How much does guessing influence recall? Comment on Erdelyi, Finks, and Feigin-Pfau.

M. H. Erdelyi et al (see record 1989-38884-001) present evidence that variations in recall criteria can affect the number of items correctly recalled. In this comment, we (a) describe some procedural differences between their work and the earlier experiments of H. L. Roediger and D. G. Payne (see record 1986-13690-001), (b) note that their large manipulations of recall criteria produced only small effects on the amount recalled, and (c) describe recent research complementing that of Erdelyi et al. We observe that variations in recall criteria have larger effects after a 1-week delay than on an immediate test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response bias in "remembering" emotional stimuli: A new perspective on age differences.

Older adults sometimes show a recall advantage for emotionally positive, rather than neutral or negative, stimuli (S. T. Charles, M. Mather, & L. L. Carstensen, 2003). In contrast, younger adults respond "old" and "remember" more often to negative materials in recognition tests. For younger adults, both effects are due to response bias changes rather than to enhanced memory accuracy (S. Dougal & C. M. Rotello, 2007). We presented older and younger adults with emotional and neutral stimuli in a remember-know paradigm. Signal-detection and model-based analyses showed that memory accuracy did not differ for the neutral, negative, and positive stimuli, and that "remember" responses did not reflect the use of recollection. However, both age groups showed large and significant response bias effects of emotion: Younger adults tended to say "old" and "remember" more often in response to negative words than to positive and neutral words, whereas older adults responded "old" and "remember" more often to both positive and negative words than to neutral stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional characteristics of auditory temporal—spatial short-term memory: Evidence from serial order errors.

The functional characteristics of auditory temporal-spatial short-term memory were explored in 8 experiments in which the to-be-remembered stimuli were sequences of bursts of white noise presented in spatial locations separated in azimuth. Primacy and recency effects were observed in all experiments. A 10-s delay impaired recall for primacy and middle list items but not recency. This effect was shown not to depend on the response modality or on the incidence of omissions or repetitions. Verbal and nonverbal secondary tasks did not affect memory for auditory spatial sounds. Temporal errors rather than spatial errors predominated, suggesting that participants were engaged in a process of maintaining order. This pattern of results may reflect characteristics that serial recall has in common with verbal and spatial recall, but some are unique to the representation of memory for temporal-spatial auditory events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociable effects of conscious emotion regulation strategies on explicit and implicit memory.

The authors manipulated emotion regulation strategies at encoding and administered explicit and implicit memory tests. In Experiment 1, participants used reappraisal to enhance and decrease the personal relevance of unpleasant and neutral pictures. In Experiment 2, decrease cues were replaced with suppress cues that directed participants to inhibit emotion-expressive behavior. Across experiments, using reappraisal to enhance the personal relevance of pictures improved free recall. By contrast, attempting to suppress emotional displays tended to impair recall, especially compared to the enhance condition. Using reappraisal to decrease the personal relevance of pictures had different effects depending on picture type. Paired with unpleasant pictures, the decrease cue tended to improve recall. Paired with neutral stimuli, the decrease cue tended to impair recall. Emotion regulation did not affect perceptual priming. Results highlight dissociable effects of emotion regulation on explicit and implicit memory, as well as dissociations between regulation strategies with respect to explicit memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of subliminal psychodynamic activation in the study of repression.

To study the clinical phenomenon of repression, 33 female undergraduates were selected for the presence of high sexual guilt and divided into 2 groups. One group evidenced a high degree of personality development from which it was inferred that they were prone toward (a) the use of repression rather than more primitive defenses and (b) oedipal rather than preoedipal conflict. The 2nd group evidenced a lesser degree of personality development, thus the above inferences did not apply. The subliminal psychodynamic activation method was used with both groups to evaluate effects on repression of intensifying and diminishing unconscious conflict over sexual wishes. Ss were exposed to conflict intensifying, conflict reducing, and neutral control stimuli, each accompanied by a congruent picture both before (in 1 condition) and after (in another condition) a recall test of both neutral and sexual material. The conflict-reduction condition did not affect memory of the passages, but the conflict-intensification condition did (a) for the group with the greater degree of personality development, (b) when this condition was presented before the material to be remembered, and (c) for the recall of neutral passages. The special conditions necessary for demonstration of repression are viewed as elucidating why it has previously been difficult to show evidence of repression in laboratory experiments. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult Age Differences in Distinctive Processing: The Modality Effect on False Recall.

Age differences in distinctive processing were investigated by examining the effects of study presentation modality on false recall in younger and older adults using the Deese/Roediger and McDermott paradigm. Participants were presented with study words either visually or auditorily. Older adults did not show the typical reduction in false recall after visual, compared to auditory, study presentation (R.E. Smith & R.R. Hunt, 1998). The authors interpret these results as evidence of reduced distinctive processing on the part of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are trauma victims susceptible to "false memories?"

