Recollective experience in the revelation effect: separating the contributions of recollection and familiarity

The revelation effect is a phenomenon of recognition memory in which words presented for a recognition decision are more likely to be identified as previously studied if they are initially disguised and are then somehow revealed to the subject. The goal of the present experiments was to determine whether the revelation effect has similar or different influences on the conscious recollection of a previous encounter with a test item and on the feeling of familiarity evoked by a test item. The process-dissociation procedure (Experiment 1) and the remember/know procedure (Experiment 2) were used to achieve this goal. The main findings of these experiments were that revealing an item at test (1) increased the feeling of familiarity associated with that item, especially if it was not previously studied, and (2) decreased conscious recollection of previously studied items. These data narrow the range of potential explanations of the revelation effect.     

Scopolamine impairs human recognition memory: Data and modeling.

Eight subjects studied a set of complex visual images after administration of 0.4 mg scopolamine. Another 8 subjects performed the same task without drug administration. On a subsequent item recognition test, subjects rated, on a 5-point scale, their confidence that the studied pictures and an equal number of unstudied lures were actually presented. Results showed that scopolamine affected responses to studied items, but not unstudied lures, demonstrating an unambiguous effect of scopolamine on recognition memory. To describe the scopolamine-injected subjects' data, the authors constructed a new model of 2-process recognition that includes the A. P. Yonelinas (1994) model as a limiting case. The model analysis suggests that scopolamine affected both familiarity and recollection. In particular, scopolamine did not affect the frequency with which recollection took place, but rather, affected the amount of recollected information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and memory for expected and unexpected objects in real-world settings.

Adult age differences in the consistency effect were examined in 3 experiments. The consistency effect refers to items inconsistent with expectations being better remembered than items consistent with expectations. Younger and older adults walked into an office room and viewed objects that varied in their consistency with expectation. Immediate and delayed recognition tests on item information (i.e., distractors were defined by their semantic identity) revealed that both age groups recognized unexpected items better than expected items. However, when recognition of token information was requested (i.e., distractors were defined by their physical appearance), younger adults, in contrast to older adults, exhibited consistency effects. Also, under divided attention, young adults revealed the same pattern of data as did elderly adults under full attention. The results are discussed in terms of capacity-related differences in distinctive encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A parametric model for local dependence among test items.

A framework is presented to model instances of local dependence between items within the context of unidimensional item response theory (IRT). A distinction is made between item main effects and item interactions. Four types of models for interdependent items are considered, on the basis of the distinction between order dependency and combination dependency on the one hand, and dimension-dependent versus constant interaction on the other hand. For each of the 4 model types, variants of the 1-parameter logistic model can be formulated as well as variants of the 2-parameter logistic model. A number of existing IRT models for polytomous items that are variants of the partial credit model may be reconsidered in these terms. Two examples are given to demonstrate the approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of familiarity in item recognition, associative recognition, and plurality recognition on self-paced and speeded tests.

Four experiments compare the effect of familiarity on item, associative, and plurality recognition on self-paced and speeded tests. The familiarity of test items was enhanced by presenting a prime that matched the subsequent test item. On item and plurality recognition tests, participants were more likely to respond "old" to primed than to unprimed test items. In associative recognition, priming increased the proportion of old responses on a speeded test, but not on a self-paced test. This suggests that familiarity plays a larger role in item and plurality recognition than in associative recognition on self-paced tests. On speeded tests, priming has a similar effect on item, associative, and plurality recognition. Results suggest that item and associative recognition rely differentially on familiarity and recollection. They are also consistent with recent evidence suggesting that different processes underlie plurality and associative recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory variability is due to the contribution of recollection and familiarity, not to encoding variability.

It is well established that the memory strength of studied items is more variable than the strength of new items on tests of recognition memory, but the reason why this occurs is poorly understood. One account for this old item variance effect is based on single-process theory, which proposes that this effect is due to variability in how well items are initially encoded into memory (i.e., the encoding variability account). In contrast, dual-process theory argues that old items are more variable because they are influenced by both recollection and familiarity, whereas recognition of new items relies primarily on familiarity. The present study shows that increasing encoding variability did not increase old item variance and that old item variance is directly related to the contribution of recollection. These results indicate that old item memory variability is due to the relative contribution of recollection and familiarity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What causes the isolation effect?

