The effect of age on memory for emotional faces.

Prior studies of emotion suggest that young adults should have enhanced memory for negative faces and that this enhancement should be reduced in older adults. Several studies have not shown these effects but were conducted with procedures different from those used with other emotional stimuli. In this study, researchers examined age differences in recognition of faces with emotional or neutral expressions, using trial-unique stimuli, as is typically done with other types of emotional stimuli. They also assessed the influence of personality traits and mood on memory. Enhanced recognition for negative faces was found in young adults but not in older adults. Recognition of faces was not influenced by mood or personality traits in young adults, but lower levels of extraversion and better emotional sensitivity predicted better negative face memory in older adults. These results suggest that negative expressions enhance memory for faces in young adults, as negative valence enhances memory for words and scenes. This enhancement is absent in older adults, but memory for emotional faces is modulated in older adults by personality traits that are relevant to emotional processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remember-Know and source memory instructions can qualitatively change old-new recognition accuracy: The modality-match effect in recognition memory.

Remember-Know (RK) and source memory tasks were designed to elucidate processes underlying memory retrieval. As part of more complex judgments, both tests produce a measure of old-new recognition, which is typically treated as equivalent to that derived from a standard recognition task. The present study demonstrates, however, that recognition accuracy can be qualitatively changed by a RK or source-retrieval orientation. Visual and auditory presentations of words were varied at encoding and at test. The memory test was either a standard (old-new) recognition test, the RK test, or a source (modality) test. No effect of modality match was found on standard recognition. However, recognition accuracy in the RK and modality tests was greater when study and test modalities matched—a result obtained for both 1-step (e.g., R, K, or new?) and 2-step (e.g., old-new decision followed by RK decision for items judged old) versions of these tests. Thus, the RK and source (modality) memory procedures produced a measure of old-new recognition that was qualitatively different than standard recognition, having a greater sensitivity to perceptual information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental differences in children's recognition memory for faces.

Tested 108 White, upper-middle-class children at 3 age levels for recognition memory of adult male faces following 3 different orienting activities at encoding. One group received standard intentional learning instructions, another group judged whether each face had a big nose, and a 3rd group judged whether each face appeared "nice." Memory improved with age, and judgments of niceness facilitated memory equally at all ages. The results pose difficulties for A. L. Brown's (1975) model of memory development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion-attention interactions in recognition memory for distractor faces.

Effective filtering of distractor information has been shown to be dependent on perceptual load. Given the salience of emotional information and the presence of emotion-attention interactions, we wanted to explore the recognition memory for emotional distractors especially as a function of focused attention and distributed attention by manipulating load and the spatial spread of attention. We performed two experiments to study emotion-attention interactions by measuring recognition memory performance for distractor neutral and emotional faces. Participants performed a color discrimination task (low-load) or letter identification task (high-load) with a letter string display in Experiment 1 and a high-load letter identification task with letters presented in a circular array in Experiment 2. The stimuli were presented against a distractor face background. The recognition memory results show that happy faces were recognized better than sad faces under conditions of less focused or distributed attention. When attention is more spatially focused, sad faces were recognized better than happy faces. The study provides evidence for emotion-attention interactions in which specific emotional information like sad or happy is associated with focused or distributed attention respectively. Distractor processing with emotional information also has implications for theories of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The modality-match effect in recognition memory.

The modality-match effect in recognition refers to superior memory for words presented in the same modality at study and test. Prior research on this effect is ambiguous and inconsistent. The present study demonstrates that the modality-match effect is found when modality is rendered salient at either encoding or retrieval. Specifically, in Experiment 1, visual and auditory study trials were either randomly intermixed or presented in blocks, followed by a standard (old–new) recognition test. The modality-match effect was observed for the mixed but not the blocked condition. Experiment 2 used a modality-judgment test (requiring a seen, heard, or new judgment). The resulting measure of recognition memory exhibited the modality-match effect for both list conditions. These results imply (a) that the modality-match effect is a consistent finding when modality is salient and (b) that the effect arises at retrieval rather than encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory.

According to some theories of recognition memory (e.g., S. Dennis & M. S. Humphreys, 2001), the number of different contexts in which words appear determines how memorable individual occurrences of words will be: A word that occurs in a small number of different contexts should be better recognized than a word that appears in a larger number of different contexts. To empirically test this prediction, a normative measure is developed, referred to here as context variability, that estimates the number of different contexts in which words appear in everyday life. These findings confirm the prediction that words low in context variability are better recognized (on average) than words that are high in context variability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of task-specific instructions on the picture memory of children in recall and recognition tasks.

