Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition in 1995"
TL;DR: The concept of false memories is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years as discussed by the authors and Schacter (in press) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions.
Abstract: False memories—either remembering events that never happened, or remembering them quite differently from the way they happened—have recently captured the attention of both psychologists and the public at large. The primary impetus for this recent surge of interest is the increase in the number of cases in which memories of previously unrecognized abuse are reported during the course of therapy. Some researchers have argued that certain therapeutic practices can cause the creation of false memories, and therefore, the apparent "recovery" of memories during the course of therapy may actually represent the creation of memories (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus, 1993). Although the concept of false memories is currently enjoying an increase in publicity, it is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years. Schacter (in press) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions. Bartlett (1932) is usually credited with conducting the first experimental investigation of false memories; he had subjects read an Indian folktale, "The War of the Ghosts," and recall it repeatedly. Although he reported no aggregate data, but only sample protocols, his results seemed to show distortions in subjects' memories over repeated attempts to recall the story. Interestingly, Bartlett's repeated reproduction results never have been successfully replicated by later researchers (see Gauld & Stephenson, 1967; Roediger, Wheeler, & Rajaram, 1993); indeed, Wheeler and Roediger (1992) showed that recall of prose passages (including "The War of the Ghosts")
3,277 citations
569 citations
470 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that semantic representations of words have the largest impact on translating orthography to phonology when this translation process is slow or noisy (i.e., for low-frequency exceptions) and that words with rich semantic representations are most likely to benefit from this interaction.
Abstract: Three experiments demonstrated that, for lower frequency words, reading aloud is affected not only by spelling-sound typicality but also by a semantic variable, imageability Participants were slower and more error prone when naming exception words with abstract meanings (eg, scarce) than when naming either abstract regular words (eg, scribe) or imageable exception words (eg, soot) It is proposed that semantic representations of words have the largest impact on translating orthography to phonology when this translation process is slow or noisy (ie, for low-frequency exceptions) and that words with rich semantic representations (ie, high-imageability words) are most likely to benefit from this interaction
437 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that age differences would be more likely to emerge on a prospective memory task that was high in self-initiated retrieval, but not with the event-based task.
Abstract: Past research has frequently failed to find age differences in prospective memory. This article tested the possibility that age differences would be more likely to emerge on a prospective memory task that was high in self-initiated retrieval. In the 1st experiment, participants were asked to perform an action every 10 min (a time-based task presumed to be high in self-initiated retrieval); in the 2nd experiment, participants were asked to perform an action whenever a particular word was presented (an event-based task presumed to be relatively low in self-initiated retrieval). Age differences were found with the time-based task but not with the event-based task. This pattern of age differences was again found in a 3rd experiment in which a new experimental procedure was used and the nature of the prospective memory task was directly varied. Generally, the results suggest that self-initiated retrieval processes are an important component of age-related differences across both retrospective and prospective memory tasks.
419 citations
411 citations
TL;DR: In the context of a simple priming experiment, several idealized data sets are used to illustrate the possible costs of ignoring counterbalancing, and recommendations are made for more appropriate analyses of these designs.
Abstract: Counterbalanced designs are ubiquitous in cognitive psychology. Researchers, however, rarely perform optimal analyses of these designs and, as a result, reduce the power of their experiments. In the context of a simple priming experiment, several idealized data sets are used to illustrate the possible costs of ignoring counterbalancing, and recommendations are made for more appropriate analyses. These recommendations apply to assessment of both reliability of effects over subjects and reliability of effects over stimulus items.
390 citations
TL;DR: This study examined the relationship between on-line attention shifts to one's name and subsequent recollection of the name in a sample of 34 undergraduates, and suggested that participants who detected their name monitored the irrelevant channel for a short time afterward.
