Sex differences in social memory tasks.

College females were superior to college males in memory for 3 tasks—one life situation and 2 names-and-faces tests. A new test, the KW Memory for Names and Faces Test, demonstrated a "same-sex recall" tendency for this sample. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging, source memory, and emotion.

In 2 experiments we assessed younger and older adults' ability to remember contextual information about an event. Each experiment examined memory for 3 different types of contextual information: (a) perceptual information (e.g., location of an item); (b) conceptual, nonemotional information (e.g., quality of an item); and (c) conceptual, emotional information (e.g., safety of an item). Consistent with a large literature on aging and source memory, younger adults outperformed older adults when the contextual information was perceptual in nature and when it was conceptual, but not emotional. Age differences in source memory were eliminated, however, when participants recalled emotional source information. These findings suggest that emotional information differentially engages older adults, possibly evoking enhanced elaborations and associations. The data are also consistent with a growing literature, suggesting that emotional processing remains stable with age (e.g., Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994, 1998; Isaacowitz, Charles, & Carstensen, 2000). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in components of reaction time distributions and their relations to working memory and intelligence.

The authors bring together approaches from cognitive and individual differences psychology to model characteristics of reaction time distributions beyond measures of central tendency. Ex-Gaussian distributions and a diffusion model approach are used to describe individuals' reaction time data. The authors identified common latent factors for each of the 3 ex-Gaussian parameters and for 3 parameters central to the diffusion model using structural equation modeling for a battery of choice reaction tasks. These factors had differential relations to criterion constructs. Parameters reflecting the tail of the distribution (i.e., τ in the ex-Gaussian and drift rate in the diffusion model) were the strongest unique predictors of working memory, reasoning, and psychometric speed. Theories of controlled attention and binding are discussed as potential theoretical explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory, attention control, and the n-back task: A question of construct validity.

The n-back task requires participants to decide whether each stimulus in a sequence matches the one that appeared n items ago. Although n-back has become a standard "executive" working memory (WM) measure in cognitive neuroscience, it has been subjected to few behavioral tests of construct validity. A combined experimental- correlational study tested the attention-control demands of verbal 2- and 3-back tasks by presenting n = 1 "lure" foils. Lures elicited more false alarms than control foils in both 2- and 3-back tasks, and lures caused more misses to targets that immediately followed them compared with control targets, but only in 3-back tasks. N-back thus challenges control over familiarity-based responding. Participants also completed a verbal WM span task (operation span task) and a marker test of general fluid intelligence (Gf; Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices Test; J. C. Raven, J. E. Raven, & J. H. Court, 1998). N-back and WM span correlated weakly, suggesting they do not reflect primarily a single construct; moreover, both accounted for independent variance in Gf. N-back has face validity as a WM task, but it does not demonstrate convergent validity with at least 1 established WM measure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of a friend's perspective on American Indian children's recall of previously misconstrued events.

The ability of American Indian children (N = 99; 7–12 years of age) to reframe a memory of a friend's seemingly mean-spirited actions (Story 1) after hearing the friend's perspective detailing her/his good intentions (Story 2) was explored. Children in a control group heard an unrelated Story 2 and did not alter their retelling of Story 1. Good verbal skills facilitated the integration of the friend's perspective in memory for the children who heard the friend's explanation. Higher scores on the working memory and inhibition tasks were associated with higher verbal ability scores. Older children had better working memory and inhibitory skills than younger children. Cultural engagement predicted better social competence ratings but not higher memory reframing scores as predicted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment and emotional memory: Investigating the source and extent of avoidant memory impairments.

Attachment avoidance has been associated with impairments in memory for material with emotional, attachment-related themes (e.g., loss). In the present study the author investigated the source and extent of these memory deficits by examining working memory capacity for attachment-related and nonattachment-related material. Avoidance was associated with deficits in working memory for positive and negative attachment-related stimuli. However, avoidance was unrelated to working memory capacity for nonattachment-related stimuli, both emotional and nonemotional. These findings are consistent with the proposal that avoidant individuals defensively limit the processing of potentially distressing information. Attachment anxiety was unrelated to working memory capacity across word type. Implications of the findings for defensive strategies and emotional memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between source memory and episodic memory: Comment on Siedlecki et al. (2005).

On the basis of an interesting structural equation analysis, K. L. Siedlecki, T. A. Salthouse, and D. E. Berish (see record 2005-02476-002) argued that "it may not be meaningful to refer to source memory as a construct distinct from episodic memory" (p. 31). This commentary highlights that this same point could also be made on conceptual grounds. To suggest that source and episodic memory are distinct concepts would confound tasks with theoretical constructs. All episodic tasks involve making attributions about the origin of mental experiences (source monitoring). Conversely, source memory tasks are designed to investigate episodic memory. No task is special, but each may be useful, depending on the focus of interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuroimaging evidence for agenda-dependent monitoring of different features during short-term source memory tests.

