A thorough examination of cue specificity and task-appropriateness in defining focal and nonfocal prospective memory tasks

Prospective memory (PM) - memory for future intentions - has a core term called focality which describes how closely a PM task relates to an ongoing task. When a close relationship exists between an ongoing and PM task, the task is classified as focal (loose relationships are classified as nonfocal). Competing PM theories differ primarily in explanations for how focality changes participants' approaches. Researchers classify PM intentions as focal or nonfocal in two ways: (1) task appropriateness, congruency (TAP) or incongruency (TIP) of processing to complete both tasks, and (2) cue specificity, specific or general task cues. Independently manipulating this ambiguity in defining "focality" was our current focus. Participants were randomly assigned to a control group, a focal PM condition, or one of three nonfocal conditions. Their ongoing task involved a semantic judgment (Experiment 1) or an orthographic judgment (Experiment 2). Cue specificity impacted PM accuracy consistently, favouring specific cues. Task-appropriateness impacted PM accuracy in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2 which showed protective effects for specific, whole-word PM cues - emphasizing the role that deeper processing has on PM success. These studies highlight the ambiguity in the operational definition of focality and provide the groundwork for continued refinement of the definition.

Upregulated MYC expression and p53 mutations may contribute to the oncogenesis of canine Meibomian gland carcinomas

Sebaceous carcinomas of the human ocular adnexa commonly exhibit pagetoid spread, mutations in tumor-suppressor genes, and protooncogene copy number gain. Sebaceous carcinomas are rarely reported in other species, and while the Meibomian gland (MG) represents the most common ocular adnexal structure of the canine eyelid to develop neoplasia, most are clinically and histologically benign. The objective of this study was to compare molecular features of canine MG carcinomas and adenomas. Two retrospectively identified MG carcinomas were subject to immunohistochemistry and qPCR. When compared with normal glands, MYC was upregulated in benign and malignant MG neoplasms. Aberrant p53 expression was restricted to the nuclei of intraepithelial neoplastic cells in MG carcinomas. Adipophilin expression was diminished in MG neoplasms compared with the normal MG. Our findings, if confirmed in a larger cohort of cases, could suggest that MG oncogenesis in a dog may exhibit similar molecular features as their human counterparts.

Assessing Theoretical Conclusions With Blinded Inference to Investigate a Potential Inference Crisis

Scientific advances across a range of disciplines hinge on the ability to make inferences about unobservable theoretical entities on the basis of empirical data patterns. Accurate inferences rely on both discovering valid, replicable data patterns and accurately interpreting those patterns in terms of their implications for theoretical constructs. The replication crisis in science has led to widespread efforts to improve the reliability of research findings, but comparatively little attention has been devoted to the validity of inferences based on those findings. Using an example from cognitive psychology, we demonstrate a blinded-inference paradigm for assessing the quality of theoretical inferences from data. Our results reveal substantial variability in experts’ judgments on the very same data, hinting at a possible inference crisis.

Retrieval dynamics of recognition and rejection

Recognition memory is often viewed as the end-product of discrete cognitive events, involving the combination of latent operations such as the assessment of memory strength, the decision time, and the memory judgement. Recently, researchers have begun using the physical dynamics of memory retrieval to provide insight into the dynamic, possibly non-discrete, processes that underlie memory decisions. In this study, the underlying distributional properties of targets and lures were manipulated by populating lists with items drawn from either homogeneous or heterogeneous word frequency and context variability ranges. In all conditions, participants' x-, y-mouse coordinates were recorded as they processed test items, allowing estimates of response dynamics (e.g., initial deviation and area under the curve [AUC]), and eventual old/new responses. The stimulus manipulations affected the distribution shapes and, to a greater degree, the placements of subjective confidence thresholds. We observed tight correspondences between confidence and AUC for both hits and correct rejections. We interpret these results within dynamic models of recognition memory.

Memory Self-Efficacy and Beliefs about Memory and Aging in Oldest-Old Adults in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

Background/Study Context. Adaptation to normative age-related declines in memory is an important but understudied aspect of successful aging. The purpose of the present study was to shed new light on memory self-efficacy and beliefs about memory and aging as two integral aspects of adult cognition with relevance to successful aging.

METHODS

Young (19 to 27 years) and community-dwelling older adults (60 to 94 years) from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS) completed an adapted Memory Functioning Questionnaire (MFQ) which includes a memory self-efficacy subscale, the Memory Controllability Inventory (MCI), and the Aging Concerns Scale (ACS).

