Aging and source monitoring.

This experiment was designed to examine the ability of older and younger adults to remember the source of information. Three types of source monitoring tasks were investigated: discriminating between externally derived and internally generated memories, discriminating between two types of internally generated memories, and discriminating between two types of externally derived memories. Relative to younger adults, older adults had more difficulty discriminating between memories of the same class (external–external and internal–internal), but they did not have more difficulty discriminating between memories of different classes (external–internal). These findings indicate that the age-related difficulty in remembering the source of information should not be characterized as a general deficit. Factors that may account for age deficits in source monitoring are discussed drawing upon the Johnson–Raye (1981) reality monitoring framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in conversational source monitoring.

The present investigation simulated a group conversation in which participants asked (inquirer) and answered (responder) questions, as well as listened to others exchange information. Source (inquirer; responder) identification accuracy was evaluated immediately or after 1 week. Older adults were less adept at source identification, although this difference was reduced with personal (Experiment 2) rather than categorical (Experiment 1) topics. The age difference was independent of explicit memory (cued recall and recognition), suggesting that memory for source and information are separable. Older adults were comparable to younger adults in responder identification but worse at inquirer identification. Responder identification was better than inquirer identification, with the latter dropping to chance at 1 week. Source identification was most accurate when participants were in the responder role; there was little difference between the inquirer and listener roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Process dissociation as source monitoring.

A 2-high-threshold model source-monitoring model (U. J. Bayen, K. Murnane, & E. Erdfelder, 1996) was applied to both source-monitoring and process-dissociation data collected varying source and distracter similarity. The model fit both sets of data using identical parameter values. The values of the detection parameter, D, and the source-discrimination parameter, d, varied in the manner expected. Also, neither the process-dissociation (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) nor the extended process-dissociation model (A. Buchner, E. Erdfelder, & B. Vaterrodt-Plünnecke, 1995) fit either type of data. The memory processes involved in recognition judgments are the same when using the process-dissociation or the source-monitoring procedure. The 4 cognitive processes in both procedures can be interpreted as item detection, source identification, recognition guessing, and source guessing. The potential role of unconscious memory influences via the 2 guessing processes is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response monitoring in children with phenylketonuria.

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is characterized by a disruption in the metabolism of phenylalanine and is associated with dopamine deficiency (Diamond, Prevor, Callender, & Druin, 1997) and cerebral white matter abnormalities (e.g., Anderson et al., 2007). From a neuropsychological perspective, prefrontal dysfunction is thought to underlie the deficits in executive abilities observed in individuals with PKU (Christ, Steiner, Grange, Abrams, & White, 2006; Diamond et al., 1997; White, Nortz, Mandernach, Huntington, & Steiner, 2001, 2002). The purpose of our study was to examine a specific aspect of executive ability, response monitoring, as measured by posterror slowing. The authors examined posterror reaction time (RT) in 24 children with well-controlled, early treated PKU and 25 typically developing control children using a go/no-go task. Results showed that RTs of both controls and children with PKU slowed significantly following the commission of errors. The magnitude of posterror slowing, however, was significantly less for children with PKU. These findings indicate deficient response monitoring in children with PKU. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multinomial processing models of source monitoring.

This article presents a family of processing models for the source-monitoring paradigm in human memory. Source monitoring and the special case of reality monitoring have become very popular as paradigms to assess memory deficits in various subject populations. The paradigm provides categorical data that satisfy product-multinomial constraints, and this lends it nicely to multinomial modeling with processing-tree structures as described in D. M. Riefer and W. H. Batchelder (see record 1988-31527-001). The models developed herein are based on ideas from high-threshold signal-detection models, and they involve item-detection parameters, source-identification parameters, and various parameters reflecting guessing biases. The purpose of the models is to provide separate, theoretically based measures of old-item detection and source discrimination. The models may strengthen traditional analyses that are based on ad hoc statistics, as well as avoid flawed interpretations that the traditional analyses may produce. The usefulness of the models is revealed by analyzing published data sets from the areas of reality monitoring and bilingual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theory-of-mind development influences suggestibility and source monitoring.

