False memories seconds later: The rapid and compelling onset of illusory recognition.

Distortions of long-term memory (LTM) in the converging associates task are thought to arise from semantic associative processes and monitoring failures due to degraded verbatim and/or contextual memory. Sensory-based coding is traditionally considered more prevalent than meaning-based coding in short-term memory (STM), whereas the converse is true of LTM, leading to the expectation that false memory phenomena should be less robust in a canonical STM task. These expectations were violated in 2 experiments in which participants were shown lists of 4 semantically related words and were probed immediately following a filled 3- to 4-s retention interval or approximately 20 min later in a surprise recognition test. Corrected false recognition rates, confidence ratings, and Remember/Know judgments reveal similar false memory effects across STM and LTM conditions. These results indicate that compelling false memory illusions can be rapidly instantiated and that, consistent with unitary models of memory, they originate from processes that are not specific to LTM tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual fluency selectively influences knowing.

Research shows that Remember and Know judgments are effective measures of recollective experience. This article shows that Know responses can be selectively affected by fluency of processing that is created using a conceptual manipulation. In a recognition test, studied and nonstudied words were preceded by semantically related or unrelated primes. Participants gave significantly more Know judgments to items with related primes than unrelated primes but Remember responses were unaffected. Know responses are discussed in terms of familiarity assumed to arise from fluency of processing which, in turn, may be created through various sources including conceptual processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective valence influences participant's susceptibility to false memories and illusory recollection.

This study examined the influence of emotional valence on the production of DRM false memories (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants were presented with neutral, positive, or negative DRM lists for a later recognition (Experiment 1) or recall (Experiment 2) test. In both experiments, confidence and recollective experience (i.e., “Remember-Know” judgments; Tulving, 1985) were also assessed. Results consistently showed that, compared with neutral lists, affective lists induced more false recognition and recall of nonpresented critical lures. Moreover, although confidence ratings did not differ between the false remembering from the different kinds of lists, “Remember” responses were more often associated with negative than positive and neutral false remembering of the critical lures. In contrast, positive false remembering of the critical lures was more often associated with “Know” responses. These results are discussed in light of the Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis (Porter, Taylor, & ten Bricke, 2008). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

True memory, false memory, and subjective recollection deficits after focal parietal lobe lesions.

Objective: There is mounting evidence that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays an important role in episodic memory. We previously found that patients with PPC damage exhibit retrieval-related episodic memory deficits. Here we assess whether parietal lobe damage affects episodic memory on a different task: the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) false-memory paradigm. Methods: Two patients with bilateral PPC damage and a group of matched controls were tested. In Experiment 1, the task was to remember words; in Experiment 2 the task was to remember pictures of common objects. Prior studies have shown that normal participants have high levels of false memory to words, low levels to pictures. Results: The patients exhibited significantly lower levels of false memory to words. One patient showed significantly elevated levels of false memory to pictures. The patients' false memories were accompanied by reduced levels of recollection, as tested by a Remember/Know procedure. Conclusions: PPC damage causes decreased levels of false memories and an abnormal Remember/Know profile. Their false memory rate is similar to the rate exhibited by patients with medial temporal lobe damage. These results support the view that portions of the PPC play a critical role in objective and subjective aspects of recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual effects on remembering: Recollective processes in picture recognition memory.

In 3 experiments, the effects of perceptual manipulations on recollective experience were tested. In Experiment 1, a picture-superiority effect was obtained for overall recognition and Remember judgments in a picture recognition task. In Experiment 2, size changes of pictorial stimuli across study and test reduced recognition memory and Remember judgments. In Experiment 3, deleterious effects of changes in left–right orientation of pictorial stimuli across study and test were obtained for Remember judgments. An alternate framework that emphasizes a distinctiveness–fluency processing distinction is proposed to account for these findings because they cannot easily be accommodated within the existing account of differences in conceptual and perceptual processing for the 2 categories of recollective experience: Remembering and Knowing, respectively (J. M. Gardiner, 1988; S. Rajaram, 1993). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fast and confident: Postdicting eyewitness identification accuracy in a field study.

