False memory in aging: Effects of emotional valence on word recognition accuracy.

Memory is susceptible to distortions. Valence and increasing age are variables known to affect memory accuracy and may increase false alarm production. Interaction between these variables and their impact on false memory was investigated in 36 young (18-28 years) and 36 older (61-83 years) healthy adults. At study, participants viewed lists of neutral words orthographically related to negative, neutral, or positive critical lures (not presented). Memory for these words was subsequently tested with a remember-know procedure. At test, items included the words seen at study and their associated critical lures, as well as sets of orthographically related neutral words not seen at study and their associated unstudied lures. Positive valence was shown to have two opposite effects on older adults' discrimination of the lures: It improved correct rejection of unstudied lures but increased false memory for critical lures (i.e., lures associated with words studied previously). Thus, increased salience triggered by positive valence may disrupt memory accuracy in older adults when discriminating among similar events. These findings likely reflect a source memory deficit due to decreased efficiency in cognitive control processes with aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Signal-detection analysis of recall and recognition memory.

Conducted 3 paired-associate learning studies to compare signal-detection analysis of recall and recognition memory performance. Exp. I with 80 female undergraduates, showed that (a) recall and recognition signal-detection model sensitivity measures (d's) are substantially different in later trials, and (b) a previously suggested correction for guessing does not transform the data to theoretical expectations. Exp. II, with 45 Ss, showed that S's guessing rates change systematically over trials and further supported the inappropriateness of a guessing correction. Exp. III, with 40 Ss, attempted to hold constant the probability of guessing correctly. It is suggested that for purposes of comparing recognition and recall, a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of recall data is inappropriate and that a better approach is the use of the forced-choice or 1-of-M-orthogonal signals model. A possible interpretation of a recall ROC d' is suggested. (French summary) (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in assessing recall and recognition memory capacity.

32 1st graders, 32 5th graders, and 32 college students were asked to predict how many orally presented nouns they would later be able to (a) recall or (b) recognize. Based on a "task familiarity" argument, it was anticipated that quite different developmental patterns would be obtained on the 2 tasks. As expected, large developmental differences in prediction accuracy emerged on the recall task but not on the recognition task. Following actual task experience and feedback concerning performance, Ss at all ages made more accurate predictions about a hypothetical 2nd list even though the original developmental patterns still remained. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term memory in amnesia: Cued recall, recognition memory, and confidence ratings.

We explored what kind of information is acquired when amnesic patients are able to exhibit significant retention on tests of cued recall and recognition memory. Amnesic patients and control subjects attempted to learn sets of sentences. Memory for the last word in each sentence was tested after 1 hr in the case of the amnesic patients, or after 1 to 2 weeks in the case of (delayed) control subjects. Amnesic patients and (delayed) control subjects performed at similar levels on tests of cued recall and recognition memory. Amnesic patients were just as confident of their correct answers as were control subjects. Moreover, amnesic patients were no more disadvantaged than control subjects when they were cued indirectly by presenting paraphrases of the original sentences. These findings demonstrate that the residual knowledge retained by amnesic patients can be as flexible, as accessible to indirect cues, and as available to awareness as the knowledge retained by (delayed) control subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relationship between recall and recognition memory.

The relationship between recall and recognition has been a central topic for the study of memory. A test of alternative views about recall and recognition was arranged by studying amnesic patients. In amnesia, damage has occurred to a brain system important for declarative (conscious) memory, but skill learning, priming, and other forms of nonconscious memory are intact. Recall and recognition were found to be proportionately impaired in amnesic patients, and confidence ratings for the recognition judgments were commensurate with the level of impaired performance. The results are contrary to views that either recognition memory or associated confidence judgments are ordinarily supported significantly by nonconscious memory. The results favor the view that recall and recognition are related functions of declarative memory and equivalently dependent on the brain system damaged in amnesia. (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)     

Eyewitness accuracy and confidence: Within- versus between-subjects correlations.