A short-term source monitoring procedure with functional magnetic resonance imaging assessed neural activity when participants made judgments about the format of 1 of 4 studied items (picture, word), the encoding task performed (cost, place), or whether an item was old or new. The results support findings from long-term memory studies showing that left anterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) is engaged when people make source attributions about reflectively generated information (cognitive operations, conceptual features). The findings also point to a role for right lateral PFC in attention to perceptual features and/or familiarity in making source decisions. Activity in posterior regions also differed depending on what was evaluated. These results provide neuroimaging evidence for theoretical approaches emphasizing that agendas influence which features are monitored during remembering (e.g., M. K. Johnson, S. Hashtroudi, & D. S. Lindsay, 1993). They also support the hypothesis that some of the activity in left lateral PFC and posterior regions associated with remembering specific information is not unique to long-term memory but rather is associated with agenda-driven source monitoring processes common to working memory and long-term memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationships of working memory, secondary memory, and general fluid intelligence: Working memory is special.

Recent efforts have been made to elucidate the commonly observed link between working memory and reasoning ability. The results have been inconsistent, with some work suggesting that the emphasis placed on retrieval from secondary memory by working memory tests is the driving force behind this association (Mogle, Lovett, Stawski, & Sliwinski, 2008), whereas other research suggests retrieval from secondary memory is only partly responsible for the observed link between working memory and reasoning (Unsworth & Engle, 2006, 2007). In the present study, we investigated the relationship between processing speed, working memory, secondary memory, primary memory, and fluid intelligence. Although our findings show that all constructs are significantly correlated with fluid intelligence, working memory—but not secondary memory—accounts for significant unique variance in fluid intelligence. Our data support predictions made by Unsworth and Engle (2006, 2007) and suggest that the combined need for maintenance and retrieval processes present in working memory tests makes them special in their prediction of higher order cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging, source memory, and misrecollections.

The authors propose an illusory recollection account of why cognitive aging is associated with episodic memory deficits. After listening to statements presented by either a female or a male speaker, older adults were prone to misrecollecting past events. The authors' illusory recollection account is instantiated in a new illusory recollection signal detection model that provides a better fit of older adults' data than does the standard signal detection model. They observed that age-related differences in source memory (as measured by source d′ scores) virtually disappear after accounting for the occurrence of illusory recollections. These data suggest that age-related source memory impairments are not due to older adults' remembering less diagnostic source information and having to guess more. Instead, older adults appear to misremember past events more often than younger adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Solve the problem first: Constructive solution strategies can influence the accuracy of retrospective confidence judgments.

Two experiments tested whether differences in problem-solving strategies influence the ability of people to monitor their problem-solving effectiveness as measured by confidence judgments. On multiple choice problems, people tend to use either a constructive matching strategy, whereby they attempt to solve a problem before looking at the response options, or a response elimination strategy, whereby they work backward from response options trying to find one that fits as a solution. Constructive matching gives rise to different cues that may enhance confidence monitoring. Experiment 1 showed that spontaneous constructive matching in nonverbal spatial reasoning problems was associated with better confidence calibration and resolution than response elimination. We manipulated strategy in Experiment 2 by requiring constructive matching and found improved monitoring. Implications for research on monitoring, overconfidence, and the association between skill and monitoring are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The contributions of primary and secondary memory to working memory capacity: An individual differences analysis of immediate free recall.

The present study tested the dual-component model of working memory capacity (WMC) by examining estimates of primary memory and secondary memory from an immediate free recall task. Participants completed multiple measures of WMC and general intellectual ability as well as multiple trials of an immediate free recall task. It was demonstrated that there are 2 sources of variance (primary memory and secondary memory) in immediate free recall and that, further, these 2 sources of variance accounted for independent variation in WMC. Together, these results are consistent with a dual-component model of WMC reflecting individual differences in maintenance in primary memory and in retrieval from secondary memory. Theoretical implications for working memory and dual-component models of free recall are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of ego functioning and intelligence to social status and social mobility.

Ratings of coping and defense mechanisms were made on the basis of intensive interviews of 99 adult men and women in a longitudinal study. Childhood and adult social status ratings were also available. The results showed that childhood social status had little effect on adult ego functioning, that adult status and mobility were positively related to adult coping functions and to selected adolescent personality variables. Impulse regulation in the coping sense was related to upward mobility for both sexes, but the men controlled and modulated impulse, whereas the women expressed impulse. Certain kinds of defensiveness were negatively related to mobility for men but were independent of the mobility of the women. Although intelligence was moderately predictive of social mobility for the females, it was independent of mobility for the males. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on integrative approaches to source memory.