RESULTS

Nonagenarians' self-reported memory and beliefs about memory and aging were of central interest. We compared their responses to three younger reference groups to examine hypothesized differences in self-reported memory and beliefs about memory and aging in very late life. Results yielded age effects for most of the MFQ and MCI subscales demonstrating more positive subjective views about memory functioning and control over memory for the young adults. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to isolate factors that may be associated with memory self-efficacy. Age, symptoms of depression, and memory control beliefs accounted for approximately half of the variance in memory self-efficacy ratings.

CONCLUSION

These data indicate that although memory self-efficacy may be age sensitive, we detected no differences in subjective views across the three older groups. Implications for cognitive adaptability and successful aging are considered.

Modeling and predicting osteoarthritis progression: data from the osteoarthritis initiative

OBJECTIVE

The goal of this study was to model the longitudinal progression of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and build a prognostic tool that uses data collected in 1 year to predict disease progression over 8 years.

DESIGN

To model OA progression, we used a mixed-effects mixture model and 8-year data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI)-specifically, joint space width measurements from X-rays and pain scores from the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) questionnaire. We included 1243 subjects who at enrollment were classified as being at high risk of developing OA based on age, body mass index (BMI), and medical and occupational histories. After clustering subjects based on radiographic and pain progression, we used clinical variables collected within the first year to build least absolute shrinkage and selection (LASSO) regression models for predicting the probabilities of belonging to each cluster. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) represent predictive performance on held-out data.

RESULTS

Based on joint space narrowing, subjects clustered as progressing or non-progressing. Based on pain scores, they clustered as stable, improving, or worsening. Radiographic progression could be predicted with high accuracy (AUC = .86) using data from two visits spanning 1 year, whereas pain progression could be predicted with high accuracy (AUC = .95) using data from a single visit. Joint space narrowing and pain progression were not associated.

CONCLUSION

Statistical models for characterizing and predicting OA progression promise to improve clinical trial design and OA prevention efforts in the future.

Perceptual Characterization of the Macronutrient Picture System (MaPS) for Food Image fMRI

Food image fMRI paradigms are used widely for investigating the neural basis of ingestive behavior. However, these paradigms have not been validated in terms of ingestive behavior constructs, engagement of food-relevant neural systems, or test-retest reliability, making the generalizability of study findings unclear. Therefore, we validated the Macronutrient Picture System (MaPS) (McClernon et al., 2013), which includes food images from the six categories represented in the Geiselman Food Preference Questionnaire (FPQ) (Geiselman et al., 1998). Twenty-five healthy young adults (n = 21 female, mean age = 20.6 ± 1.1 years, mean BMI = 22.1 ± 1.9 kg/m²) rated the MaPS images in terms of visual interest, appetitive quality, nutrition, emotional valence, liking, and frequency of consumption, and completed the FPQ. In a second study, 12 individuals (n=8 female, mean age = 25.0 ± 6.5 years, mean BMI = 28.2 ± 8.7 kg/m²) viewed MaPS and control images (vegetables and non-food) during two separate 3T BOLD fMRI scans after fasting overnight. Intuitively, high fat/high sugar (HF/HS) and high fat/high complex carbohydrate (HF/HCCHO) images achieved higher liking and appetitive ratings, and lower nutrition ratings, than low fat/low complex carbohydrate/high protein (LF/LCHO/HP) images on average. Within each food category, FPQ scores correlated strongly with MaPS image liking ratings (p < 0.001). Brain activation differences between viewing images of HF/HS and vegetables, and between HF/HCCHO and vegetables, were seen in several reward-related brain regions (e.g., putamen, insula, and medial frontal gyrus). Intra-individual, inter-scan agreement in a summary measure of brain activation differences in seven reward network regions of interest was high (ICC = 0.61), and was even higher when two distinct sets of food images with matching visual ratings were shown in the two scans (ICC = 0.74). These results suggest that the MaPS provides valid representation of food categories and reliably activates food-reward-relevant neural systems.