According to the mental-state reasoning model of suggestibility, 2 components of theory of mind mediate reductions in suggestibility across the preschool years. The authors examined whether theory-of-mind performance may be legitimately separated into 2 components and explored the memory processes underlying the associations between theory of mind and suggestibility, independent of verbal ability. Children 3 to 6 years old completed 6 theory-of-mind tasks and a postevent misinformation procedure. Contrary to the model's prediction, a single latent theory-of-mind factor emerged, suggesting a single-component rather than a dual-component conceptualization of theory-of-mind performance. This factor provided statistical justification for computing a single composite theory-of-mind score. Improvements in theory of mind predicted reductions in suggestibility, independent of verbal ability (Study 1, n = 72). Furthermore, once attribution biases were controlled (Study 2, n = 45), there was also a positive relationship between theory of mind and source memory, but not recognition performance. The findings suggest a substantial, and possibly causal, association between theory-of-mind development and resistance to suggestion, driven specifically by improvements in source monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and single versus multiple cues in source monitoring.

Participants heard words said by 2 speakers and later decided who said each word. The authors varied the perceptual distinctiveness of the speakers and the distinctiveness of the cognitive operations participants performed on the words. Relative to younger adults, older adults had significantly lower source monitoring scores when perceptual or cognitive operations conditions were similar but not when either cue was more distinctive. Combining cues did not affect source monitoring of younger adults but hurt older adults' performance relative to the distinctive perceptual condition. Evidently, older adults generate cognitive cues at the expense of encoding perceptual cues; any deficit in binding perceptual and semantic information disadvantages them more in source monitoring than in old/new recognition. There was no correlation between neuropsychological tests assessing frontal function and source monitoring in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of three strategies of attention in dichotic monitoring.

Investigated 3 strategies of attention in 108 Ss in 3 age groups (7, 11, and 20 yrs). Ss monitored lists of monaural and dichotic words and responded manually to target words. Target detection rates in unequal division of attention (Exp I) showed that selection of the relevant input improved with age. The degree of attenuation of the irrelevant input was dependent on which ear was being ignored, but this effect interacted with age. The 7-yr-olds could not attend effectively to left-ear items. Exp II simplified the focusing strategy by eliminating response requirements to the irrelevant input. Selectivity improved with this strategy, particularly in 7-yr-olds. Equal division of attention between the 2 ears (Exp III) revealed a constant right-ear advantage in each age group. Differentiation of the 3 voluntary strategies improved between ages 7 and 11. In adults, the 3 strategies were clearly distinguished. Results are interpreted in terms of a multiprocess model of attention: Perceptual factors such as dichotic interaction and hemispheric asymmetry were strategy dependent but not age dependent. Voluntary selective attention was age dependent and affected the degree to which hemispheric asymmetry could be overcome. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring memory factors in source monitoring: Reply to Kinchla.

D. A. Kinchla (see record 1994-16291-001) criticizes W. H. Batchelder and D. M. Reifer's multinomial model for source monitoring, primarily its high-threshold assumptions, and advocates an approach based on statistical decision theory (SDT). The authors lay out some of the considerations that led to their model and then raise some specific concerns with Kinchla's critique. The authors point out that most of his criticisms are drawn from contrasting the high threshold and the Gaussian, equal-variance SDT models on receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves for yes-no recognition memory. The authors indicate how source monitioring is more complicated than yes-no recognition and question the validity of standard ROC analyses in source monitoring. The authors argue that their model is a good approximation for measuring differences between sources on old-new detection and that it has the ability to measure source discrimination as well as detection. The authors also explore a low-threshold multinomial model and discuss the application of SDT models to source monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of recollection and partial information in source monitoring.

