Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses.

The claim that a person's memory for an event may be altered by information encountered after the event has been based on studies showing that Ss who are given false or misleading information about a previously witnessed event perform more poorly on tests of memory for the event than Ss who are not misled. It is argued that the available evidence does not imply that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event because the procedure used in previous studies is inappropriate for assessing effects of misleading information on memory. A more appropriate procedure is presented that involves a change in the recognition test phase. This procedure was used in 6 experiments with 792 undergraduates. Findings indicate that misleading postevent information had no effect on memory for the original event. Several recent studies that seem to contradict this conclusion are reviewed, and it is shown that the studies do not pose problems for the present authors' position. Findings are also considered in relation to the more general claim that information about an event from various sources are integrated into a single representation of the event. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misleading postevent information and the memory impairment hypothesis: Comment on Belli and reply to Tversky and Tuchin.

R. F. Belli (see record 1989-24859-001) and B. Tversky and M. Tuchin (see record 1989-24890-001) used a "Yes"/"No" recognition procedure to explore effects of misleading postevent information on memory for events. We examine the data and arguments presented in these studies, concluding that neither study demonstrates that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further evidence of the intricacy of memory span.

Memory span was measured for lists of verbal items constructed such that the items in the 1st half of the list were of one category and those of the 2nd half were of another. In Exp 1, the lists consisted of digits and words (e.g., 2, 8, 77, horse, cow, sheep or horse, cow, sheep, 2, 8, 7); in Exp 2, they consisted of words from the same semantic domain and words from different semantic domains; in Exps 3 and 4, they consisted of words that rhymed and words that did not rhyme. A category-order effect occurred in each experiment: Span was larger when the digits, same-domain words, or rhyming words occurred in the 1st half of the list than when they occurred in the 2nd half. These findings suggest that memory span is more complex than is generally assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further evidence that similar principles govern recall from episodic and semantic memory: The Canadian prime ministerial serial position function.

The serial position function, with its characteristic primacy and recency effects, is one of the most ubiquitous findings in episodic memory tasks. In contrast, there are only two demonstrations of such functions in tasks thought to tap semantic memory. Here, we provide a third demonstration, showing that free recall of the prime ministers of Canada also results in a serial position function. Scale Independent Memory, Perception, and Learning (SIMPLE), a local distinctiveness model of memory that was designed to account for serial position effects in episodic memory, fit the data. According to SIMPLE, serial position functions observed in episodic and semantic memory all reflect the relative distinctiveness principle: items will be well remembered to the extent that they are more distinct than competing items at the time of retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influences of misleading postevent information: Misinformation interference and acceptance.

Because of the biasing nature of retrieval tests, evidence that the introduction of misleading postevent information will impair the memory for an original event has recently been in dispute. In two experiments, a retrieval test sensitive to both biasing effects of misinformation (misinformation acceptance) and influences of the misinformation on memory (misinformation interference) was used. Both experiments demonstrated misinformation acceptance, and one of the experiments suggested that misinformation interferes with the ability to remember the original event. Two misinformation interference hypotheses are evaluated; they suggest that the misinformation may have either impaired memory or led to confusion regarding what had occurred during the event. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual integrality of sex and identity of faces: Further evidence for the single-route hypothesis.

According to current face-recognition models, sex (gender) and identity of faces are processed in independent routes. Using Garner's speeded-classification task, the authors provide evidence that sex and identity are processed within a single route. In 4 experiments, participants judged the sex or the familiarity of faces while the other dimension remained constant or varied randomly. The results of Experiments 1, 2, and 4 showed that participants could not selectively attend to either sex or familiarity without being influenced by the other, irrelevant dimension. Thus, identity and sex are integral dimensions. Experiment 3 provided evidence that when sex judgments are based on hairstyle heuristics, false separability can emerge. The findings support the claim that identity and sex are processed within a single route. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of the opioid and nonopioid analgesic systems: Evidence for a memory hypothesis and against the coulometric hypothesis.