Prior Task Experience and Comparable Stimulus Exposure Nullify Focal and Nonfocal Prospective Memory Retrieval Differences

We explored the nature of focal versus nonfocal event-based prospective memory retrieval. In the context of a lexical decision task, people received an intention to respond to a single word (focal) in one condition and to a category label (nonfocal) for the other condition. Participants experienced both conditions, and their order was manipulated. The focal instruction condition was a single word presented multiple times. In Experiment 1, the stimuli in the nonfocal condition were different exemplars from a category, each presented once. In the nonfocal condition retrieval was poorer and reaction times were slower during the ongoing task as compared to the focal condition, replicating prior findings. In Experiment 2, the stimulus in the nonfocal condition was a single category exemplar repeated multiple times. When this single-exemplar nonfocal condition followed in time the single-item focal condition, focal versus nonfocal performance was virtually indistinguishable. These results demonstrate that people can modify their stimulus processing and expectations in event-based prospective memory tasks based on experience with the nature of prospective cues and with the ongoing task.

Encoding and retrieval processes involved in the access of source information in the absence of item memory

The current study sought to examine the relative contributions of encoding and retrieval processes in accessing contextual information in the absence of item memory using an extralist cuing procedure in which the retrieval cues used to query memory for contextual information were related to the target item but never actually studied. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants studied 1 category member (e.g., onion) from a variety of different categories and at test were presented with an unstudied category label (e.g., vegetable) to probe memory for item and source information. In Experiments 3 and 4, 1 member of unidirectional (e.g., credit or card) or bidirectional (e.g., salt or pepper) associates was studied, whereas the other unstudied member served as a test probe. When recall failed, source information was accessible only when items were processed deeply during encoding (Experiments 1 and 2) and when there was strong forward associative strength between the retrieval cue and target (Experiments 3 and 4). These findings suggest that a retrieval probe diagnostic of semantically related item information reinstantiates information bound in memory during encoding that results in reactivation of associated contextual information, contingent upon sufficient learning of the item itself and the association between the item and its context information.

Effects of distraction and pictorial illustration on memory for countries in older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease

Eight participants with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were trained to recall names of countries using the spaced-retrieval memory intervention. Six training sessions were administered on alternate days over a 2-week period. Half of the participants studied a target country alone and the other half studied a target country along with eight distractor countries. Training stimuli appeared in text-only format in half of the sessions and text with a color photograph of the country in the other sessions. On each trial, participants selected the target at increasingly longer retention intervals, contingent upon successful recall. Results indicated that the mean proportion of correct trials and longest duration achieved increased across training sessions, confirming the success of the spaced-retrieval intervention. Pictorial illustrations enhanced explicit memory for target country names. Implications of these data for current views on memory remediation in cognitively impaired older adults are discussed.

An observation on the spontaneous noticing of prospective memory event-based cues

In event-based prospective memory, current theories make differing predictions as to whether intention-related material can be spontaneously noticed (i.e., noticed without relying on preparatory attentional processes). In 2 experiments, participants formed an intention that was contextually associated to the final phase of the experiment, and lures that overlapped to differing degrees with the features of the intention-related cues were embedded in the initial phase. When participants were outside of the appropriate responding context (i.e., the initial phase), they exhibited slower latencies to lures that exactly matched the features of their intention compared with other types of lures and control words. In addition, on a final remember/know recognition test, participants reported having greater subjective recollection for the occurrence of the exact-match lures. These results suggest that exact-match lures were spontaneously noticed and differentially processed in the absence of any observable preparatory attentional processes. The findings have implications for the theoretical debate over whether preparatory attention must always be relied upon to notice intention-related material.

Threat-related processing supports prospective memory retrieval for people with obsessive tendencies

Obsessive-compulsive disorder can result in a variety of deficits to cognitive performance, including negative consequences for attention and memory performance. The question addressed in the current study concerned whether this disorder influenced performance in an event-based prospective memory task. The results from a subclinical population indicated that, relative to non-anxious controls and mildly depressed controls, people with obsessive-compulsive tendencies (washing compulsions) incur decrements in remembering to respond to cues related to a neutral intention (respond to animals). This deficit was ameliorated by giving the subclinical group an intention about a threat-related category (respond to bodily fluids) and cueing them with concepts that they had previously rated as particularly disturbing to them. Thus, their normal attentional bias for extended processing of threat-related information overcame their natural deficit in event-based prospective memory.