A total of 72 kindergartners and 2nd and 5th graders were assigned to either a recall-specific instruction group or a remember instruction group to determine the developmental stage at which children are able to fashion stimulus encoding and/or storage activities so as to effectively meet the demands of an anticipated recall or recognition task. Results indicate that at least by age 11 (Grade 5), some recall-specific mediational capabilities have been developed and can be used effectively to facilitate performance in an anticipated recall task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of retention interval on serial position curves for item recognition of visual patterns and faces.

In 9 experiments, college students were presented with a series of 4 novel items, followed by an immediate or delayed probe recognition test. Delaying the recognition test reduced performance on the final item, when the interpresentation intervals (IPIs) were kept constant (Experiments 1A–1G), and also when the IPIs were varied (Experiments 2A–2B). Only 1 experiment reported any evidence of increased primacy with delay when the EPIs were kept constant, but this result failed to replicate. Neither Experiment 2A nor 2B provided evidence of increased primacy with test delay or any effect of IN on recency. However, Experiment 2A showed a deficit at the first serial position when followed by a short IPI. These results do not support the predictions of the dimensional distinctiveness model but are broadly compatible with established information-processing models of visual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive styles and memory for faces.

Accuracy in the incidental recall of photographed human faces can be predicted from the S's cognitive styles and biases: (a) Ss who were field dependent on an embedded-figures test recalled more faces correctly than did the field independent; (b) Ss who were narrow categorizers on the Pettigrew Category-Width Scale had better recall than had broad categorizers; and (c) Ss who thought the photographed persons were relatively young did better than those who thought they were older. These 3 kinds of stylistic consistency were mutually independent. Some of these styles may determine memory for all sorts of stimuli and some may be relatively specific to memory for faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ordering in recognition memory after ambiguous initial or recognition displays.

Asked 57 deaf and 40 hearing 7-13 yr olds to recognize the order of 3 visually-presented digits in 2 conditions. In 1 condition, 3 numbers were exposed successively in 3 windows in temporally- and spatially-incongruent orders. This was followed by a recognition display in which the numbers appeared successively in 1 window, placed below the others. In the 2nd condition, the 1-window display was presented 1st and was followed by an incongruently ordered set of the same numbers in 3 windows for recognition. While hearing Ss recognized the digits in serial order, many deaf Ss gave left-to-right ordered recognition responses. No relationship was found between either implicit verbalization or level of articulation ability and temporal ordering. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and memory for pictures of faces.

The hypothesis that pictorial aspects of face-recognition memory are lower in old age was tested in 2 studies. Young and elderly Ss viewed 48 face pictures, and then took a test containing identical copies of input faces, pictorially changed versions of input faces, and entirely new faces. Replicating prior findings, Experiment 1 showed that false recognitions of entirely new faces were higher among elderly Ss. However, there were no age differences in distinguishing identical from pictorially changed faces. Using a modified test, Experiment 2 showed that although the elderly Ss had good knowledge that changed faces were changed, they had relatively poor knowledge of how they were changed. There appears to be age differences in analytical matching of pictorial information against information in memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

List composition and the word-frequency effect for recognition memory.

The attention/likelihood theory (ALT; M. Glanzer & J. K. Adams, 1990) and the retrieving effectively from memory (REM) theory (R. M. Shiffrin & M. Steyvers, 1997) make different predictions concerning the effect of list composition on word recognition. The predictions were empirically tested for two-alternative forced-choice, yes-no, and ratings recognition tasks. In the current article, the authors found that discrimination of low-frequency words increased as the proportion of high-frequency words studied increased. The results disconfirm the ALT prediction that recognition is insensitive to list composition, and they disconfirm the predictions of the REM model described by R. M. Shiffrin and M. Steyvers (1997). The current authors discuss a slightly modified version of REM that can better predict our findings, and we discuss the challenges the present findings pose for ALT and REM. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mirror effect in recognition memory: Data and theory.

The mirror effect is a regularity in recognition memory that requires reexamination of current views of memory. Five experiments that further support and extend the generality of the mirror effect are reported. The first two experiments vary word frequency. The third and fourth vary both word frequency and concreteness. The fifth experiment varies word frequency, concreteness, and the subject's operations on the words. The experiments furnish data on the stability of the effect, its relation to response times, its extension to multiple mirror effects, and its extension beyond stimulus variables to operation variables. A theory of the effect and predictions that derive from the theory are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of excitotoxic lesions centered on the hippocampus or perirhinal cortex in object recognition and spatial memory tasks.