Abstract: N. Moray's (1959) well-known study of the "cocktail party phenomenon" suggested that participants sometimes notice their name embedded in an ignored auditory channel. However, the empirical finding was preliminary in nature and never has been directly replicated. This was done with improved methodological controls, and the relationship between on-line attention shifts to one's name and subsequent recollection of the name in a sample of 34 undergraduates was examined. Similar to N. Moray, only 34.6% of the participants recalled hearing their name in the channel to be ignored. Only those participants showed on-line evidence of attention shifts, and those shifts occurred only for the two items following the name. The results suggest that participants who detected their name monitored the irrelevant channel for a short time afterward.
330 citations
314 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the types of semantic information that are automatically retrieved from the mental lexicon on hearing a word were investigated in three semantic priming experiments, and the authors found significant priming for category and functionally related targets, both with and without an additional associative relation.
Abstract: The types of semantic information that are automatically retrieved from the mental lexicon on hearing a word were investigated in 3 semantic priming experiments. The authors probed for activation of information about a word's category membership by using prime-target pairs that were members of a common semantic category (e.g., pig-horse) and 2 types of functional semantic properties: instrument relations (e.g., broom-floor) and script relations (e.g., restaurant-wine). The authors crossed type of semantic relation between prime and target with degree of normative association strength. In a paired and a single-word presentation version of an auditory lexicaldecision priming task, the authors found significant priming for category and functionally related targets, both with and without an additional associative relation. In all cases there was a significant associative boost. However, in a visual version of the single-word lexical-decision paradigm, a different pattern of results was found for each type of semantic relation. Category coordinates primed only when they were normatively associated, instrument relations primed both with and without association, and script relations primed in neither condition.
303 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that Arabic and verbal numerals converge toward a common semantic representation of quantities and that an asemantic transcoding route might allow for a direct mapping of Arabic and vocal numbers, perhaps by means of a common phonological representation.
Abstract: Participants performed same-different judgments for pairs of numerals in 2 conditions: numerical matching (responding "same" to pairs such as 2-TWO), or physical matching (responding "different" to pairs such as 2-TWO). In most cases, a distance effect was obtained, with the different responses being slower when the 2 numbers were numerically close together (e.g., 1-2) than when they were further apart (e.g., 1-8). This indicates that numbers were automatically converted mentally into quantities, even when the participants had been told to attend exclusively to their physical characteristics. As postulated by several models of number processing, (e.g., Dehaene, 1992; McCloskey, 1992) Arabic and verbal numerals thus appear to converge toward a common semantic representation of quantities. However, the present results suggest that an asemantic transcoding route might allow for a direct mapping of Arabic and verbal numbers, perhaps by means of a common phonological representation.
TL;DR: In this article, the role of intrusive cognitions was investigated using the emotional Stroop effect, in which irrelevant threat-related words interfered more with color-naming than neutral words.
Abstract: The role of intrusive cognitions was investigated using the emotional Stroop effect, in which irrelevant threat-related words interfered more with color naming than neutral words. In Experiment 1, the emotional Stroop effect decreased over blocks, indicating habituation. In Experiment 2, the interference persisted when different words were used in each block, suggesting that the habituation occurred at the level of the individual stimulus. However, there was some evidence for a decline in interference, suggesting some category-based habituation. In Experiment 3, the interference continued for emotional words relative to neutral words even when the neutral stimuli formed a category. In Experiment 4, neutral words were contrasted with positive and negative words; interference occurred only for the negative words. This result undermines alternative interpretations in terms of emotionality or self-relevance and highlights the critical role of threat.
TL;DR: Assessment of the ability of people, without vision, to locate the positions of objects from imagined points of observation that are related to their actual position by rotational or translational components indicates that in the case of regularly structured object arrays, interobject relations are directly retrieved for the translation task, but for the rotation task, retrieval occurs by means of a body-centered coordinate system.