The effectiveness of supermarket posters in helping to find missing children

One approach used to help find missing children is to place posters of them at the exits of supermarkets. The present research addresses the question of how effective that approach is likely to be. Posters of 8 missing children were displayed on a bulletin board at a cooperating grocery store. Customers leaving the store completed a survey and took a recognition memory test for the children. Most customers thought the problem of missing children was an important issue. However, the majority of customers also reported either not looking at the posters or only briefly looking at the posters. Recognition memory for children depicted in the posters did not reliably differ from chance. It appears that there is much room for improvement when it comes to increasing the attention paid to posters meant to help find missing children.

Source monitoring is not always enhanced for valenced material

Source monitoring for valenced materials has received very little attention from researchers interested in the residual effects that emotion can have on memory. The three previous studies that examined memory for valenced material found a source-monitoring enhancement effect. By contrast, we used two different combinations of sources and found a novel, consistent source-monitoring deficit for valenced words as compared with neutral ones. In addition, this memory deficit for contextual details did not consistently covary with item memory. We assert that it is possible to obtain an effect in which heightened attention toward valenced material reduces the binding of contextual details into memory.

Interpreting the effects of response bias on remember-know judgments using signal detection and threshold models

In recognition memory experiments, the tendency to identify a test item as "old" or "new" can be increased or decreased by instructions given at test. The effect of such response bias on remember-know judgments is to change "remember" as well as "old" responses. Existing models of the remember-know paradigm (based on dual-process and signal detection theories) interpret this effect as a shift i nresponse criteria, but differ on the nature ofthe dimension along which t he changes take place. W e extendedthe models to account simultaneously for remember-know and confidence rating data and tested them using old-new (Experiment 1) and remember-know (Experiment 2) rating designs. Quantitative fits show that the signal detection models provide the best overall description of the data.

Comparing older and younger adults in an event-based prospective memory paradigm containing an output monitoring component

Two experiments with younger and older adults were conducted to investigate the output-monitoring component of event-based prospective memory. In the standard form of the task, participants must remember to press a key when a certain class of items is encountered. To evaluate output monitoring, event-based cues were repeated and participants were asked to press a different key if they could remember that an earlier response was made to a particular cue. Younger adults forgot fewer of their successful responses, but displayed a distinct bias to claim that they had responded earlier when actually they had forgotten to respond. By contrast, older adults displayed this bias much less frequently. Elaborated responding to cues had the effect of improving the performance of younger, but not older adults. The results are discussed in terms of natural repetitions and omission errors that might be made in everyday prospective memory tasks.

Fan effects in event-based prospective memory

Three experiments investigated whether event-based prospective memory was affected by the associative fan of the cues to be detected. The associative fan was operationally defined as the number of associates paired with event-based cues in a paired associate learning phase. Subsequent to the paired associate learning, participants were given a lexical decision task in which event-based cues were embedded. The results from Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed that a larger associative fan significantly reduced event-based cue detection. The third experiment confirmed that the absolute strength of an association does not affect performance, rather the number of associations does. As an ancillary issue, the authors tested whether cue detection was affected by the familiarity of the background words used in the lexical decision task. No consistent evidence for a discrepancy plus search model of prospective memory was found.

Repetition effects in associative false recognition: Theme-based criterion shifts are the exception, not the rule

Previous reports have demonstrated that false memory for the critical items of associative lists decreases when lists are studied multiple times (Benjamin, 2001). In three experiments, we explored two hypotheses that might account for false memory reductions with repetition. Under an identification hypothesis, repetition decreases false memory because participants realise that critical items are absent from the list at encoding and thus reject them at test. Under a criterion shift hypothesis, repetition decreases false memory because it increases the discriminability of studied words from lures, causing participants to set a higher response criterion for positive recognition responses. Results uniquely supported the criterion shift hypothesis. Furthermore, results showed that participants only changed their criterion on separate recognition tests, not on an item-by-item basis within a single recognition test. The failure to establish separate criteria within a test increased false memory for repeated lists.

Concreteness and item-to-list context associations in the free recall of items differing in context variability

Context variability can be defined as the number of preexperimental contexts in which a given concept appears. Following M. Steyvers and K. J. Malmberg's (2003) work, the authors have shown that concepts that are experienced in fewer preexperimental contexts generally are better remembered in episodic memory tasks than concepts that are experienced in a greater number of preexperimental contexts. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that low context variability confers its memorial advantage because of stronger item-to-list context associations as compared with high context variability. Three experiments that use environmental context changes from study to test demonstrate that the low context variability advantage is eliminated when item-to-list context associations are not available because of environmental changes at test. In addition, the low context variability advantage is eliminated when inward processing at study prevents the formation of item-to-list context associations.