Rats with bilateral ibotenic acid lesions centered on the hippocampus (HPC) or perirhinal cortex (PRC) and sham-operated controls were tested in a series of object recognition and spatial memory tasks. Both HPC and PRC rats displayed reduced habituation in a novel environment and were impaired in an object-location task. HPC rats were severely impaired in both the reference and working-memory versions of the water maze and radial arm maze tasks. In contrast, although PRC rats displayed mild deficits in the reference memory version of the water maze and radial arm maze tasks, they were markedly impaired in the working-memory version of both the tasks. These findings demonstrate that under certain conditions both the HPC and PRC play a role in the processing of spatial memory. Further investigation of these conditions will provide important new insights into the role of these structures in memory processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The regularities of recognition memory.

Describes 3 regularities in recognition memory with supporting data: the mirror effect, the order of receiver operating characteristic slopes, and the symmetry of movement of underlying distributions. The derivation of these regularities from attention/likelihood theory is demonstrated. The theory's central concept, which distinguishes it from other theories, is the following: Ss make recognition decisions by combining information about new and old items, the combination made in the form of likelihood ratios. The central role of the likelihood ratios extends the implications of signal detection theory for recognition memory. Attention/likelihood theory is fitted to data of 2 series of experiments. It is argued that the regularities require a revision of most current theories of recognition memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhanced visual short-term memory for angry faces.

Although some views of face perception posit independent processing of face identity and expression, recent studies suggest interactive processing of these 2 domains. The authors examined expression–identity interactions in visual short-term memory (VSTM) by assessing recognition performance in a VSTM task in which face identity was relevant and expression was irrelevant. Using study arrays of between 1 and 4 faces and a 1,000-ms retention interval, the authors measured recognition accuracy for just-seen faces. Results indicated that significantly more angry face identities can be stored in VSTM than happy or neutral face identities. Furthermore, the study provides evidence to exclude accounts for this angry face benefit based on physiological arousal, opportunity to encode, face discriminability, low-level feature recognition, expression intensity, or specific face sets. Perhaps processes activated by the presence of specifically angry expressions enhance VSTM because memory for the identities of angry people has particular behavioral relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Familiarity enhances visual working memory for faces.

Although it is intuitive that familiarity with complex visual objects should aid their preservation in visual working memory (WM), empirical evidence for this is lacking. This study used a conventional change-detection procedure to assess visual WM for unfamiliar and famous faces in healthy adults. Across experiments, faces were upright or inverted and a low- or high-load concurrent verbal WM task was administered to suppress contribution from verbal WM. Even with a high verbal memory load, visual WM performance was significantly better and capacity estimated as significantly greater for famous versus unfamiliar faces. Face inversion abolished this effect. Thus, neither strategic, explicit support from verbal WM nor low-level feature processing easily accounts for the observed benefit of high familiarity for visual WM. These results demonstrate that storage of items in visual WM can be enhanced if robust visual representations of them already exist in long-term memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tests of the list-strength effect in recognition memory.

The list-strength effect arises when increasing the strength of some items in a list reduces memory for the remaining items. The list-strength effect was investigated under conditions of rapid visual presentation. Randomized and blocked formats were used for the mixed lists. Performance was measured with both yes–no and forced-choice recognition procedures. Overall no evidence for a list-strength effect in recognition was found except under conditions that may promote reverse rehearsal borrowing. Two experiments were conducted to determine why performance on the yes–no tests was greater than on the forced-choice tests. Repeated testing with the yes–no procedure promoted more effective encoding than the forced-choice procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of the temporal structure of spoken words on paired-associate learning.

In a series of experiments, participants learned to associate black-and-white shapes with nonsense spoken labels (e.g., “joop”). When tested on their recognition memory, participants falsely recognized as correct a shape paired with a label that began with the same sounds as the shape’s original label (onset-overlapping lure; e.g., joob) more often than a shape paired with a label that overlapped with the original label at offset (offset-overlapping lure; e.g., choop). Furthermore, the false-alarm rate was modulated by the phonetic distance between the sounds that distinguished the original label and the lures. Greater false-alarm rates to onset-overlapping labels were not predicted by explicit similarity ratings or by consonant identification and were not dependent upon label familiarity. The asymmetry at erroneously recognizing onset- versus offset-overlapping lures remained unchanged as the presentation of the shape at test was delayed in time, suggesting that response anticipation based on the first sounds of the spoken label did not contribute much to the false recognition of onset-overlapping lures. Thus, learning 2 words whose names differ in their last sounds appears to pose greater difficulty than learning 2 words whose names differ in their first sounds because, we argue, people are biased to give more importance to the early sounds of a name than to its last sounds when learning a novel label–referent association. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)