Abstract: Experiments are reported that assessed the ability of people, without vision, to locate the positions of objects from imagined points of observation that are related to their actual position by rotational or translational components. Theoretical issues addressed were whether spatial relations stored in an object-to-object system are directly retrieved or whether retrieval is mediated by a body-centered coordinate system, and whether body-centered access involves a process of imaging updating of self-position. The results, with those of Rieser (1989), indicate that in the case of regularly structured object arrays, interobject relations are directly retrieved for the translation task, but for the rotation task, retrieval occurs by means of a body-centered coordinate system, requiring imagined body rotation. For irregularly structured arrays, access of interobject spatial structure occurs by means of a body-centered coordinate system for both translation and rotation tasks, requiring imagined body translation or rotation. Array regularity affected retrieval of spatial structure in terms of global shape of interobject relations and local object position within global shape.
TL;DR: This paper showed that competition between simultaneously active word candidates can modulate the size of prosodic effects, which suggests that spoken-word recognition must be sensitive both to prosodic structure and to the effects of competition.
Abstract: Spoken utterances contain few reliable cues to word boundaries, but listeners nonetheless experience little difficulty identifying words in continuous speech. The authors present data and simulations that suggest that this ability is best accounted for by a model of spoken-word recognition combining competition between alternative lexical candidates and sensitivity to prosodic structure. In a word-spotting experiment, stress pattern effects emerged most clearly when there were many competing lexical candidates for part of the input. Thus, competition between simultaneously active word candidates can modulate the size of prosodic effects, which suggests that spoken-word recognition must be sensitive both to prosodic structure and to the effects of competition. A version of the Shortlist model (D. G. Norris, 1994b) incorporating the Metrical Segmentation Strategy (A. Cutler & D. Norris, 1988) accurately simulates the results using a lexicon of more than 25,000 words.
TL;DR: Performance on a test of serial memory for the spatial position of a sequence of dots showed similarities to typical results from the serial recall of verbal material: a marked increase in error with increasing list length, a modest rise in error as retention interval increased, and bow-shaped serial position curves.
Abstract: Performance on a test of serial memory for the spatial position of a sequence of dots showed similarities to typical results from the serial recall of verbal material: a marked increase in error with increasing list length, a modest rise in error as retention interval increased, and bow-shaped serial position curves. This task was susceptible to interference from both a spatial task (rote tapping) and a verbal task (mouthed articulatory suppression) and also from the presence of irrelevant speech. Effects were comparable to those found with a serial verbal task that was generally similar in demand characteristics to the spatial task. As a generalization, disruption of the serial recall of visuospatial material was more marked if the interference conditions involved a changing sequence of actions or materials, but not if a single event (tap, mouthed utterance, or sound) was repeated.
TL;DR: The R-K distinction does not reflect the operation of explicit and implicit memory but reflects instead a distinction within declarative memory, which depends on brain structures damaged in amnesia and also on the frontal lobes for contextual information.
Abstract: Amnesic patients and a control group were given a recognition test 10 min after studying words. For each recognized word, participants indicated whether they remembered it (R) or whether simply they knew that the word was presented but had no recollections about it (K). The patients were impaired for both R and K responses, performing like a control group tested after 1 week. Another control group was tested both 10 min and 1 week after study. The proportion of words initially eliciting an R response and later eliciting a K response exceeded the proportion of K responses that shifted to R responses. These data are accounted for if items initially eliciting R responses can also elicit K responses. We conclude that the R-K distinction does not reflect the operation of explicit and implicit memory but reflects instead a distinction within declarative memory. Thus, K responses depend on brain structures damaged in amnesia; R responses depend on these same structures and also on the frontal lobes for contextual information.
TL;DR: The results run counter to the oculomotor dysfunction hypothesis of dyslexia and support the view that both dyslexic and nondyslexic readers' eye fixation patterns reflect their difficulties in successfully identifying words in a text.