Remembering source evidence from associatively related items: explanations from a global matching model

The authors tested source memory across three conditions, one in which 3 strongly associated primes of a target word were presented in the same source as the target, one in which primes were presented in a different source than the target, and one in which no associates of targets were encoded. In the first 2 experiments, target source memory increased in the same-prime condition and decreased in the different-prime condition relative to the no-prime condition. In Experiment 3, the different-prime condition created the illusion that target words had been presented in both sources at encoding. The MINERVA 2 model (D. L. Hintzman, 1988) was able to predict these effects by basing source decisions on the global match of source-specific retrieval probes to all of the items in the memory set.

The effect of context variability on source memory

High-context-variability (HCV) items are experienced in many more preexperimental semantic contexts than are low-context-variability (LCV) items. LCV confers an advantage to recognition memory (Steyvers & Malmberg, 2003). In the present study, we tested whether or not that advantage could be causedby enhanced source memory. Both context variability and word frequency were manipulated, and both factors generally affected source monitoring. Accuracy was better for LCV items than for HCV items and better for low- than for high-word-frequency items. We also considered whether context variability exerts its influence at encoding or at retrieval. We concluded that better recognition memory for LCV items was due, in part, to better retrieval of contextual details that specify how an item was originally studied.

Task interference from event-based intentions

Task interference occurs in prospective memory tasks when an intention deleteriously affects performance on an ongoing activity in some way. Several studies have shown that task interference can manifest itself in slower latencies to perform an ongoing task. Recent evidence demonstrates that associating intentions to certain performance contexts affects prospective memory performance (see, e.g., Cook, Marsh, & Hicks, 2005). In the present study, an intention was associated with a particular stimulus class, such as pictures or words. We found that task interference could be reduced when participants could reliably predict that the material about to be processed was irrelevant to the intention. This material-specific interference effect was found on a trial-by-trial basis in a random sequence of two different kinds of materials across two experiments and with blocking manipulation in another experiment. These results demonstrate that task interference is not a monolithic construct; rather, it results from dynamic and flexible attentional allocation strategies that can change on a trial-by-trial basis.

Metacognitive awareness of event-based prospective memory

This study examined people's ability to predict and postdict their performance on an event-based prospective memory task. Using nonfocal cues, one group of participants predicted their success at finding animal words and a different group predicted their ability to find words with a particular syllable in it. The authors also administered a self-report questionnaire on everyday prospective and retrospective memory failures. Based on the different strategies adopted by the two groups and correlations among the dependent variables, the authors concluded that people do have a basic awareness of their prospective memory abilities, but that this awareness is far from accurate. The importance of metamemory concerning one's prospective memory is discussed in terms of how it influences the strategies that people might choose for actually completing their various everyday intentions.

Gender and orientation stereotypes bias source-monitoring attributions

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether gender stereotypes influence source-monitoring decision processes. Statements that were consistent with a male were more often correctly attributed to a male source and less frequently correctly attributed to a female. The reverse was true for items traditionally associated with a female. Both of these biases were reversed if participants believed the speaker was either a gay male or a lesbian female. These effects persisted under divided attention during test, suggesting that they are caused by automatic influences. But these biases were partially attenuated when participants first considered the detrimental impact of stereotypes. Because these biases were absent for gender-neutral statements, the results from this study show that the content of a memory can influence judgements about the context in which something was learned. The authors argue that the data are most consistent with a heuristic, early selection process that can be influenced by a conscious, late correction process (e.g., Jacoby, Kelly, & McElree, 1999).

The role of recollection and familiarity in the context variability mirror effect

Context variability refers to the number of preexperimental contexts that are associated with concepts. In four experiments, we investigated the basis for increased recognition memory for low context variability words. Low context variability was associated with greater recollection in the hit rates, and high context variability was associated with greater familiarity in the false alarms. Shortening the study time reduced recollection, but low context variability still influenced recollection in the hit rates. A modality change from study to test also reduced recollection but preserved recollective differences for low versus high context variability items. One interpretation of the results suggests that low context variability evokes more specific and, perhaps, idiosyncratic recollective associations during learning and that these associations support better recognition in the hit rates. By contrast, activating the larger number of associations for high context variability items may be mistaken for familiarity in the false alarm rates.