Laboratory studies using word-list paradigms have provided evidence that nontraumatized individuals falsely recall or recognize events that never occurred. In the present study, H. L. Roediger and K. B. McDermott's false-memory paradigm (1995) was utilized to examine possible source monitoring deficits in individuals with PTSD. Traumatized individuals with PTSD were compared with traumatized individuals without PTSD and with nontraumatized control participants. Participants heard lists of related words (e.g., bed, night) that were associates of a critical nonpresented word (e.g., sleep) and were given immediate free recall and later recognition tests. Traumatized participants with and without PTSD generated more false recalls of critical nonpresented words than did nontraumatized participants. False recall was related to trait anxiety and PTSD severity. The results are consistent with a general source-monitoring deficit in trauma-exposed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False memory propensity in people reporting recovered memories of past lives.

Are elevated rates of false recall and recognition in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm associated with false autobiographical memories in everyday life? To investigate this issue, the authors recruited participants who reported improbable memories of past lives and compared their DRM performance with that of control participants who reported having lived only one life (i.e., their current one). Relative to control participants, those reporting memories of past lives exhibited significantly higher false recall and recognition rates in the DRM paradigm, and they scored higher on measures of magical ideation and absorption as well. The groups did not differ on correct recall, recognition, or intelligence. False memory propensity in the DRM paradigm may tap proneness for developing false memories outside the laboratory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of discrete emotions on young children's suggestibility.

Two experiments investigated the effects of sadness, anger, and happiness on 4- to 6-year-old children's memory and suggestibility concerning story events. In Experiment 1, children were presented with 3 interactive stories on a video monitor. The stories included protagonists who wanted to give the child a prize. After each story, the child completed a task to try to win the prize. The outcome of the child's effort was manipulated in order to elicit sadness, anger, or happiness. Children's emotions did not affect story recall, but children were more vulnerable to misleading questions about the stories when sad than when angry or happy. In Experiment 2, a story was presented and emotions were elicited using an autobiographical recall task. Children responded to misleading questions and then recalled the story for a different interviewer. Again, children's emotions did not affect the amount of story information recalled correctly, but sad children incorporated more information from misleading questions during recall than did angry or happy children. Sad children's greater suggestibility is discussed in terms of the differing problem-solving strategies associated with discrete emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extending the irrelevant speech effect beyond serial recall.

The irrelevant speech effect is the impairment of immediate memory by the presentation of to-be-ignored speech stimuli. The irrelevant speech effect has been limited to serial recall, but this series of 8 experiments demonstrates that it is considerably more general. Exps 1–3 show that (1) irrelevant speech inhibits free recall more than does white noise, (2) irrelevant speech impairs free recall even when the speech occurs after the to-be-recalled items, and (3) free recall is inhibited even when the speech is meaningless. Exp 4 failed to find an effect in free recall with 16-item lists. Exps 5A–5C extend the effect to recognition of 8-, 12-, and 16-item lists, with both phonologically related and phonologically unrelated lure items. Exp 6 extends the effect to a cued recall task that discourages the use of serial rehearsal of the to-be-remembered items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False Memories: Young and Older Adults Think of Semantic Associates at the Same Rate, but Young Adults Are More Successful at Source Monitoring.

Two experiments explored whether the higher vulnerability to false memories in the DRM (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) paradigm in older compared to young adults reflects a deficit in source monitoring. In both experiments, adding together the number of falsely recalled critical lures and the number of critical lures produced on a post-recall test asking participants to report items that they had thought of but did not recall, indicated that the critical lures were activated during the experiment equally often in young and older adults. However, older adults were more likely than young adults to say that they had actually heard the lures. When strongly encouraged to examine the origin of memories (Experiment 2), the warning substantially reduced false recall in young but not older adults. These results are consistent with the idea that older adults have more difficulty later identifying the source of information that was activated as a consequence of intact semantic activation processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens.

False memory creation was examined in people who reported having recovered memories of traumatic events that are unlikely to have occurred: abduction by space aliens. A variant of the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger III & K. B. McDermott, 1995) was used to examine false recall and false recognition in 3 groups: people reporting recovered memories of alien abduction, people who believe they were abducted by aliens but have no memories, and people who deny having been abducted by aliens. Those reporting recovered and repressed memories of alien abduction were more prone than control participants to exhibit false recall and recognition. The groups did not differ in correct recall or recognition. Hypnotic suggestibility, depressive symptoms, and schizotypic features were significant predictors of false recall and false recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concreteness effects on memory: When and why?

Two experiments with 194 university students studied the effects of concreteness and relatedness of noun pairs on free recall, cued recall, and memory integration. Dual-coding theory (DCT) implies that concreteness and relatedness should have independent and additive effects on memory performance, whereas relational-distinctiveness processing theory implies that the 2 variables should interact. Their effects proved to be statistically independent in cued-recall and memory integration tests in both studies. In free recall, the effects were independent in Exp 1 and interactive over subjects, but not over items in Exp 2. Results were most consistent with the DCT and, regarding integration, with the hypothesis that strong verbal relations are necessary for integrative recall of abstract pairs, whereas high imagery is sufficient for integrative recall of concrete pairs. The hypothesis resolves a long-standing issue concerning memory integration of abstract language. (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)     

Effects of context manipulation on memory and reversal learning in rats with hippocampal lesions.