Events that are incongruent with their prevailing context are usually very well remembered. This fact often is described as the distinctiveness effect in memory, an effect that has served as explanation not only of memory phenomena but also of various other phenomena, including social judgment. The core laboratory paradigm for studying distinctiveness in memory research has long been the isolation paradigm. This paradigm, sometimes attributed to H. von Restorff (1933), yields better memory for an item categorically isolated from surrounding items than for the surrounding items and a proper control item. The authors offer an interpretation of the isolation effect based on the analysis of the processing of similarities and differences among the items. Two experiments provide evidence for this interpretation. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of distinctiveness effects in memory. An appeal is made for a different conceptualization of distinctiveness effects, one that treats distinctiveness as a discriminative process in memory that requires processing of both similarities and differences among items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory of lectures: Effect of delay and distractor type.

Tested recognition memory for critical sentences from a classroom lecture as a function of lecture instructions, length of retention interval, and type of recognition test items, using 85 undergraduates. When tested immediately after the lecture, Ss differentiated the original sentences from reworded and inferential statements that were similar in meaning. At longer delays, however, only the inferences were recognized as not having been presented in the lecture. Labeling a lecture statement as important had little effect on recognition of the original item, although it did enhance recognition of the other item types. Findings confirm other recent reports of verbatim memory for natural speech. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exemplar accounts of blending and distinctiveness effects in perceptual old–new recognition.

Recent findings from the perceptual old–new recognition literature indicate that observers have extremely high false-alarm rates to new items that are "blends" of old ones. In addition, evidence suggests that "distinctive" old items—that is, those located in isolated regions of the similarity space—are recognized with higher probability than are typical old items. Both types of phenomena challenge the predictions of global-familiarity exemplar models of perceptual old–new recognition, which posit that the probability that an observer judges an item as old is based on its summed similarity to previously presented exemplars. In the present research the authors pursued these blending and distinctiveness effects by testing paradigms in which similarity relations among objects are highly controlled and in which the variables of blending and distinctiveness are not confounded with other properties associated with the individual objects themselves. In contrast to previous results, the authors found effects of blending and distinctiveness that are compatible with the predictions of a pure summed-similarity exemplar model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Did I do it or did I only imagine doing it?

Conducted 5 experiments with 180 undergraduates to investigate the memory and decision process involved in distinguishing between memories of doing and imagining doing. Ss were presented with items (typically line drawings) and told to trace or imagine tracing the outline or simply look at them. Ss were then tested for their ability to recognize the item and to identify the activity performed on it. Selected findings indicate that, although the accuracy of activity identification varied, type of activity did not affect item recognition. Tracing and imagining were more confusable in memory than were tracing and looking. The pattern of item recognition and activity identification remained the same whether or not Ss expected to be tested for their memory of the activity performed. Memory for imagining was more susceptible to confusion or multiple interpretation than was memory for tracing or looking, suggesting that accuracy of image identifications is affected by the number and the nature of the alternative activities under consideration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Item and order information in subject-performed tasks and experimenter-performed tasks.

This study investigated the enactment effect from the perspective of the item-order hypothesis (e.g., M. Serra & J. S. Naime, 1993). The authors assumed that in subject-performed tasks (SPTs), item encoding is improved but order encoding is disrupted compared with experimenter-performed tasks (EPTs), that order encoding of EPTs is only better in pure lists, and that the item-order hypothesis is confined to short lists. Item information was tested in recognition memory tests, order information in order reconstruction tasks, and both item and order information in free-recall tests. The results of 5 experiments using short (8 items) and long lists (24 items) in a design with list type (pure, mixed) and encoding condition (EPT, SPT) as factors supported the hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of pure pair repetition on younger and older adults' associative memory.

Although aging causes relatively minor impairment in recognition memory for components, older adults' ability to remember associations between components is typically significantly compromised, relative to that of younger adults. This pattern could be associated with older adults' relatively intact familiarity, which helps preserve component memory, coupled with a marked decline in recollection, which leads to a decline in associative memory. The purpose of the current study is to explore possible methods that allow older adults to rely on pair familiarity in order to improve their associative memory performance. Participants in 2 experiments were repeatedly presented with either single items or pairings of items prior to a study list so that the items and the pairs were already familiar during the study phase. Pure pair repetition (the effects of pair repetition after the effects of item repetition are taken into account) increased associative memory for older and younger adults. Findings based on remember and know judgments suggest that familiarity but not recollection is involved in mediating the repetition effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context Noise and Item Noise Jointly Determine Recognition Memory: A Comment on Dennis and Humphreys (2001).

S. Dennis and M. S. Humphreys (see record 2001-17194-007) proposed a model with the strict assumption that recognition memory is not affected by interference from other items. Instead, confusions are due to noise generated by prior contexts in which the test item appeared. This model seems disparate from existing models of recognition memory but is similar in many ways that are not superficially obvious. One difference is the order in which item and context information are used as retrieval cues. A more critical difference is the assertion that only an item's history, and not other items, affects recognition memory. Conceptual arguments along with the results of 2 experiments make a persuasive case that both types of noise affect recognition. To illustrate the approach, the authors fit experimental data with a version of the retrieving effectively from memory model (R. M. Shiffrin & M. Steyvers, 1997) incorporating both sources of noise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The generation effect: A test between single- and multifactor theories.