It has been suggested that the magnitude and form of hypoalgesia elicited by an aversive event can be predicted from its coulometric product (Intensity?×?Duration). According to this hypothesis, small products elicit opioid hypoalgesia, and large products elicit nonopioid hypoalgesia. This suggests that increasing the duration of an aversive event should heighten the nonopioid hypoalgesia. Contrary to this prediction, in Experiment 1 I found that increasing the duration of a mild shock attenuated the nonopioid hypoalgesia. In Experiment 2 I tested another implication of the coulometric hypothesis, namely, that mild shocks that have the same coulometric product should elicit equivalent hypoalgesia. The results did not support this prediction. We discuss how these findings are consistent with an alternative theory, the "working memory hypothesis." According to this theory, the representation of an aversive event in working memory elicits hypoalgesia. In Experiment 3 a novel prediction of this theory was tested, namely, that displacing the representation of intense shock from working memory, by following the intense shock with a weak shock "distractor," should attenuate hypoalgesia. The results support this prediction. I conclude by discussing the relation of this work to other findings in the analgesia literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in episodic memory: Further support for an associative-deficit hypothesis.

This study further tested an associative-deficit hypothesis (ADH; M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), which attributes a substantial part of older adults' deficient episodic memory performance to their difficulty in merging unrelated attributes-units of an episode into a cohesive unit. First, the results of 2 experiments replicate those observed by M. Naveh-Benjamin (2000) showing that older adults are particularly deficient in memory tests requiring associations. Second, the results extend the type of stimuli (pictures) under which older adults show this associative deficit. Third, the results support an ADH in that older adults show less of an associative deficit when the components of the episodes used are already connected in memory, thereby facilitating their encoding and retrieval. Finally, a group of younger adults who encoded the information under divided-attention conditions did not show this associative deficit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypermnesia for pictures and words: Testing the recall level hypothesis.

Five experiments with 150 undergraduates examined the hypothesis that hypermnesia (improved recall across repeated tests) can be predicted from cumulative recall levels. Contrary to this view, Exp I demonstrated that when the cumulative recall levels for pictures and words were equated, pictures still produced a larger hypermnesic effect. Results of Exps II and III show that varying test length (and thus recall level) had no effect on the magnitude of the hypermnesic effect. In Exp IV, Ss studied a categorized word list and then received 1 21-min test or 3 7-min tests. Results suggest that (a) similar retrieval processes are used in these 2 conditions and (b) hypermnesia in the repeated test paradigm results from Ss generating covert cues to aid item recovery across tests. Overall findings suggest that although hypermnesia is related to cumulative recall levels, various other factors (e.g., item type) modulate the magnitude of the hypermnesia by affecting item accessibility across tests. It is argued that changes in item accessibility across tests, caused by learning during testing, play a major role in producing hypermnesia in both episodic and semantic memory tasks. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further investigation of the self-presentation hypothesis.

Discusses A. Fontana, E. Klein, E. Lewis, and L. Levine's data supporting their self-presentation hypothesis which maintains that "mental illness" is not an illness at all but a socially undesirable mode of behavior. Several methodological problems in the study are noted. A more reliable means of selecting healthy and sick presenters, as well as a 2 (healthy vs. sick presenter) * 2 (anticipation vs. no anticipation of evaluative feedback) * 3 (positive, negative, no feedback) design, was used in a study with 84 male schizophrenics. A critical mode of self-presentation by feedback interaction predicted by the self-presentation hypothesis was not found. The dependent measure was postscores minus prescores on the WAIS Digit Symbol tests. It is concluded that, at best, self-presentation effects are weak and unobserved by the current investigators (Beta error), or at worst the result of extraneous sources of variation. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream recall and repression: Evidence for an alternative hypothesis.

Attempted to demonstrate a significant association between dream recall frequency and external locus of control, field dependence, and "poor inner life" in 5 experiments with undergraduates (N = 298). Instruments used included self-rating scales, a sociometric measure, and a battery of personality tests (e.g., Rotter's Internal-External Control Scale). Results of Exp I-III and previous studies do not provide strong support for the inner-rejectant (repression) formulation. Exp IV demonstrated that a brief, psychodynamically neutral postsleep distraction has a strong inhibitory effect on dream recall. Exp V included the same postsleep distraction and in addition used presleep dream attitude inductions designed to maximize (high salience) or minimize (low salience) a belief that dreams reveal personal problems. The inhibitory effect of the postsleep distraction was replicated. The high-salience induction did not inhibit dream recall, even for infrequent dream recallers. Results suggest that a distinction should be made between life-style variables conceptually related to repression that may correlate with dream recall frequency and factors unrelated to repression that directly determine the process of dream recall. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the salience hypothesis of dream recall.

