No Special K! A signal detection framework for the strategic regulation of memory accuracy.

Two experiments investigated criterion setting and metacognitive processes underlying the strategic regulation of accuracy on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) using Type-2 signal detection theory (SDT). In Experiment 1, report bias was manipulated by penalizing participants either 0.25 (low incentive) or 4 (high incentive) points for each error. Best guesses to unanswered items were obtained so that Type-2 signal detection indices of discrimination and bias could be calculated. The same incentive manipulation was used in Experiment 2, only the test was computerized, confidence ratings were taken so that receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves could be generated, and feedback was manipulated. The results of both experiments demonstrated that SDT provides a viable alternative to A. Koriat and M. Goldsmith's (1996c) framework of monitoring and control and reveals information about the regulation of accuracy that their framework does not. For example, ROC analysis indicated that the threshold model implied by formula scoring is inadequate. Instead, performance on the SAT should be modeled with an equal-variance Gaussian, Type-2 signal detection model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working and strategic memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Working memory and its contribution to performance on strategic memory tests in schizophrenia were studied. Patients (n?=?18) and control participants (n?=?15), all men, received tests of immediate memory (forward digit span), working memory (listening, computation, and backward digit span), and long-term strategic (free recall, temporal order, and self-ordered pointing) and nonstrategic (recognition) memory. Schizophrenia patients performed worse on all tests. Education, verbal intelligence, and immediate memory capacity did not account for deficits in working memory in schizophrenia patients. Reduced working memory capacity accounted for group differences in strategic memory but not in recognition memory. Working memory impairment may be central to the profile of impaired cognitive performance in schizophrenia and is consistent with hypothesized frontal lobe dysfunction associated with this disease. Additional medial-temporal dysfunction may account for the recognition memory deficit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic and strategic processes in picture naming.

Prior presentation of related priming stimuli can facilitate responding to subsequent targets. However, recent research has demonstrated that inhibition effects can be produced by related primes when some of the primes in the testing sequence directly name their targets. This study used a picture-naming task, manipulating strength of relation between the prime word and the target picture, and the presence of identical primes in the testing sequence. Related primes facilitated naming when identical primes were absent, but not when they were present, whereas the strength effect did not vary as a function of identical-prime presence. A second experiment replicated the strength effect and showed that it was not affected by the presence or absence of primary associates in the testing sequence. A comparison-strategy explanation of the inhibition effect is proposed, in which the strategy is superimposed on an automatic activation of related information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scheduling processes in working memory: instructions control the order of memory search and mental arithmetic

Humans must often use working memory to execute processes one at a time because of its limited capacity. Two experiments tested where limits in access to working memory occur. Subjects searched a short-term memory set for one stimulus digit and performed mental arithmetic with another stimulus digit. In one experiment, they were told to carry out the mental arithmetic before the memory search and to make the arithmetic response first. In the other, they were instructed to perform the tasks in the opposite order. The overt responses were executed in the prescribed order. Moreover, the covert working memory processes were executed in the prescribed order, as revealed by a critical path network analysis of reaction times. Results are explained in terms of a double-bottleneck model in which central processes and responses are constrained to be carried out for one task at a time.     

Attention control, memory updating, and emotion regulation temporarily reduce the capacity for executive control.

This research tested the hypothesis that initial efforts at executive control temporarily undermine subsequent efforts at executive control. Four experiments revealed that controlling the focus of visual attention (Experiment 1), inhibiting predominant writing tendencies (Experiment 2), taking a working memory test (Experiment 3), or exaggerating emotional expressions (Experiment 4) undermined performance on subsequent tests of working memory span, reverse digit span, and response inhibition, respectively. The results supported a limited resource model of executive control and cast doubt on competing accounts based on mood, motivation, or task difficulty. Prior efforts at executive control are a significant contextual determinant of the operation of executive processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition processes in episodic memory.

In 5 series of experiments with 5th, 6th, and 10th graders and undergraduate and university students, Ss encouraged to process related sentences at the same time (integrated storage) were compared with those encouraged to process the related sentences independently of each other (independent storage). Overall results show that Ss in the integrated storage condition were better at deriving inferences based on interconnections among the related items, at identifying the sentences that had been presented, and at recalling the sentences to a word cue. There was no difference between conditions on word recognition tests. Thus, Ss in the independent condition had a more difficult time retrieving the sentences that had been presented, but not in identifying the words contained in these sentences. This finding is explained by postulating a 2-stage recognition process. It was also found that Ss were able to combine 2 related sentences presented independently of each other, if the intervening sentences did not contain concepts in common with these sentences. However, when there were several sentences containing overlapping information, each presented independently of the others, Ss were unable to combine them into a single idea. This result indicates that the presence of several episodic traces containing common concepts interferes with the retrieval of information from these traces. (French summary) (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autobiographical memory processes and the course of depression.