Single- and multifactor accounts of the generation effect (better memory for internally generated items than for externally presented items) were tested. Single-factor theories suggest that generation induces either stimulus–response relational processing or response-oriented processing. Multifactor theories suggest that generation induces both types of processing. In the first 3 experiments Ss either read or generated responses, and the degree of categorical structure within the list was manipulated. When categorical structure was minimal, large generation effects were observed for free recall and recognition, but not for cued recall. When categorical structure was high, however, a generation effect was observed for cued recall but not for recognition or free recall. A 4th experiment was performed to eliminate an uninteresting interpretation of the results. It is argued that a multifactor account is needed to explain these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The revelation that the revelation effect is not due to revelation.

The revelation effect is the tendency to call an item on a recognition test "old" if it is preceded by a different task interpolated between study and test. Seven experiments explored the generality of the revelation effect across a number of interpolated tasks. A revelation effect emerged when a variety of tasks preceded recognition test items; the effect was found for test items that followed a memory-span task, a synonym-generation task, and a letter-counting task. The compatibility between the test stimuli and the stimuli that composed the interpolated task was found to be a critical factor. With words as stimuli on a recognition test, a revelation effect was found when the stimuli in the interpolated task were words and letters. However, when numbers were the stimuli in the interpolated task, no revelation effect was found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encoding conditions and the list-strength effect.

The list-strength effect occurs when "strong" items within a list are remembered at the expense of "weak" items within that same list. Two experiments (using 185 college student Ss) showed that variably encoded words were remembered better than words repeated with the same encoding context, whether memory was measured by free recall, frequency estimates, or recognition d'. However, there was little or no evidence from any of the measures that the variably encoded words were recollected in the mixed lists at the expense of the similarly encoded words. This pattern held even though, in Exp 2, there was a list-strength effect on free recall, when list strength was manipulated by increasing the number of presentations of a word. It is concluded that the free recall results could not be accommodated by the model of memory postulated by R. M. Shiffrin et al (see record 1990-13917-001) to account for the effects of list strength. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repetition as a possible source of "isolation" in free recall.

Ss listened to lists in which 1 or more items were repeated in immediate succession to determine whether an item is better retained when it is embedded in a series of unique items, or of items repeated at longer lags, than when it occurs within a series of items that are also presented twice in a row. Data indicate that it is not. It is concluded that repetition does not normally function as a significant source of "isolation" in tests of free recall. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of retention interval on serial position curves for item recognition of visual patterns and faces.

In 9 experiments, college students were presented with a series of 4 novel items, followed by an immediate or delayed probe recognition test. Delaying the recognition test reduced performance on the final item, when the interpresentation intervals (IPIs) were kept constant (Experiments 1A–1G), and also when the IPIs were varied (Experiments 2A–2B). Only 1 experiment reported any evidence of increased primacy with delay when the EPIs were kept constant, but this result failed to replicate. Neither Experiment 2A nor 2B provided evidence of increased primacy with test delay or any effect of IN on recency. However, Experiment 2A showed a deficit at the first serial position when followed by a short IPI. These results do not support the predictions of the dimensional distinctiveness model but are broadly compatible with established information-processing models of visual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context and mediators in a theory of distributed associative memory (TODAM2).

Recent findings on the interactions of item and associative information have necessitated a revision of TODAM (a theory of distributed associative memory). Item information underlies the memory for individual items or events, and associative information allows one to relate or associate 2 separate items or events. The troublesome findings are the differential forgetting of item and associative information (item recognition falls off over retention intervals, whereas associative information does not) and the differential emphasis results (greater attention to items hurts pair recognition, but greater attention to pairs does not affect item recognition). The addition of context and mediators enables TODAM to account for these interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Directed forgetting: Comparing pictures and words.

The authors investigated directed forgetting as a function of the stimulus type (picture, word) presented at study and test. In an item-method directed forgetting task, study items were presented 1 at a time, each followed with equal probability by an instruction to remember or forget. Participants exhibited greater yes–no recognition of remember than forget items for each of the 4 study–test conditions (picture–picture, picture–word, word–word, word–picture). However, this difference was significantly smaller when pictures were studied than when words were studied. This finding demonstrates that the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect can be reduced by high item memorability, such as when the picture superiority effect is operating. This suggests caution in using pictures at study when the goal of an experiment is to examine potential group differences in the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)