The combined postdictive value of postdecision confidence, decision time, and Remember-Know-Familiar (RKF) judgments as markers of identification accuracy was evaluated with 10 targets and 720 participants. In a pedestrian area, passers-by were asked for directions. Identifications were made from target-absent or target-present lineups. Fast (optimum time boundary at 6 seconds) and confident (optimum confidence boundary at 90%) witnesses were highly accurate, slow and nonconfident witnesses highly inaccurate. Although this combination of postdictors was clearly superior to using either postdictor by itself these combinations refer only to a subsample of choosers. Know answers were associated with higher identification performance than Familiar answers, with no difference between Remember and Know answers. The results of participants' post hoc decision time estimates paralleled those with measured decision times. To explore decision strategies of nonchoosers, three subgroups were formed according to their reasons given for rejecting the lineup. Nonchoosers indicating that the target had simply been absent made faster and more confident decisions than nonchoosers stating lack of confidence or lack of memory. There were no significant differences with regard to identification performance across nonchooser groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in integrated semantic memory.

Used J. D. Bransford and J. J. Franks's (1971) paradigm of linguistic abstraction to examine age differences in the nature of stored semantic information. 20 young (mean age 18.7 yrs) and 18 old adults (mean age 67.3 yrs) served as Ss. Specifically, age differences on 2 dimensions of memory were examined: (a) integration of related content from separate sentences and (b) retention of precise semantic content. Young and old Ss were not found to differ in the precision of retained semantic information. Furthermore, while both age groups evidenced integration of information as indexed by a strong linear trend of recognition rate across sentence complexity, this trend did not interact with age, supporting the idea that both age groups showed comparable integration of linguistic information into holistic ideas. Implications for current conceptualizations of age differences in memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A mechanistic account of the mirror effect for word frequency: A computational model of remember–know judgments in a continuous recognition paradigm.

A theoretical account of the mirror effect for word frequency and of dissociations in the pattern of responding Remember vs. Know (R vs. K) for low- and high-frequency words was tested both empirically and computationally by comparing predicted with observed data theory in 3 experiments. The SAC (Source of Activation Confusion) theory of memory makes the novel prediction of more K responses for high- than for low-frequency words, for both old and new items. Two experiments used a continuous presentation and judgment paradigm that presented words up to 10 times. The computer simulation closely modeled the pattern of results, fitting new Know and Remember patterns of responding at each level of experimental presentation and for both levels of word frequency for each participant. Experiment 3 required list discrimination after each R response (Group 1) or after an R or K response (Group 2). List accuracy was better following R responses. All experiments were modeled using the same parameter values. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Episodic memory and impairment of an early encoding process in schizophrenia.

Investigations of memory impairment in schizophrenia have frequently revealed a strategic processing deficit at encoding. The authors studied an early encoding process, refreshing (in this case, thinking of a stimulus that has just-previously been presented), and its impact on recognition memory in schizophrenia. Following simultaneous presentation of three words or a single word in the top, middle, or bottom position of the screen, 25 patients with schizophrenia and 25 control participants saw and read a new word (read condition), or a word presented on the previous screen (repeat condition), or saw a dot indicating that they should think of and say the last word to have appeared in that position (refresh condition). Later, on a surprise test, participants were asked to recognize words seen previously and give a Remember, Know, or Guess response according to whether they recognized each on the basis of conscious recollection, familiarity, or guessing. The cognitive operation of refreshing was impaired in schizophrenia: patients were slower on 1-word trials and less accurate on 3-word trials to refresh a word, and their Remember responses did not benefit from refreshing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit theories and semantic similarities: Reply to Marsh and Groves (1987).

The role of implicit theories in behavioral judgments continues to be a source of debate. In a study exploring the factorial validity of student ratings of instruction, Cadwell and Jenkins (1985) suggested that students' implicit theories of instructor behavior may account for the robust factor structure underlying student ratings. They argued that students rely on the semantic similarity of the rating items, inflating the observed relations among the items. Marsh and Groves cite methodological and conceptual difficulties with the Cadwell and Jenkins study, but most of these difficulties may arise from Marsh and Groves's misconceptions about the role of implicit theories and semantic similarities and, more generally, the cognitive processes underlying judgment tasks. I review these issues and address various points of Marsh and Groves's critique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration of linguistic ideas in schizophrenics.