Abstract: Eye fixation patterns of 21 dyslexic and 21 younger, nondyslexic readers were compared when they read aloud 2 texts. The study examined whether word-frequency and word-length effects previously found for skilled adult readers would generalize equally to younger dyslexic and nondyslexic readers. Significantly longer gaze durations and reinspection times were found for low-frequency and long words than for high-frequency and short words. The effects also showed up in the number of fixations on the target words. The effects did not differ significantly for the 2 experimental groups. The results run counter to the oculomotor dysfunction hypothesis of dyslexia. Instead, they support the view that both dyslexic and nondyslexic readers' eye fixation patterns reflect their difficulties in successfully identifying words in a text.
TL;DR: The results suggest that the independence assumption was violated, and other applications of process dissociation should not be taken at face value without a thorough evaluation of independence.
Abstract: L. L. Jacoby, J. P. Toth, and A. P. Yonelinas (1993) advocated a process-dissociation procedure for estimating the contributions to task performance of consciously controlled (R) versus automatic (A) memory processes. The procedure relies on the strong assumption that memory-guided performance attributable to R is stochastically independent of that attributable to A. Violations of this independence assumption can produce artifactual dissociations between estimates of R and A. Such artifactual dissociations were obtained in a series of word-stem completion experiments: R increased with presentation duration, whereas A, paradoxically, decreased. Direct evidence for nonindependence was obtained from correlations between R and A in each of the experiments. These results suggest that the independence assumption was violated, and other applications of process dissociation should not be taken at face value without a thorough evaluation of independence.
TL;DR: It is suggested that verbalization may disrupt the nonreportable configural processes associated with recognizing stimuli with which one is an expert.
Abstract: Three experiments explored the role of perceptual expertise in mediating the finding (termed verbal overshadowing) that describing a face can impair later recognition. In Experiment 1, verbalization impaired White participants' recognition of White faces (expert domain) but not African American faces (novice domain). In Experiment 2, judges attempted to identify targets on the basis of the verbal descriptions generated in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 revealed a significant relationship between verbalization participants' recognition performance and yoked judges' identification performance for other-race but not own-race faces, suggesting that other-race recognition may involve a unique reliance on "verbalizable" information. In Experiment 3, the interaction between verbalization and race of face was replicated with upright faces but was attenuated with inverted recognition arrays (a manipulation that reduces the influence of configural information). Collectively, these findings suggest that verbalization may disrupt the nonreportable configural processes associated with recognizing stimuli with which one is an expert.
TL;DR: Results are consistent with a model of the IE that stresses the role of the encoding processes immediately following the presentation of distinctive events, and that postulates interactions between these processes and subsequent elaboration of the stimuli.
Abstract: The mechanisms underlying the improved recall of isolated events (von Restorff effect) were investigated. Participants studied lists of stimuli containing a physical and a semantic isolate while performing a physical task or a lexical decision task. The physical-task group showed a physical but not a semantic isolation effect (IE) in free recall, whereas the lexical-decision group displayed both types of IEs. The recall of the isolates was independent of that of the other words, and isolates were usually reported separately from other words in the list. Event-related potentials recorded at encoding predicted the recall of both types of isolates. In recognition tests, the IE was obtained only when the encoding context was reinstated. These results are consistent with a model of the IE that stresses the role of the encoding processes immediately following the presentation of distinctive events, and that postulates interactions between these processes and subsequent elaboration of the stimuli.
TL;DR: Investigation of the hypothesis that the measured criterion increases systematically with the memorability of old items leads to results consistent with this hypothesis, which is supported by three experiments using the list-strength paradigm and a review of the prior literature.
Abstract: This article focuses on decision processes in recognition memory. It begins with investigation of the hypothesis that the measured criterion increases systematically with the memorability of old items. Three experiments using the list-strength paradigm, and a review of the prior literature, present results consistent with this hypothesis. Several psychological models of criterion placement are examined, generating different predictions about the relative sizes of criterion shifts for strong and weak items. A range model, in which criterion placement depends on the estimated range of the old and new distributions, predicts that criterion shifts should be larger for weak items; this result emerges in a reanalysis of prior studies. The general discussion elaborates on how a focus on criterion placement can explain the mirror effect (Glanzer, Adams, Iverson, & Kim, 1993) and provides a framework for testing Shiffrin, Ratcliff, and Clark's (1990) claims about why null effects of list strength occur with repetition.