Task interference from prospective memories covaries with contextual associations of fulfilling them

One of the current issues in the field of prospective memory concerns whether having an intention produces a cost to other ongoing activities (called task interference). The evidence to date suggests that certain intentions held over the shorter term do interfere with other tasks. Because the cumulative effect of such costs would be prohibitively expensive in everyday life, the present study examined one means by which that interference may be reduced. Participants who formed a specific association to fulfilling an intention in a future context did not exhibit task interference over the intervening period until that context was encountered. This outcome was observed with both an event-based and a time-based prospective memory task. The results suggest that associating intention fulfillment with a specific context can eliminate task interference, and they emphasize the importance of studying intentions that are linked to future contexts versus those that are not.

An observation on the role of context variability in free recall

The authors conducted 3 experiments investigating the effect of context variability and word frequency on free recall. Context variability refers to the number of pre-experimental contexts in which a given word is experienced. Both between-subjects and within-subjects manipulations of context variability demonstrated a distinct advantage for low context variability words. Standard word frequency effects were obtained in 2 of the 3 experiments, but the common finding of no word frequency differences in mixed lists of high and low word frequency may depend on the level (low vs. high) of context variability. The authors speculate that the advantage for low context variability items may accrue from better item-to-list context associations or better storage of contextual information as a consequence of the smaller pre-experimental contextual fan that these items possess.

Source memory in the absence of successful cued recall

Five experiments were conducted to address the question of whether source information could be accessed in the absence of being able to recall an item. The authors used a paired-associate learning paradigm in which cue-target word pairs were studied, and target recall was requested in the presence of the cue. When target recall failed, participants were asked to make a source judgment of whether a man or woman spoke the unrecalled item. In 3 of the 5 experiments, source accuracy was at or very close to chance. By contrast, if cue-target pairs were studied multiple times or participants knew in advance of learning that a predictive judgment would be required, then predictive source accuracy was well above chance. These data are suggestive that context information may not play a very large role in metacognitive judgments such as feeling-of-knowing ratings or putting one into a tip-of-the-tongue state without strong and specific encoding procedures. These same results also highlight the important role that item memory plays in retrieving information about the context in which an item was experienced.

On rejecting emotional lures created by phonological neighborhood activation

The authors conducted 2 experiments to assess how phonologically related lures are rejected in a false memory paradigm. Some phonological lures were emotional (i.e., taboo) words, and others were not. The authors manipulated the presence of taboo items on the study list and reduced the ability to use controlled rejection strategies by dividing attention and forcing a short response deadline. The results converge on the idea that participants reduce false alarms to emotional lures by setting more stringent recognition criteria for these items based on their expected memorability. Additionally, emotional lures are less familiar than nonemotional lures because emotional lures have affective and semantic features that mismatch studied nonemotional items.

Revisiting the role of recollection in item versus forced-choice recognition memory

Many memory theorists have assumed that forced-choice recognition tests can rely more on familiarity, whereas item (yes-no) tests must rely more on recollection. In actuality, several studies have found no differences in the contributions of recollection and familiarity underlying the two different test formats. Using word frequency to manipulate stimulus characteristics, the present study demonstrated that the contributions of recollection to item versus forced-choice tests is variable. Low word frequency resulted in significantly more recollection in an item test than did a forced-choice procedure, but high word frequency produced the opposite result. These results clearly constrain any uniform claim about the degree to which recollection supports responding in item versus forced-choice tests.

Detecting Event-Based Prospective Memory Cues Occurring within and outside the Focus of Attention

Event-based prospective memory cues are environmental stimuli that are associated with a previously established intention to perform an activity. Such cues traditionally have been placed in materials that receive focal attention during an ongoing activity. This article reports a direct comparison of event-based cues that occurred either within the focus of attention or at the periphery of such attention. When the cue occurred outside focal attention, manipulating that cue changed event-based prospective memory. The identical manipulation had no effect on event-based responding if the cue occurred within focal attention. These results suggest that cue characteristics can compensate for attention being directed away from an aspect of an ongoing task that contains event-based prospective memory cues.

Detecting event-based prospective memory cues occurring within and outside the focus of attention

Event-based prospective memory cues are environmental stimuli that are associated with a previously established intention to perform an activity. Such cues traditionally have been placed in materials that receive focal attention during an ongoing activity. This article reports a direct comparison of event-based cues that occurred either within the focus of attention or at the periphery of such attention. When the cue occurred outside focal attention, manipulating that cue changed event-based prospective memory. The identical manipulation had no effect on event-based responding if the cue occurred within focal attention. These results suggest that cue characteristics can compensate for attention being directed away from an aspect of an ongoing task that contains event-based prospective memory.

