Levels-of-processing effects on context and target recollection for words and pictures

The effect of value on context and target recollection in memory for truth and falsity

Memory for truth and falsity has recently been investigated from the perspective of the dual-recollection theory, showing better context and target recollection for truth than falsity. In this paper, we examine whether these memory effects obtained for true statements are similar to the value effect, whereby true statements are given higher priority in encoding. For this purpose, we implemented value-directed remembering (VDR) into the conjoint-recognition paradigm. In our first experiment, the primary goal was to verify how VDR influences the processes defined by dual-recollection theory. At study, prioritized/important items were linked to higher numerical values (e.g., 10), while unimportant ones had lower values (e.g., 1). At test, the participants' task was to recognize whether a particular sentence was important, unimportant, or new. We found that both context and target recollection were better for important items. In the second experiment, the main goal was to study the combined effects of importance and veracity on memory. In the between-subjects design, participants were monetarily rewarded for memorizing true or false sentences. The results demonstrated differences in the ability to prioritize truth over falsity. Specifically, we found a substantial increase in context recollection for prioritized true information but not for prioritized false information. Moreover, we found higher context recollection for true than false sentences in the true-prioritized condition, but not in the false-prioritized condition. These results indicated that people are able to prioritize true information better than false, and suggested that memory for truth may be a special case of the value effect.

Representation of shared surface information and false memory for abstract versus concrete pictures in the conjoint recognition paradigm

An effective factor by which false memories can arise is relatedness which includes not only semantic associations but also perceptual resemblance. This issue raises questions about how patterns of perceptual features are represented in memory and how they relate to semantic representations. In five experiments, we investigated the memory processes underlying the false recognition of perceptually or semantically related pictures from the perspective of fuzzy trace theory. Multinomial processing tree model analyses for the conjoint recognition paradigm showed that the parameter representing gist trace retrieval not only contributes to false acceptances of semantically related pictures, but also underlies the false recognition of non-semantically related abstract shapes. These results challenged the hypothesis that the false recognition of non-semantically related distractors is solely due to interference with the verbatim suppression process. These experiments also showed that adding a surface feature (colour) to the category exemplars increases false recognition of related distractors by enhancing the contribution of the familiarity process, but only for pictures of real objects. Comparisons between experiments showed that different variants of the conjoint recognition model, used to analyse the effects of the same experimental manipulation, can lead to partially different conclusions.

Development and validation of an experimental verbal Episodic Memory task in Spanish

PURPOSE

To develop and validate an experimental verbal episodic memory task in Spanish.

METHODS

Six encoding blocks were elaborated, three deep and three superficial, each one with different demands of cognitive effort. The blocks were reviewed by four expert judges and tested in a pilot application. The agreement was assessed on whether the task allowed combined processing level and cognitive effort to be manipulated during incidental encoding of words, as well as clarity of instructions, examples, and workflow.

RESULTS

Variables such as lexical availability, metrics, and strength of association were useful to differentiate the cognitive effort between each block. The judges agreed that the processing blocks allowed a combined manipulation of the level of processing and cognitive effort and that the instructions are precise. After the pilot, the participants agreed that the instructions, examples, and way of working were easy to understand and perform.

CONCLUSION

The results provide evidence of validity related to the content for the proposed experimental task, thus becoming a viable alternative to consider in research aimed at identifying environmental factors that contribute to compensating the defects shown by episodic memory with age.

Encoding-phase orientation toward thematic content over perceptual style benefits picture memory

Orienting toward the meaning versus perceptual features of an experience benefits subsequent memory. Yet given that past work encouraged these orientations with different tasks, it is not clear if this memory benefit is solely due to internal processing factors versus external task-related ones. Moreover, it remains unclear how this benefit generalises from verbal to detailed picture memory. Here, we developed a novel paradigm that cued participants' attention to thematic (story) or stylistic (artist style) dimensions of storybook-style illustrations during a repeat-detection task. Afterwards, participants completed a recognition memory test with studied illustrations and lures along thematic and stylistic dimensions. In contrast to past work, both orienting tasks were identical except for the dimension participants were cued to attend to. Furthermore, our thematic and stylistic dimensions enabled us to separately examine memory quality along each dimension. We found that thematic attention yielded superior memory for studied illustrations over stylistic orientations. False alarms to lures varied by dimension and attention: errors were greater to thematic than stylistic lures overall and stylistic attention elevated false alarms to stylistic lures. Our results show that semantic encoding orientations enhance detailed picture memory, without a cost to memory quality along semantic or perceptual dimensions of experience.