Two experiments were conducted to assess the degree to which source monitoring required recollective details or could be based on vaguer partial information. Source judgments were followed by remember-know judgments during testing. On the authors' assumption that remember judgments are highly correlated with the presence of recollective details, the results showed that accurate source monitoring did not necessarily require such recollective details. Rather, the high proportion of correct source judgments that were associated with know responses suggests that source-monitoring processes can successfully use the partial information that is recorded in vaguer memories. Consequently, source monitoring can be based on recollection but can also effectively use qualitative characteristics that lack clarity and sufficient amounts of details to give rise to the subjective feeling of remembering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test-induced priming impairs source monitoring accuracy in the DRM procedure.

Three experiments investigated the effects of test-induced priming (TIP) on false recognition in the Deese/Roediger–McDermott procedure (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). In Experiment 1, TIP significantly increased false recognition for participants who made old/new decisions at test but not for participants who made remember/know judgments or were given diagnostic information to help them avoid false recognition. In Experiment 2, a TIP effect was observed with old/new recognition but not when participants were required to remember whether study items were spoken by a male or a female speaker. In Experiment 3, false recognition increased when critical lures were preceded by 10 studied items but not when preceded by 5 studied and 5 unstudied items from the same list. These findings suggest that TIP increases false recognition by disrupting source monitoring processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Older adults' use of metacognitive knowledge in source monitoring: Spared monitoring but impaired control.

While episodic memory declines with age, metacognitive monitoring is spared. The current study explored whether older adults can use their preserved metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses in the absence of source memory. Through repetition, words from two sources (italic vs. bold text type) differed in memorability. There were no age differences in monitoring this difference despite an age difference in memory. Older adults used their metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses but showed a deficit in varying their source guessing based on word recognition. Therefore, older adults may not fully benefit from metacognitive knowledge about sources in source monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-modal source monitoring confusions between perceived and imagined events.

Two experiments tested the prediction based on the source monitoring framework that imagination is most likely to lead to false memories when related perceived events have occurred. Consistent with this, people were more likely to falsely remember seeing events when the events had been both imagined as seen and actually heard than when they were just heard, just visually imagined, or imagined both visually and auditorily. Furthermore, when people considered potential sources for memories or more carefully evaluated features of remembered events, source errors were reduced. On average, misattributed ("false") memories differed in phenomenal qualities from true memories. Taken together, these findings show that as different qualities of mental experience flexibly enter into source attributions, qualities derived from related perceptual events are particularly likely to lead to false claims that imagined events were seen, even when the event involves a primary modality (auditory) different from the target event (visual). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling behavioral measures of error detection in choice tasks: Response monitoring versus conflict monitoring.

The present study investigated the mechanisms underlying error detection in the error signaling response. The authors tested between a response monitoring account and a conflict monitoring account. By implementing each account within the neural network model of N. Yeung, M. M. Botvinick, and J. D. Cohen (2004), they demonstrated that both accounts make different predictions as to how error signaling performance is influenced by varying the participants' response criterion. These predictions were tested in an experiment using the Eriksen-flanker task. The qualitative pattern as well as a model fit favored the response monitoring account, which states that error detection is mediated by detecting internal error corrections. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and source monitoring: Cognitive processes and neuropsychological correlates.

This study shows that relative to younger adults, older adults are more adversely influenced by similar items when judging a memory's source, and the phenomenal features of their correctly and incorrectly attributed memories have greater overlap. The authors argue in accordance with the source monitoring framework that this age-related impairment in source accuracy is related to processes involved in binding features into complex memories and those involved in accessing and evaluating contextual features of memories. These processes are linked to medial temporal and frontal brain regions, respectively, as evidenced by correlations in older adults between source accuracy and neuropsychological tests often used to assess medial temporal and frontal function. The results suggest that adequate feature binding is particularly important when items from different sources share similar features and access-evaluation processes are particularly important after a delay. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive factors in source monitoring and auditory hallucinations

