subjective shortening effect, a classic finding in the psychophysical literature.

False recognition of instruction-set lures.

False remembering has been examined using a variety of procedures, including the Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure, the false fame procedure and the two-list recognition procedure. We present six experiments in a different empirical framework examining false recognition of words included in the experimental instructions (instruction-set lures). The data show that participants' false alarm rate to instruction-set lures was twice their false alarm rate to standard lures.

Improving associative memory in older adults with unitization.

We examined if unitization inherent preexperimentally could reduce the associative deficit in older adults. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults studied compound word (CW; e.g.