S. D. Koh and R. A. Peterson (1978) found that requiring semantic encoding at acquisition facilitated recall for schizophrenics in the same way that it does for normals. It was hypothesized that more complex forms of semantic organization would reveal a deficit in schizophrenics, but not for all subtypes. The paradigm used, developed by J. D. Bransford and J. J. Franks (1971), involves an incidental sentence recognition task in which Ss are presented interrelated parts of a complex idea in acquisition and subsequently tested for their memory of new and old (previously seen) instances of the idea. In the present study, with 56 hospitalized male veterans and 14 college students, normals' and nonpsychotics' patterns of recognition responses reflected the organization of this complex idea, even when they had actually never seen the specific test sentences. All schizophrenics were found to be capable of distinguishing sentences that violated the relations within the complex ideas from those that did not, but only the good premorbid acute patients' responses reflected the integration of part ideas. Poor premorbid acute patients showed an intermediate level of integrating semantic information, and chronic patients were unable to use the interrelations within ideas to organize their memories. (1? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autobiographical elaboration reduces memory distortion: Cognitive operations and the distinctiveness heuristic.

Retrieval monitoring enhances episodic memory accuracy. For instance, false recognition is reduced when participants base their decisions on more distinctive recollections, a retrieval monitoring process called the distinctiveness heuristic. The experiments reported here tested the hypothesis that autobiographical elaboration during study (i.e., generating autobiographical memories in response to cue words) would lead to more distinctive recollections than other item-specific encoding tasks, enhancing retrieval monitoring accuracy at test. Consistent with this hypothesis, false recognition was less likely when participants had to search their memory for previous autobiographical elaborations, compared to previous semantic judgments. These false recognition effects were dissociated from true recognition effects across four experiments, implicating a recollection-based monitoring process that was independent from familiarity-based processes. Separately obtained subjective measures provided converging evidence for this conclusion. The cognitive operations engaged during autobiographical elaboration can lead to distinctive recollections, making them less prone to memory distortion than other types of deep or semantic encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unwanted thought: Age differences in the correction of social judgments.

This study used a false information paradigm to study age differences in the correction of social judgments. Younger and older adults read 2 criminal reports, with true information printed in black and false information in red. Following the reports, all participants were asked to recommend prison terms among other ratings. Age differences in baseline measures were also assessed by corresponding control groups who read only true information. Compared with younger adults under full attention, older adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention were reliably influenced by the nature of the false statements (either extenuating or exacerbating the severity of the crimes). When contrasted with their relevant control groups, older adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention failed to correct their social judgments. This study lends support to a processing resource explanation for age differences in the correction process for social judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in feeling-of-knowing and confidence judgments as a function of knowledge domain.

For two semantic knowledge domains, general and computer-related, feeling-of-knowing (FOK) and confidence level (CL) ratings and their relative accuracy were assessed in young, middle-aged, and older adults, after test difficulty was equated across age groups. Global memory self-efficacy beliefs were also assessed for each domain. As expected, greater age was associated with poorer memory self-efficacy beliefs only in the computer domain. The oldest two groups were found to be more underconfident than young adults when rating their FOK but not their CL, for computer items but not for general items. Statistical control of age differences in memory self-efficacy beliefs in the relevant domain greatly reduced this age effect on computer-related FOK ratings. This finding suggests that absolute FOK judgments are more closely related to memory self-efficacy beliefs than are CL judgments. Gamma correlations between judgments and recognition performance revealed that all age groups were equally accurate in FOK and in CL judgments, in both domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three Turtles in Danger: Spontaneous Construction of Causally Relevant Spatial Situation Models.