Previous researchers using between-subjects comparisons have found eyewitness confidence and accuracy to be only negligibly correlated. In this study, we examined the predictive power of confidence in within-subject terms. Ninety-six subjects answered, and made confidence ratings for, a series of questions about a crime they witnessed. The average between-subjects and within-subject accuracy–confidence correlations were comparably low: r?=?14 (pr?=?.17 (pr?=?-.09 within subjects), but more strongly with confidence (r?=?-.27 within subjects). This pattern was obtained for both between-subjects and within-subject comparisons. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness recall: Regulation of grain size and the role of confidence.

Eyewitness testimony plays a critical role in Western legal systems. Three experiments extended M. Goldsmith, A. Koriat, and A. Weinberg-Eliezer's (2002) framework of the regulation of grain size (precision vs. coarseness) of memory reports to eyewitness memory. In 2 experiments, the grain size of responses had a large impact on memory accuracy. Further, participants achieved a compromise between the accuracy and informativeness of their testimony by volunteering precise answers only when likely to be correct. The level of detail reported was strongly, positively related to confidence in the accuracy of the response. This highlights the importance of considering the level of detail, not just the accuracy, of eyewitness testimony. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of structure and clustering on recall and recognition memory in clinical depression.

Compared retrieval of high, medium, and low structured material, using word lists consisting of uncategorized words and categorized words presented in randomized and clustered order. Clinically depressed Ss were found to be significantly impaired relative to controls only on the medium level of structure and the randomized categories list when measured by free recall. There were no effects of group nor any interactions for recognition memory, although there was a main effect for group on d′ when signal detection analysis was applied. The implications of the findings for models of memory deficits in depression are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An ARC–REM model for accuracy and response time in recognition and recall.

This article presents a model for accuracy and response time (RT) in recognition and cued recall, fitted to free-response and signal-to-respond data from Experiment 1 of P. A. Nobel and R. M. Shiffrin. The model posits that recognition operates through parallel activation in a single retrieval step and cued recall operates as a sequential search. Because the data for recognition showed that variations in list length and study time per list had a large effect on accuracy but a small or negligible effect on (a) free-response RT distributions and (b) retrieval dynamics in signal-to-respond, the timing of the recognition decision is based on an assessment of retrieval completion (ARC), rather than on a sufficiency of evidence in favor of 1 of the response options. By assuming within-trial forgetting, the model predicts both the dissociation of accuracy and RT and the finding that errors are slower than correct responses. For cued recall, this model was incorporated as the 1st step in a search consisting of cycles of sampling and recovery. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Odor learning, recall, and recognition memory in young and elderly adults.

Use of an odor learning test and the California Verbal Learning Test in young and elderly adults enabled comparison of age-related effects on recall and recognition memory. Assessment of odor identification further enabled study of which odor function (recall, identification, recognition) is most affected by aging, the odor functions' interrelationships, and predictors of odor recall. Results suggested that both recall and recognition were significantly affected by aging and that the odor-recall decline cannot simply be referred to poor identification. Very similar age-related effect sizes were found for the 3 types of odor functions. Finally, the combined ability to encode, store, and retrieve odors appears to predict overall recall performance (including its identification component) better than do identification and recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A decision model for accuracy and response latency in recognition memory.

The model of the decision system in Murdock's (1982, 1983) two-stage memory-and-decision model for item recognition is developed and tested. The underlying strength distributions are assumed to result from the operation of a distributed-memory system. The decision model assumes that extraneous noise is added to the result of the memory comparison process, and a decision is made when the total evidence falls below a lower criterion or rises above an upper criterion. The decision model is shown to be able to fit the accuracy and mean response latency data from four major recognition paradigms (Sternberg, study-test, continuous, and prememorized list). In addition, the decision model was also able to fit the response time distributions derived from the convolution analysis of Ratcliff and Murdock (1976), and the changes in the parameters of the distributions over experimental conditions in each paradigm. The model was also applied to speed-accuracy trade-off, repeated negatives, and the mirror effect. (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)     