Tested the hypothesis that dream salience (subjective impact of the generated dream) would be greater for frequent than infrequent dream recallers. Dream recall data from 8 frequent and 8 infrequent recallers (male undergraduates) were obtained under 2 conditions: tape-recorded verbal reports given to the E after interruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and written diary reports after awakening by alarm clock in the absence of the E. Analysis of the verbal reports confirmed the hypothesis. The relatively greater difference between the 2 groups in mean percentage of dream diary recall for Stage 2 (non rapid eye movement; NREM) than for REM awakenings suggests that salience differences between the 2 groups may be greater following NREM than REM awakenings. Although salience may be affected by dream recall as well as dream generation processes (imagery ability seems related to both), the higher frequency of temporal references to past and future in the dreams of frequent recallers appears to relate to the generation process alone. (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)     

Recall and recognition memory during posthypnotic amnesia: A failure to confirm the disrupted-search hypothesis and the memory disorganization hypothesis.

Tested hypotheses that posthypnotic amnesia is characterized by a disruption in the memory search process and, more generally, by disorganization in memory retrieval. 141 undergraduates were administered the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales, Forms B and C. Amnesia was assessed by the usual recall criterion and by a batch recognition-testing procedure. The disrupted-search hypothesis, tested by comparing the effects of the amnesia suggestion on recall and recognition, was not supported. The use of recognition items, rank ordered by Ss according to their judgment of order of administration, furnished data to test the memory disorganization hypothesis. In support of this hypothesis, analyses of the temporal rankings of recognized items revealed greater disorganization in the memory of Ss who were initially amnesic by recall criteria than those who were partially amnesic or nonamnesic. Nevertheless, other findings, including the fact that fewer than 50% of the initially amnesic Ss showed disorganized recognition and that the disorganization effect during recall was weak and inconsistent, call into question the explanatory power of this hypothesis. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and prose memory: Tests of the resource-deficit hypothesis.

Two experiments tested predictions that age differences in processing resources underlie age differences in prose recall. Topic familiarity, text length, and speed of text presentation were manipulated and reduced the amount recalled in a manner consistent with the hypothesis that these variables would tax processing resources. The amount of information recalled was systematically lower in older adults, but age differences were not increased by the experimental manipulations as expected. However, measures of the putative processing resources did account for some of the age-related variance in prose recall, and relative memorability functions suggested that the experimental manipulations interfered with the quality of recall in older adults more than in younger adults. The outcome did not support the resource-deficit hypothesis as originally proposed and may best be understood in terms of factors other than age-related deficits in the measured amounts of processing resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cued recall and discrimination of memory deficit.

Reports the elimination of some ambiguities in the scoring procedure for the Logical Memory (LM) subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale using a cued recall technique for eliciting responses. A cued recall technique discriminated significantly better than the LM subtest between memory-impaired and control groups. All Ss were 50–64 yr old males. This appears to have been due to the fact that on LM, controls showed worse performance on the final sections of the memory passages, whereas this did not occur in cued recall. (3 ref) (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)     

The memory recall paradigm: Straightening out the historical record.

Traces the inadvertent distortion of historical detail committed by various authors in the dissemination of memory recall results from A. D. de Groot's (1946 [1965]) work with chess masters. The misrepresentation of these details not only has not been corrected but seems to be spreading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False memory and the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis: The prototype-familiarity illusion.

According to the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis (B. W. A. Whittlesea & L. D. Williams, 1998), people experience a feeling of familiarity when they perceive their processing to be surprising, but for an indefinite reason. This hypothesis has been successful in explaining several illusions of familiarity. Here, it is applied to the prototype-familiarity effect, an illusion of remembering that occurs when people are shown prototype words after studying lists of associates. The experiments showed that studying associates enhances semantic, but not perceptual, processing of prototypes. They also showed that claims of recognizing prototypes can be modified by presenting them in predictive or incongruous contexts at test. The evidence suggests that the effect results from an evaluation process that monitors the coherence of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)