BACKGROUND: In order to elucidate further the cognitive processes underlying auditory hallucinations, an experiment investigating delayed and immediate source monitoring for positive, negative and neutral verbal material was conducted with schizophrenic patients. METHODS: Patients experiencing auditory hallucinations, patients not experiencing auditory hallucinations and normal subjects participated in a word association task, rating their responses for how much a self-generated thought was their own, how controllable and involuntary it was and their confidence in these ratings. A delayed source monitoring test in which subjects had to recall the source (self or experimenter) of the words from the association task was also administered. RESULTS: Hallucinators showed a greater bias towards external attribution of their thoughts compared with both control groups for immediate attributions of source, but not for delayed attributions. Hallucinators showed a bias towards external attribution of emotional material for immediate source monitoring and all subjects showed a bias towards misattribution of positive material to an external source and negative material to an internal source for the delayed source monitoring task. CONCLUSIONS: These findings appear to be most consistent with theories proposing that hallucinations result from an external attributional bias for internal events. The implications of these results for research and practice are also discussed.     

Effects of aging on source monitoring: Differences in susceptibility to false fame.

Older adults were less likely than young adults to spontaneously recollect the source of familiarity for previously read nonfamous names. Older adults were more likely to call old nonfamous names famous when subsequently encountered in a fame judgment task. Poor source monitoring by the elderly could not be accounted for by inability to recognize earlier read nonfamous names when specifically asked to do so. Both source-monitoring errors and recognition memory performance were based on attributions made about the experience of familiarity. Elderly subjects most prone to making familiarity errors recalled fewer items on a verbal learning task and were less likely to chunk information into semantic categories as it was recalled. This finding suggests that a decline in the tendency to spontaneously organize and integrate information underlies the poor source monitoring observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attempts to reduce the incidence of false recall with source monitoring.

In 5 experiments, the source-monitoring framework was applied to the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, which has received so much interest recently. The authors' goal was to demonstrate that under certain conditions, when items in the DRM paradigm were learned from more than 1 origin, the incidence of false memories would decline. This result was obtained with internal–external reality monitoring conditions in free recall (Exps 1 and 3). With more confusable sources that required internal–internal or external–external discriminations, there was no reduction in false recall (Exps 2a and 4). In all experiments, participants were willing to assign an origin to their false memories, even when given an option to claim that they were not sure of its source (Exp 2b). The results are discussed in terms of how source-monitoring principles can sometimes reduce false memories in the DRM paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contributions of inadequate source monitoring to unconscious plagiarism during idea generation.

Participants engaged in a creative idea-generation task that required them to monitor source to devise ideas not offered previously by others. In Experiment 1, inadvertent plagiarism (cryptomnesia) occurred more often when participants were generating ideas than when they were taking a recognition test. In Experiment 2, focusing participants on the origin of their ideas during generation resembled the focusing that occurs in recognition performance and reduced plagiarism. In Experiment 3, a speeded-response condition increased inadvertent plagiarism by mimicking conditions in which people cannot or do not adequately monitor source. In Experiment 4, plagiarism was reduced both when participants offered their new ideas in a one-on-one context as compared with a more anonymous group setting and when participants were specifically instructed to avoid plagiarism. The results are discussed in terms of source-monitoring decision criteria and the conscious and unconscious processes that support that monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When is schematic knowledge used in source monitoring?

Source monitoring involves judgments regarding the origin of information (M. K. Johnson, S. Hashtroudi, & D. S. Lindsay, 1993). When participants cannot remember the source in a source-monitoring task, they may guess according to their prior schematic knowledge (U. J. Bayen, O. V. Nakamura, S. E. Dupuis, & C. A. Yang, 2000). The present study aimed at specifying conditions under which schematic knowledge is used in source monitoring. The authors examined the time course of schema-based guesses with a response-signal technique (A. V. Reed, 1973), and multinomial models that separate memory and guessing bias. Use of schematic knowledge was observed only when asymptotic old-new recognition was low. The time course of schematic-knowledge retrieval followed an exponential growth function. Implications for theories of source monitoring are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)