Source memory involves recognizing or recalling particular features that cause us to think of a mental experience as representing a particular past event. Research directed at understanding source memory comes from many domains, including cognitive-behavioral psychology, neuroscience, lifespan psychology, clinical psychology, and psychiatry. The authors believe that integrating multiple approaches to investigating source memory--most notably here, cognitive-behavioral and cognitive neuroscience--provides productive cross-fertilization of theory, methods, and analyses that in turn will yield unique constraints to our understanding of human memory. The investigations in this special section demonstrate the promise of such an integrative approach for advancing theories of source memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in working memory capacity predict retrieval-induced forgetting.

Selectively retrieving a subset of previously studied information enhances memory for the retrieved information but causes forgetting of related, nonretrieved information. Such retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) has often been attributed to inhibitory executive-control processes that supposedly suppress the nonretrieved items' memory representation. Here, we examined the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in young adults' RIF. WMC was assessed by means of the operation span task. Results revealed a positive relationship between WMC and RIF, with high-WMC individuals showing more RIF than low-WMC individuals. In contrast, individuals showed enhanced memory for retrieved information regardless of WMC. The results are consistent with previous individual-differences work that suggests a close link between WMC and inhibitory efficiency. In particular, the finding supports the inhibitory executive-control account of RIF. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory capacity and categorization: Individual differences and modeling.

Working memory is crucial for many higher-level cognitive functions, ranging from mental arithmetic to reasoning and problem solving. Likewise, the ability to learn and categorize novel concepts forms an indispensable part of human cognition. However, very little is known about the relationship between working memory and categorization, and modeling in category learning has thus far been largely uninformed by knowledge about people's memory processes. This article reports a large study (N = 113) that related people's working memory capacity (WMC) to their category-learning performance using the 6 problem types of Shepard, Hovland, and Jenkins (1961). Structural equation modeling revealed a strong relationship between WMC and category learning, with a single latent variable accommodating performance on all 6 problems. A model of categorization (the Attention Learning COVEring map, ALCOVE; Kruschke, 1992) was fit to the individual data and a single latent variable was sufficient to capture the variation among associative learning parameters across all problems. The data and modeling suggest that working memory mediates category learning across a broad range of tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biases in interpretation and memory in generalized social phobia.

Two experiments examined the link between interpretation and memory in individuals diagnosed with Generalized Social Phobia (GSP). In Experiment 1, GSP and control participants generated continuations for nonsocial and ambiguous social scenarios. GSP participants produced more socially anxious and negative continuations for the social scenarios than did the controls. On the subsequent test of recalling the social scenarios, intrusion errors that shared meaning with the original continuations were made more frequently by the GSP group, producing false recall with emotionally negative features. To examine whether nonanxious individuals would also produce such errors if given emotional interpretations, in Experiment 2 the authors asked university students to read the scenarios plus endings produced by GSP participants in Experiment 1. The students either constructed vivid mental images of themselves as the main characters or thought about whether the endings provided closure. Low-anxious students in the closure condition produced fewer ending-based intrusions in recalling the social scenarios than did students in the other 3 conditions. Results illustrate the importance of examining the nature of source-monitoring errors in investigations of memory biases in social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive constraints on the structure and dynamics of social networks.

Everyday social activities take place within an environment peopled by a specific set of individuals (our social network). The author reviews the evidence that our social world is both limited in size and highly structured. This structuring consists of a series of circles of acquaintanceship, the successive layers of which progressively include more individuals with whom we have less intense relationships. Although these layers have very consistent typical sizes, there is considerable individual variation because of individual differences in gender, personality, and social-cognitive abilities. The author considers some of the implications of these structural components for the way in which we organize our social lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Destination memory impairment in older people.

Older adults are assumed to have poor destination memory—knowing to whom they tell particular information—and anecdotes about them repeating stories to the same people are cited as informal evidence for this claim. Experiment 1 assessed young and older adults' destination memory by having participants tell facts (e.g., “A dime has 118 ridges around its edge”) to pictures of famous people (e.g., Oprah Winfrey). Surprise recognition memory tests, which also assessed confidence, revealed that older adults, compared to young adults, were disproportionately impaired on destination memory relative to spared memory for the individual components (i.e., facts, faces) of the episode. Older adults also were more confident that they had not told a fact to a particular person when they actually had (i.e., a miss); this presumably causes them to repeat information more often than young adults. When the direction of information transfer was reversed in Experiment 2, such that the famous people shared information with the participants (i.e., a source memory experiment), age-related memory differences disappeared. In contrast to the destination memory experiment, older adults in the source memory experiment were more confident than young adults that someone had shared a fact with them when a different person actually had shared the fact (i.e., a false alarm). Overall, accuracy and confidence jointly influence age-related changes to destination memory, a fundamental component of successful communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)