Context and target recollection for words and pictures in young adults with developmental dyslexia

Introduction

The specificity of memory functioning in developmental dyslexia is well known and intensively studied. However, most research has been devoted to working memory, and many uncertain issues about episodic memory remain practically unexplored. Moreover, most studies have investigated memory in children and adolescents-much less research has been conducted on adults. The presented study explored the specificity of context and target memory functioning for verbal and nonverbal stimuli in young adults with developmental dyslexia.

Methods

The dual recollection theory, which distinguishes context recollection, target recollection, and familiarity as the processes underlying memory performance in the conjoint recognition paradigm, was adopted as the theoretical basis for the analysis of memory processes. The employed measurement model, a multinomial processing tree model, allowed us to assess the individual contributions of the basic memory processes to memory task performance.

Results

The research sample consisted of 82 young adults (41 with diagnosed dyslexia). The results showed significant differences in both verbal and nonverbal memory and context and target recollection between the dyslexic and the typically developing groups. These differences are not global; they only involve specific memory processes.

Discussion

In line with previous studies using multinomial modeling, this shows that memory functioning in dyslexia cannot be characterized as a simple impairment but is a much more complex phenomenon that includes compensatory mechanisms. Implications of the findings and possible limitations are discussed, pointing to the need for further investigation of the relationship between context memory functioning and developmental dyslexia, taking into account the type of material being processed.

Recollection of "true" feedback is better than "false" feedback independently of a priori beliefs: an investigation from the perspective of dual-recollection theory

The processes underlying memory for truth and falsity have been explored and discussed in experimental psychology for over thirty years now. Psychologists have often referred to the Spinozan and Cartesian models about truth-value information "tagging" but, so far, experimental results have been inconsistent. This paper investigates memory for truth and falsity from the new perspective of the dual-recollection theory. We conducted two experiments using the conjoint recognition paradigm and multinomial modelling as a measurement model. Both our experiments confirmed a satisfactory goodness of fit of the data to the dual-recollection multinomial model. In Experiment 1, the context recollection parameter representing memory for feedback information was significantly higher for true than for false statements. This finding was replicated in the second experiment, which controlled the potential impact of participants' previous knowledge on memory performance. Experiment 2 indicated that the target recollection parameter representing memory for the sentence itself was significantly higher for true than for false sentences solely when participants believed this sentence to be true but not when they perceived it as false before the memory experiment. Our research was the first attempt to look at memory for truth and falsity from the perspective of the recently developed dual-recollection theory.

Closing the door to false memory: the effects of levels-of-processing and stimulus type on the rejection of perceptually vs. semantically dissimilar distractors

False recognition memory for nonstudied items that share features with targets can be reduced by retrieval monitoring mechanisms. The recall-to-reject process, for example, involves the recollection of information about studied items that disqualifies inconsistent test probes. Monitoring for specific features during retrieval may be enhanced by an encoding orientation that is recapitulated during retrieval. In two experiments, we used concrete words or door scenes as materials and manipulated the level of processing at study and the type of distractors presented at test. We showed that for the verbal material, semantic level of processing at study results in an effective rejection of semantically inconsistent distractors. However, for the pictorial material, the perceptual level of processing leads to an effective rejection of perceptually inconsistent distractors. For targets, the effect of levels of processing was observed for words but not for pictures. The results suggest that retrieval monitoring mechanisms depend on interactions between encoding orientation, study materials, and differentiating features of distractors.

Deep memory distortions

Deep distortions are a new family of memory biases that comprise one of the two basic varieties of false memory. The first and older variety, surface distortions, are specific item or source memories that are erroneous because the events did not happen. The new variety, deep distortions, are emergent properties of multiple specific memories. They are relations among such memories that are false because they violate objective logical rules that real-world events must obey. I discuss four deep distortions for which substantial data have accumulated: overdistribution, super-overdistribution, non-additivity, and impossible conjunctions. These phenomena violate four axioms of classical probability (numerical bound, universal event, additivity, and countable additivity) and two rules that follow from them (empty set and monotonicity). Their psychological significance lies in four facts about them: (a) They demonstrate that although events in the real world are compensatory, our memories of them are not; (b) they establish that we persistently over remember experience; (c) they reveal that surface distortions are by-products of deep distortions; and (d) they pose the theoretical conundrum of how the structure of memory could so thoroughly misrepresent the objective structure of the events we are remembering.