Conducted 3 experiments with 83 male Long-Evans rats to investigate (a) the memory of hippocampus-damaged Ss, and (b) their ability to modify response strategies in relation to the influence of familiar contextual cues. In Exp I, groups of hippocampal and control Ss learned a simultaneous discrimination habit and were subsequently tested for its retention under variable contextual conditions. All groups recalled the discrimination response to an equally high level when testing conditions were constant throughout, but the hippocampal group showed impaired memory when contextual stimuli at recall testing did not conform to those of original learning. Results of Exp II indicate that the hippocampal impairment was not simply the result of introducing novel stimuli. In Exp III, Ss were administered a reversal learning task with contextual stimuli varied between the 2 tests. The typically observed impairment of hippocampal Ss on this task was reduced by contrasting contextual conditions. Results are seen to support a context-retrieval interpretation of hippocampal function. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context and cue cards in young children's testimony: A comparison of brief narrative elaboration and context reinstatement.

In a comparison of interview procedures that aimed to assist retrieval strategies in children's event recall, 72 children aged 4-6 years were questioned about a witnessed event. Context reinstatement and brief narrative elaboration (an abbreviated version of K. J. Saywitz and L. Snyder's [1996] procedure) produced similar levels of correct recall, and both elicited more correct recall than did a control condition, with no increase in errors. Combining these procedures did not further improve performance. The superiority of narrative elaboration over the control group was evident in free recall and did not depend on explicit prompting with cue cards. These findings suggest that incorporating brief narrative elaboration training in investigative interviews with children may, like context reinstatement, be a valuable mnemonic aid. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prepulse-elicited motor reactions do not differ between schizophrenia patients and control subjects.

Electromyographic (EMG) measures were made of the eyeblink response to stimuli 2-16 dB over a 70-dB(A) noise background as well as the eyeblink response to startling 115-dB(A) pulses in 15 schizophrenia patients and 10 control subjects. In patients and in control subjects, weak stimuli did not elicit EMG activation. Startling stimuli elicited robust EMG activation in both groups. Compared with control subjects, schizophrenia patients are not more sensitive to motor-activating effects of weak acoustic stimuli that served as prepulses in published reports of prepulse inhibition deficits in schizophrenia. Thus, differential sensitivity to the motor-activating effects of prepulses should not contribute to reduced prepulse inhibition in schizophrenia patients versus control subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bizarre imagery as an effective memory aid: The importance of distinctiveness.

Five experiments with 304 undergraduates investigated the effects of imagery type (bizarre or common) on memory of word triplets. In Exp I bizarre imagery increased recall when imagery type was manipulated in a within-list design but not when imagery type was manipulated in a between-list design. Results of Exp II show that this effect occurred with imagery processing instructions and not with semantic processing instructions. Exp III indicated that bizarre imagery facilitated recall in a within-list design for both self-paced and experimenter-paced presentations of the stimuli, and Exp IV, the pattern of effects of bizarre imagery on memory (in a within-list design) did not parallel the effects of presentation rate on memory. Data from Exps I through IV are inconsistent with an attentional explanation of bizarre imagery effects. In Exp V, when several types of additional learning were interpolated between initial imaginal processing and testing, bizarre imagery produced better recall with a between-list manipulation, but only when the additional learning involved common imagery. In addition to delineating the conditions under which bizarre imagery improves recall, overall findings suggest that distinctiveness may underlie the bizarreness effect. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further Investigation of the Effects of Subliminal Aggressive Stimulation on the Ego Functioning of Schizophrenics.

This was a study of the effects of subliminally presented aggressive stimuli on the ego functioning of schizophrenics. 40 hospitalized male Ss were seen for an experimental and control session in a balanced design. Measures of pathological thinking, accuracy of recall, and projection of aggression were obtained after the subliminal presentation of aggression-related and neutral stimuli. In response to the experimental condition both paranoid and nonparanoid patients produced significantly more pathological thinking; only the paranoids reacted with a significant increase in projection of aggression, and only the nonparanoids manifested a significant impairment in accuracy of recall. This data was seen as offering further support for the view that the disturbing effects of drive stimulation can be studied through the subliminal presentation of drive-related stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of order information in free recall: Application to the word-frequency effect.

According to an order-encoding account of free recall, the free recall of unrelated words is organized according to their order of presentation in the study list, with unusual items attracting more attentional resources to item encoding than usual items, but at the expense of order encoding. This account correctly predicted (a) better free recall and serial-order memory for high-frequency (HF) than low-frequency (LF) words in pure lists and (b) equivalent serial-order memory for HF and LF words but superior recall of LF words in mixed lists. The mixed-list recall results and the finding that overall list recall did not depend on the proportion of HF words comprising a list are inconsistent with G. Gillund and R. M. Shiffrin's (see record 1984-08340-001) search of associative memory (SAM) explanation. The order-encoding account of the differential effects of other variables (e.g., generation and bizarreness) on free recall in pure versus mixed lists is also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)