On the Relationship Between Effort Toward an Ongoing Task and Cue Detection in Event-Based Prospective Memory

In recent theories of event-based prospective memory, researchers have debated what degree of resources are necessary to identify a cue as related to a previously established intention. In order to simulate natural variations in attention, the authors manipulated effort toward an ongoing cognitive task in which intention-related cues were embedded in 3 experiments. High effort toward the ongoing task resulted in decreased prospective memory only when the cognitive processing required to identify the cue was similar to the cognitive processing required to complete the ongoing activity. When the required processing was different for the 2 tasks, cue detection was not affected by manipulated effort, despite there being an overall cost to decision latencies in the ongoing tasks from possessing the intention. Resource allocation policies and factors that affect them are proposed to account for ongoing vs. prospective memory task performance.

Source Dimensions Are Retrieved Independently in Multidimensional Monitoring Tasks

In 3 experiments, the authors determined whether remembering a source dimension created a more complete internal reinstatement of the encoded event and thus cued access to other source dimensions. Results consistently showed that memory for the 2 source dimensions was correlated: correct responses on 1 dimension were typically associated with correct responses on the other. However, externally reinstating 1 source dimension at test had no influence on memory for the other dimension (Experiments 1A and 1B), and the ability to remember a dimension was the same whether it was tested in isolation or immediately following the retrieval of the other dimension (Experiment 2). Thus, there was no evidence of cuing across source dimensions.

Focused attention on one contextual attribute does not reduce source memory for a different attribute

In three experiments, participants were asked to learn a particular contextual dimension of a study episode for a later memory test. The hypothesis being evaluated was that focused attention towards learning a particular source-specifying attribute would decrease memory for a different attribute dimension. Although source memory for the attribute dimensions in the focus of attention were generally improved, memory was not diminished for contextual attributes ostensibly outside the focus of primary attention. The absence of any decrease in memory appears to be a somewhat general phenomenon because it was found with external-external, internal-external, and internal-internal combinations of attribute dimensions. The results may be most consistent with a model of cognitive processing in which people have separate pools of attentional resources rather than a single pool of general resources.

Correlation of depth and heart rate in harbour seal pups

Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina L., 1758) pups are aquatically active from birth and have been shown to develop increased cardiac control throughout the nursing period. In an attempt to quantify and compare these developmental changes, data previously collected on pups in the St. Lawrence River estuary, Quebec, Canada, were analyzed. Time–depth recorders and heart-rate recorders were employed on eight pups to obtain depth and heart-rate measurements simultaneously. Analyses involved partitioning the data into intervals of surface–dive–surface. These intervals were then allocated into nine consecutive segments: presurface, predive surface, descent, prebottom, bottom, postbottom, ascent, postdive surface, and postsurface. Mean heart rate for each segment was then correlated with the mean depth per segment and overall dive duration. With increasing dive depth, a decrease in heart-rate variability with age was observed. There was no apparent relationship between mean heart rate during the dive and overall dive duration. The proportion of time spent in the lower heart-rate mode was observed to increase with age during most phases of a dive. Relative changes in mean heart rate between consecutive dive segments indicated an initial decrease in mean heart rate prior to submersion and an increasing trend before surfacing. These findings indicate that harbour seal pups develop increased cardiac control prior to weaning and that anticipatory cardiac responses to diving and surfacing (bradycardia and tachycardia, respectively) may be evident.

Episodic generation can cause semantic forgetting: Retrieval-induced forgetting of false memories

In two experiments, we tested whether false recognition and false recall were prone to retrieval-induced forgetting, using the retrieval practice paradigm (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). Participants encoded lists of cue-target word pairs associated with a nonpresented, critical theme word and then engaged in retrieval practice for half of the word pairs from half of the lists. As expected, unpracticed targets from practiced lists were recognized (Experiment 1) and recalled (Experiment 2) less well than those from unpracticed lists. In addition, false recognition and false recall of critical items associated with practiced lists was lower than false recognition and false recall of items associated with unpracticed lists. We argue that false memories are prone to inhibitory mechanisms engendered by the retrieval practice paradigm. The results are consistent with the claim that semantically activated critical themes interfere with the episodic retrieval of list words and that inhibition decreases the activation level of these interfering memory representations during retrieval practice.