The authors report a 6-month follow-up study of clinically depressed patients. At baseline, 2 indexes of autobiographical memory functioning were assessed: the presence of spontaneous intrusive memories of stressful life events and performance on the Autobiographical Memory Test (J. M. G. Williams & K. Broadbent, 1986), which measures overgeneral memory. The index of overgeneral memory was associated with greater levels of spontaneous intrusion of stressful memories. Overgeneral memory did not predict outcome, but depression at follow-up was predicted by the amount of intrusion and avoidance of stressful memories, even after controlling for initial severity of psychiatric symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recall memory, recognition memory, and the eyewitness confidence–accuracy correlation.

Research on the eyewitness confidence-accuracy correlation assesses the degree of insight that eyewitnesses have into the accuracy of their memories. Recently, researchers have begun to consider some of the variables that may facilitate or hinder such insight. In the present study with 205 college undergraduates, a previously unexamined influence on this correlation in the context of memory for details of a simulated crime was investigated. The authors hypothesized and found that recall memory conditions (in which no alternative answers were provided) were characterized by a higher eyewitness confidence–accuracy correlation than recognition memory conditions (in which alternative answers were provided). These findings are explained as a function of the availability of an ease-of-retrieval cue in recall memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval processes in transactive memory systems.

Two experiments examined retrieval processes in transactive memory systems (D. M. Wegner, 1987). In Experiment 1, intimate couples who worked face to face performed better on a knowledge-pooling task than strangers who worked face to face and better than intimate couples who worked via a computer conferencing system. Additional analyses indicated that intimate couples when interacting face to face were better able to determine which partner was correct on questions that only 1 member knew the answer to prior to discussion. In Experiment 2, intimate couples scored significantly better on the knowledge task when they had access to either nonverbal or paralinguistic communication cues than when they had access to neither. Taken together, the results indicate that both nonverbal and paralinguistic communication play an important role in the retrieval of knowledge in transactive memory systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment and the defensive regulation of attention and memory: Examining the role of preemptive and postemptive defensive processes.

Previous research has found that avoidant adults have more difficulty recalling emotional experiences than do less avoidant adults. It is unclear, however, whether such findings reflect differences in the degree to which avoidant adults (1) attend to and encode emotional information, (2) elaborate emotional information they have encoded, or (3) do both. Two studies were conducted to distinguish between the effects of these processes. Participants listened to an interview about attachment-related issues and were asked to recall details from the interview either immediately or at variable delays. An analysis of forgetting curves revealed that avoidant adults initially encoded less information about the interview than did nonavoidant adults, although avoidant and nonavoidant adults forgot the information they did encode at the same rate. The implications of these findings for current views on the nature and efficacy of defenses are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perseverative neural processes and consolidation of the memory trace.

Perseveration theory as a behavioral theory of retroactive inhibition has generally lost favor and has been replaced with the concepts of associative interference. Various experimental approaches to inducing retrograde amnesia and recent evidence to support the existence of a system within the brain responsible for the permanent fixation of memory traces indicates that the application of available physiological procedures offers a promising approach to defining the structures involved in the fixation of memory traces. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2CL18G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intact and impaired conceptual memory processes in amnesia.

To examine the status of conceptual memory processes in amnesia, a conceptual memory task with implicit or explicit task instructions was given to amnesic and control groups. After studying a list of category exemplars, participants saw category labels and were asked to generate as many exemplars as possible (an implicit memory task) or to generate exemplars that had been in the prior study list (an explicit memory task). After incidental deep or shallow encoding of exemplars, amnesic patients showed normal implicit memory performance (priming), a normal levels-of-processing effect on priming, and impaired explicit memory performance. After intentional encoding of exemplars, amnesic patients showed impaired implicit and explicit memory performance. Results suggest that although amnesic patients can show impairments on implicit and explicit conceptual memory tasks, their deficit does not generalize to all conceptual memory tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory list memory and interference processes in monkeys.

Memory of 2 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) was tested in a serial probe recognition task with lists of 4 natural or environmental sounds, different retention intervals, and different manipulations of interference. At short retention intervals, increasing the separation of list items reduced the primacy effect and produced a recency effect. Similar results were shown by increasing interference across lists through item repetitions or making the first 2 list items high-interference items. These results indicated that decreasing first-item performance reduced proactive interference on memory of the last list items. At long (20 sec) retention intervals, making the last list items of high interference reduced the recency effect, reduced retroactive interference, and produced a primacy effect. Taken together, interference plays a role in determining the primacy and recency effects of the serial-position function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual and conceptual memory processes in global amnesia.