Comparison of convolution and matrix distributed memory systems for associative recall and recognition.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 92(4) of Psychological Review (see record 2008-10982-001). In this article, there were two erroneous sentences, one on page 284 and one on page 285. The sentences are corrected in the erratum.] Compares 2 closely related distributed memory models in terms of plausibility; arithmetic simplicity; economy of storage space; and ability to account for associative, similarity, and order data in recall and recognition. It is argued that the storage-retrieval system brought about by the convolution-correlation concept outlined by M. A. Eich (see record 1983-04922-001) and B. B. Murdock (see record 1983-04936-001) is neurally implausible, necessitates more complex analyses, and is less economical in storage space than is the matrix memory concept described by J. A. Anderson et al (see record 1978-22353-001). It is shown that the matrix model can easily account for associative symmetry–asymmetry data and for item similarity effects. Means and variances of operating strength for various recall and recognition situations, modeled by the matrix system, are presented, and it is shown how signal-to-noise ratios can be derived. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misanthropic person memory.

Three experiments examined memory for behaviors associated with attributional information. A baseline established in Experiment 1, using behaviors unaccompanied by attributions, indicated that expectancy-inconsistent behaviors were better recalled than consistent ones. Experiment 2 linked these same behaviors to dispositional or situational attributions. After reconceptualizing the results, it was shown that negative dispositionally attributed behaviors and positive situationally attributed behaviors were best recalled, suggesting that there is a negativity bias in person memory for behaviors that are accompanied by attributions. Experiment 3, using a different procedure, served as a replication of this misanthropic memory effect and demonstrated that the effect was only slightly altered by reducing the processing time allocated for this task. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for expectancy-driven information processing and also with regard to the types of impressions people may form from attributed behavioral information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's knowledge of the relative difficulty of recognition and recall memory tasks.

16 kindergarten and 16 1st-grade children were told stories about twins who were given recognition and recall memory tasks; Ss judged which of the twins remembered more of identical sets of to-be-remembered items. Contrary to the implications of other recent work, it was found that a number of Ss gave clear evidence that they believe recognition tasks to be easier than recall tasks. It is argued that this item of acquired metamemory may be important in the later development of the retrieval strategy of converting recall tasks into recognition tasks. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness identification: Retrospective self-awareness and the accuracy–confidence correlation.

Conducted 4 experiments to test the hypothesis that retrospective self-awareness (RSA) would increase the correlation between eyewitness identification accuracy and confidence. Undergraduate students (48, 33, 75, and 72 in Exps I–IV, respectively) participated as Ss. In all studies, Ss watched a staged crime; immediately afterwards, they were asked to identify the culprit from a photospread and to indicate their confidence in that judgment. In an RSA condition, Ss also viewed a videotape of their performance before rating their confidence. Collectively, the results show an average correlation of .04 in the control groups and .48 in the RSA condition. The data tentatively support a self-perception hypothesis that this manipulation is effective because it alerts Ss to valid but previously unobserved aspects of their own overt behavior (e.g., response latency). Findings are discussed for their theoretical and forensic implications. (50 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A familiarity-based account of confidence–accuracy inversions in recognition memory.

A simple memory model, MINERVA 2 (D. L. Hintzman, see record 1987-06242-001), was applied to data from 2 experiments (C. C. Chandler, see records 76-24866 and 81-39910; E. Tulving, see record 1982-09060-001) that showed an inverse relationship between confidence and accuracy. MINERVA 2 produces the inverse relationship without modification or special assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synergistic ecphory in recall and recognition.

Describes a general model of retrieval of episodic memory information, within which basic phenomena of recall and recognition can be integrated and related to commonly accepted theoretical ideas. The model also provides a statement of the relation between recall and recognition as 2 forms of retrieval: They are similar with respect to the process of ecphory, combining trace information and retrieval information into ecphoric information; they are different with respect to conversion of ecphoric information into recollective experience and memory performance. (French abstract) (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in recall and recognition.

An experiment is reported in which young and elderly adults performed cued-recall and recognition tests while carrying out a choice reaction-time task. An analysis of covariance, with recognition performance as the covariate, showed a reliable age decrement in recall. It was therefore concluded that older people perform more poorly on recall tasks than they do on recognition tasks. Performance on the secondary (reaction time) task showed that recall was associated with greater resource "costs" than was recognition and that this effect was amplified by increasing age. The results are in line with the suggestion that recall requires more processing resources than does recognition and that such resources are depleted as people grow older. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)