The influence of partial‐match cues on event‐based prospective memory

In event-based prospective memory tasks people form an intention to respond when an environmental cue signals that conditions are appropriate to fulfil an intended activity. In the ongoing activity the authors embedded partial-match cues that only partially, but not completely, satisfied the conditions required to make a prospective response. The consequence of encountering these partial-match cues was to increase responses to appropriate prospective memory cues encountered later. This outcome occurred both with semantic and orthographic cues, but only the former led to longer processing latencies of the partial-match cues. This asymmetry suggests that partial-match cues may not need to be processed consciously in order to benefit event-based prospective memory. A parametric manipulation of the number of partial-match cues resulted in numerically but not statistically better prospective memory. Consequently, partial-match cues may function as overt reminders of the intention to respond or they may serve to engage participants in self-initiated remindings of the intention.

Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs in tests of item recognition

Using the retrieval-practice paradigm (Anderson, R. A. Bjork, & E. L. Bjork, 1994), we tested whether or not retrieval-induced forgetting could be found in item recognition tests. In Experiment 1, retrieval practice on items from semantic categories depressed recognition of nonpracticed items from the same categories. Similar results were found in Experiment 2 in a more stringent source test for practiced, nonpracticed, and new items. These results conceptually replicate those of previous retrieval-induced forgetting studies done with cued recall (e.g., Anderson et al., 1994). Our findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that item-specific cues during retrieval will eliminate retrieval interference in the retrieval-practice paradigm (Butler, Williams, Zacks, & Maki, 2001). We discuss our results in relation to other retrieval interference and inhibition effects in recall and recognition.

Measuring the activation level of critical lures in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm

In four experiments, the activation level in memory of critical lures was assessed after encoding Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists. The results demonstrated that studying longer, 14-item lists resulted in superadditive priming of the lures because they were more available in memory than truly studied items. Studying shorter DRM lists resulted in activation levels of the lures that was similar to studied items. Collectively, the results suggest that a first stage in creating false memories with the DRM paradigm is making the critical lures highly available in memory during list encoding. Moreover, the results suggest that false memories are likely to have occurred at the time a list is studied by a mechanism such as an implicit associative response, but a monitoring phase at retrieval is acknowledged that could be used to avoid them. Other theoretical accounts are also considered.

Halo and devil effects demonstrate valenced-based influences on source-monitoring decisions

Source attributions based on positive versus negative valence were examined in four experiments. The two sources were individuals who were depicted positively or negatively, and the content of their statements was similarly valenced. When valenced information about the sources was provided after learning the statements, test biases to attribute positive statements to the positive source and negative statements to the negative source were strongly present. Providing the same information prior to learning improved memory, but did not entirely eliminate test biases based on valence. Signal detection analysis suggests that these "halo effect" biases are criterion-based and not memory-based. Therefore, the results are more consistent with descriptions of source-monitoring processes that can benefit from familiarity-based partial information as opposed to descriptions in which source monitoring is primarily recollection-based.

Investigating the encoding and retrieval of intentions with event-related potentials

Strong evidence exists in the literature that remembering to complete intentions involves executive processing subserved by the frontal lobes. Event-related potentials were measured during the encoding of actions with the intention to perform versus more neutral material about which there was no such intentionality. Event-related potentials were also measured in a two-alternative discrimination task requiring identification of the to-be-performed actions and to-be-memorized actions. The results suggest that formation and retrieval of intentions differs from encoding and retrieval of similar material committed to memory. Additionally, the results suggest that right frontal areas may play an important role in the formation of prospective actions and that intentions are kept active in memory by processing mediated by the left frontal pole.

The dynamics of intention retrieval and coordination of action in event-based prospective memory

Event-based prospective memory requires responding to cues in the environment that are associated with a previously established intention. Some researchers believe that intentions reside in memory with an above baseline level of activation, a phenomenon called the intention superiority effect. The authors of this study predicted that intention superiority would be masked by additional cognitive processes associated with successful event-based prospective memory. These additional processes include noticing the cue, retrieving the intention, and coordinating intention execution with the ongoing activity. In 3 experiments, intention superiority was demonstrated by faster latencies to the ongoing activity on failed prospective trials and the existence of the additional processes was demonstrated by slower latencies on successful trials. This study demonstrates the importance of investigating the microstructure of the cognitive components involved with processing and responding to an event-based prospective memory cue.