In 4 experiments, the author explored the spontaneous construction of spatial situation models during discourse comprehension by using the sentence-recognition paradigm of J. D. Bransford, J. R. Barclay, and J. J. Franks (1972). In Experiment 1, signaling causal relevance of spatial relations was a necessary precondition for replicating their original finding of spontaneously constructed spatial representations. Causal relevance was ensured in the subsequent experiments by a judgment task indirectly demanding the evaluation of described spatial relations with regard to causal relevance. Participants spontaneously constructed spatial situation models of text presented auditorily or visually. Effects of spontaneous construction were more reliable when encoding was easier. The results suggest a revised interpretation of J. D. Bransford et al.'s study and corroborate recent evidence showing that relevant spatial information in texts is reliably represented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes involved in similarity judgments of emotions.

This article challenges the prevailing, semantic view of the cognitive processes underlying similarity judgments of emotions, which assumes that these judgments are based on a property comparison process. An alternative view is proposed, according to which judgments of emotion similarity reflect impressions of the degree of co-occurrence of emotions in everyday life. This episodic model of similarity judgments was compared in 2 studies with the main existing elaborations of the semantic view, the dimensional model and the feature model. Results were best in line with the episodic model. Study I revealed asymmetries in directional similarity judgments that were systematically related to episodic information (i.e., the frequency of emotions) but unrelated to semantic information (i.e., number of features of the emotion concepts). Study 2 replicated the central findings of Study 1 and showed that they held good at the level of individual participants. Findings add to other recent evidence supporting the episodic model of similarity judgments of emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning and the weighting of attributes in attitude judgments.

Two experiments examined processes by which analyzing reasons may influence attitude judgments. Participants made multiple liking judgments on sets of stimuli that varied along 6 a priori dimensions. In Study 1, the stimulus set consisted of 64 cartoon faces with 6 binary-valued attributes (e.g., a straight vs a crooked nose). In Study 2, the stimuli were 60 digitized photographs from a college yearbook that varied along 6 dimensions uncovered through multidimensional scaling. In each experiment, half of the participants were instructed to think about the reasons why they liked each face before making their liking rating. Participants' multiple liking ratings were then regressed on the dimension values to determine how they weighted each dimension in their liking judgments. The results support a process whereby reasoning leads to increased variability and inconsistency in the weighting of stimulus information. Wilson's model of the disruptive effects of reasoning on attitude judgments ( e.g., T. D. Wilson, D. S. Dunn, D. Kraft, & D. J. Lisle, 1989 ) is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the correspondence between perceptual spaces based on pairwise similarity judgments collected with and without the inclusion of explicit ideal objects.

The use of multidimensional scaling to create a joint space based on pairwise similarity judgments collected with the inclusion of an ideal object raises concern that the resulting perceptual map might be distorted by the affective overtones of the ideal-point ratings. To investigate this possibility, 44 student Ss were randomly assigned to 2 experimental groups of 22 Ss each. Group 1 provided pairwise similarity ratings for 12 real female singers. Group 2 rated this same set of singers plus a 13th ideal singer. Comparison of the intersinger distances in the resulting perceptual spaces, using the statistical test proposed by L. J. Hubert and J. R. Levin (see record 1977-04798-001) suggests that the maps for Groups 1 and 2 are highly congruent so that the potential contamination resulting from the inclusion of ideal objects in pairwise similarity judgments may not be a serious problem in practice. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of age on state of awareness following implicit and explicit word-association tasks.

Younger and older participants did word-association tasks after implicit and explicit instructions and a read-generate study manipulation. No age differences were shown in the implicit version of the test. A generation effect for both age groups suggested that word-association priming can be classified as a conceptually driven task and a new task at which older adults show a relatively preserved memory function. However, the younger group did better on the explicit test in the generate condition. Participants were asked to examine their implicitly produced responses to make them accessible to conscious retrieval. Remember (R) and Know (K) measures of conscious awareness were applied to both postimplicit and postexplicit word-association responses. Age and awareness showed opposite effects in postimplicit retrieval. Younger participants tended to make more R responses than did the older adults, and K responses did not vary with age, but the older group was unaware of more primed items as study list members. Age differences were also shown in R but not in K responses after word-association cued recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)