To determine whether global amnesia reflects a selective deficit in conceptual processing, amnesic and control Ss performed 4 memory tasks that varied processing and retrieval requirements. A study-phase modality (auditory/visual) manipulation validated the nature of processing (perceptual and conceptual) engaged by each task. Amnesic patients were impaired on perceptual and conceptual explicit memory tasks (word-fragment and word-associate cued recall) and were intact on perceptual and conceptual implicit memory tasks (word-fragment completion and word association). These results are consistent with the view that limbic-diencephalic structures damaged in amnesia mediate, in part, processes typically engaged during explicit retrieval. The results are inconsistent, however, with the characterization of that deficit as being one of conceptual processing per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Echoic memory processes in good and poor readers.

Conducted 4 experiments to determine whether echoic memory plays a role in differences between good and poor readers. In Exp I, with 9 poor (mean age 11.05 yrs) and 9 good (mean age 10.9 yrs) readers, and Exp II, with 12 poor (mean age 10.85 yrs) and 12 good (mean age 10.7 yrs) readers, a suffix procedure was used in which the S was read a list of digits with either a tone control or the word go appended to the list. For lists that exceeded the length of the Ss' memory span by 1 digit (i.e., that avoided ceiling effects), poor readers showed a larger decrement in the suffix condition than did good readers. In Exp III, with 14 poor (mean age 10.64 yrs) and 14 good (mean age 10.83 yrs) readers, Ss shadowed words presented to 1 ear at a rate determined to give 75–85% shadowing accuracy. The item presented to the nonattended ear were words and an occasional digit. At various intervals after the presentation of the digit, a light signaled that the S was to cease shadowing and attempt to recall any digit that had occurred in the nonattended ear recently. Whereas good and poor readers recalled the digit equally if tested immediately after presentation, poor readers showed a faster decline in recall of the digit as retention interval increased. In Exp IV, using Ss from Exp II, bursts of white noise were separated by 9–400 msec of silence, and the S was to say whether there were 1 or 2 sounds presented. There were no differences in detectability functions for good and poor readers. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Internal clock and memory processes in animal timing.

Two experiments, involving a total of 6 male pigeons, investigated temporal control of behavior within the framework of an internal clock model. Ss were exposed to signaled fixed interval (FI) 30-sec trials mixed with extended unreinforced (baseline) trials. On unreinforced break trials, the signal was interrupted for a period of time after trial onset. In Exp 1, comparisons between the peak time obtained on baseline and on break trials produced peak time shifts that were longer than those expected if the clock had stopped during the break but shorter than if the clock had reset. In Exp 2, systematic manipulations of duration and location of breaks produced peak time shifts that were nonlinear functions of break duration and that varied linearly with break location. The obtained peak times were more consistent with a continuous memory decay model than with the stop-retain or the reset hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Binding and strategic selection in working memory: A lifespan dissociation.

Working memory (WM) shows a gradual increase during childhood, followed by accelerating decline from adulthood to old age. To examine these lifespan differences more closely, we asked 34 children (10–12 years), 40 younger adults (20–25 years), and 39 older adults (70–75 years) to perform a color change detection task. Load levels and encoding durations were varied for displays including targets only (Experiment 1) or targets plus distracters (Experiment 2, investigating a subsample of Experiment 1). WM performance was lower in older adults and children than in younger adults. Longer presentation times were associated with better performance in all age groups, presumably reflecting increasing effects of strategic selection mechanisms on WM performance. Children outperformed older adults when encoding times were short, and distracter effects were larger in children and older adults than in younger adults. We conclude that strategic selection in WM develops more slowly during childhood than basic binding operations, presumably reflecting the delay in maturation of frontal versus medio-temporal brain networks. In old age, both sets of mechanisms decline, reflecting senescent change in both networks. We discuss similarities to episodic memory development and address open questions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two dissociable updating processes in working memory.

The authors show that the updating of working memory (WM) representations is carried out by the cooperative act of 2 dissociable reaction time (RT) components: a global updating process that provides stability by shielding WM contents against interference and a local process that provides flexibility. Participants kept track of 1?3 items (digits or Gibson figures). In each trial, the items either were similar to those in the previous trial or were different in any or all of the items. Experiments 1 and 2 established the existence of 2 independent RT components representing the 2 updating processes. Global updating cost was sensitive to total number of items in WM (set size), regardless of the number of items that actually were modified. Local updating cost was sensitive to the number of modified items, regardless of the set size. Experiment 3 showed that participants had to dismantle the representation formed by previous global updating in order to carry out new updating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)