TL;DR: The experiment in this article extended studies by A. W. Inhoff and K. Rayner and J. M. Ferreira to determine how the printed frequency of two adjacent words influenced the benefit of having parafoveal preview of the 2nd word.
Abstract: The experiment in this article extended studies by A. W. Inhoff and K. Rayner (1986) and J. M. Henderson and F. Ferreira (1990) to determine how the printed frequency of two adjacent words influenced the benefit of having parafoveal preview of the 2nd word. High- and low-span participants (assessed by M. Daneman and P. A. Carpenter's, 1980, Reading Span Test) were tested to determine whether working memory capacity influenced parafoveal preview benefit. Parafoveal preview benefit was determined by an interaction of both words' frequencies in first fixation and by the 2nd word's frequency in gaze duration. However, readers were generally fixated closer to the beginning of the 2nd word when the 1st word was low frequency. When the viewing distance confound was minimized, the prior word's frequency did affect parafoveal preview benefit. Parafoveal preview benefit did not vary between reading groups. Group distributions of fixation duration provided no evidence for J. M. Henderson and F. Ferreira's fixation cutoff model.
TL;DR: The results indicate that memory retrieval is delayed by central processes in the choice task, arguing that the central bottleneck responsible for dual-task interference encompasses memory retrieval as well as response selection.
Abstract: The hypothesis that episodic memory retrieval can occur in parallel with other cognitive processes was tested in 2 experiments. Participants memorized words and then performed speeded cued recall (Experiment 1) or speeded yes-no recognition (Experiment 2) in a dual-task situation. The psychological refractory period design was used: The participant was presented with a single test item at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs; 50-1,200 ms) after a tone was presented in an auditory-manual 2-alternative choice reaction task. Reducing the SOA increased the memory task reaction times. This slowing was additive with the effect of variables slowing retrieval in the memory task. The results indicate that memory retrieval is delayed by central processes in the choice task, arguing that the central bottleneck responsible for dual-task interference encompasses memory retrieval as well as response selection. A key question in the study of human cognition is which cognitive processes can operate in parallel with other ongoing cognitive processes, which operate serially, and which interact in more complex ways with other cognitive processes. The experiments presented in this article ask whether memory retrieval can occur in parallel with other cognitive processes. Previous work on this question has come from two separate lines of research. The first involves studies designed specifically to address this question. The second involves studies of processing limitations in the performance of simple tasks not involving memory retrieval. Interestingly, these two lines of research have led to opposite conclusions.
TL;DR: The authors investigate the theoretical question of whether different kinds of encoding can affect judgments of learning (JOLs) beyond any indirect effects arising from the differences those kind of encoding produce on the likelihood of recall and find that JOLs are theoretically rich and are based on more than whatever underlies the likelihoodof recall.
Abstract: The authors investigated the theoretical question of whether different kinds of encoding can affect judgments of learning (JOLs) beyond any indirect effects arising from the differences those kinds of encoding produce on the likelihood of recall. They found that JOLs were more accurate after encoding by means of intentional learning than after encoding by means of incidental learning, even when the likelihood of recall did not differ for those kinds of encoding (Experiment 1), and were more accurate when intentional encoding occurred by generating the responses than by reading the responses (Experiment 2). An aggregation effect for JOLs was also discovered: Making JOLs about the likelihood of recall for an aggregate of items yielded less overconfidence (and even underconfidence) in contrast to the typical overconfidence of item-by-item JOLs. The overall pattern of findings suggests that JOLs are theoretically rich and are based on more than whatever underlies the likelihood of recall.