Kathleen Hourihan | Memorial University of Newfoundland (original) (raw)
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Papers by Kathleen Hourihan
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2006
On the premise that committing a word to memory is a type of covert action capable of being stopp... more On the premise that committing a word to memory is a type of covert action capable of being stopped, this study merged an item-method directed forgetting paradigm with a stop signal paradigm. The primary dependent measure was immediate recall. Indicating that participants were able to countermand the default instruction to remember, there was an overall directed forgetting effect, the magnitude of which varied as a function of forget signal delay. The results suggest that the covert act of intentionally forgetting may engage cognitive control processes at encoding that are analogous to those required to prevent the execution of prepotent overt responses.
Memory & cognition, 2017
Much is known about how the emotional content of words affects memory for those words, but only r... more Much is known about how the emotional content of words affects memory for those words, but only recently have researchers begun to investigate whether emotional content influences metamemory-that is, learners' assessments of what is or is not memorable. The present study replicated recent work demonstrating that judgments of learning (JOLs) do indeed reflect the superior memorability of words with emotional content. We further contrasted two hypotheses regarding this effect: a physiological account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their arousing properties, versus a cognitive account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their cognitive distinctiveness. Two results supported the latter account. First, both normed arousal (Exp. 1) and normed valence (Exp. 2) independently influenced JOLs, even though only an effect of arousal would be expected under a physiological account. Second, emotional content no longer influe...
Memory & cognition, Jan 6, 2017
The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presente... more The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presented against different background pictures and were followed by a cue to remember (R) or forget (F) the target item. The effects of incidental and intentional encoding of context on recognition of the study words were examined in Experiments 1 and 2. Recognition memory for the picture contexts was assessed in Experiments 3a and 3b. Recognition was greater for R-cued compared to F-cued targets, demonstrating an effect of directed forgetting. In contrast, no directed forgetting effect was seen for the background pictures. An effect of context-dependent recognition was seen in Experiments 1 and 2, such that the hit rate and the false-alarm rate were greater for items tested in an old compared to a novel context. An effect of context-dependent discrimination was also observed in Experiment 2 as the hit rate was greater for targets shown in their same old study context compared to a different ol...
Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2016
Strategies for learning face-name associations are generally difficult and time-consuming. Howeve... more Strategies for learning face-name associations are generally difficult and time-consuming. However, research has shown that saying a word aloud improves our memory for that word relative to words from the same set that were read silently. Such production effects have been shown for words, pictures, text material, and even word pairs. Can production improve memory for face-name associations? In Experiment 1, participants studied face-name pairs by reading half of the names aloud and half of the names silently, and were tested with cued recall. In Experiment 2, names were repeated aloud (or silently) for the full trial duration. Neither experiment showed a production effect in cued recall. Bayesian analyses showed positive support for the null effect. One possibility is that participants spontaneously implemented more elaborate encoding strategies that overrode any influence of production. However, a more likely explanation for the null production effect is that only half of each stim...
Memory Cognition, Dec 1, 2009
Canadian Society For Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science 17th Annual Meeting, Jun 15, 2007
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09658211 2013 804091, Mar 31, 2014
Although there is an abundance of research on how stimulus characteristics and encoding condition... more Although there is an abundance of research on how stimulus characteristics and encoding conditions affect metamemory, and how those effects either do or do not mirror effects on memory, there is little research on whether and how characteristics of participants' states-like mood, fatigue, or hunger-affect metamemory. The present study examined whether metamemory ability fluctuates with time of day. Specifically, we evaluated whether learners can successfully account for the effects of time of day on their memory, and whether metacognitive monitoring is more accurate at an individual's optimal time of day. Young adults studied and recalled lists of words in both the morning and the afternoon, providing various metamemory judgements during each test session. We replicated the finding that young participants recalled more words in the afternoon than in the morning. Prior to study, participants did not predict superior recall in the afternoon, but they did after they had an opportunity to study the list (but before the test on that material). We also found that item-by-item predictions were more accurate in the afternoon, suggesting that self-regulated learning might benefit from being scheduled during times of day that accord with individuals' peak arousal.
Memory, 2015
Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but the emotional bene... more Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but the emotional benefit for positive information is less consistently observed than the benefit for negative information. The current study examined whether positive emotional pictures are recognised better than neutral pictures, and further examined whether participants can predict how emotion affects picture recognition. In two experiments, participants studied a mixed list of positive and neutral pictures, and made immediate judgements of learning (JOLs). JOLs for positive pictures were consistently higher than for neutral pictures. However, recognition performance displayed an inconsistent pattern. In Experiment 1, neutral pictures were more discriminable than positive pictures, but Experiment 2 found no difference in recognition based on emotional content. Despite participants' beliefs, positive emotional content does not appear to consistently benefit picture memory.
Memory, 2015
The purpose of this study was to see how people perceive their own learning during a category lea... more The purpose of this study was to see how people perceive their own learning during a category learning task, and whether their perceptions matched their performance. In two experiments, participants were asked to learn natural categories, of both high and low variability, and make category learning judgements (CLJs). Variability was manipulated by varying the number of exemplars and the number of times each exemplar was presented within each category. Experiment 1 showed that participants were generally overconfident in their knowledge of low variability families, suggesting that they considered repetition to be more useful for learning than it actually was. Also, a correct trial, for a particular category, was more likely to occur if the previous trial was correct. CLJs had the largest increase when a trial was correct following an incorrect trial and the largest decrease when an incorrect trial followed a correct trial. Experiment 2 replicated these results, but also demonstrated that global CLJ ratings showed the same bias towards repetition. These results indicate that we generally identify success as being the biggest determinant of learning, but do not always recognise cues, such as variability, that enhance learning.
Memory & cognition, Jan 11, 2015
Although it is well known that organized lists of words (e.g., categories) are recalled better th... more Although it is well known that organized lists of words (e.g., categories) are recalled better than unrelated lists, little research has examined whether participants can predict how categorical relatedness influences recall. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words that included items from big categories (12 items), small categories (4 items), and unrelated items, and provided immediate JOLs. In Experiment 1, free recall was highest for items from large categories and lowest for unrelated items. Importantly, participants were sensitive to the effects of category size on recall, with JOLs to items from big categories actually increasing over the study list. In Experiment 2, one group of participants was cued to recall all exemplars from the categories in a blocked manner, whereas the other group was cued in a random order. As expected, the random group did not show the recall benefit for big categories over small categories observed in free recall, while the blocked g...
Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, 2012
The Cross-Race Effect (CRE) in face recognition is the well-replicated finding that people are be... more The Cross-Race Effect (CRE) in face recognition is the well-replicated finding that people are better at recognizing faces from their own race, relative to other races. The CRE reveals systematic limitations on eyewitness identification accuracy and suggests that some caution is warranted in evaluating cross-race identification. The CRE is a problem because jurors value eyewitness identification highly in verdict decisions. In the present paper, we explore how accurate people are in predicting their ability to recognize own-race and other-race faces. Caucasian and Asian participants viewed photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces, and made immediate judgments of learning during study. An old/new recognition test replicated the CRE: both groups displayed superior discriminability of own-race faces, relative to other-race faces. Importantly, relative metamnemonic accuracy was also greater for own-race faces, indicating that the accuracy of predictions about face recognition is influen...
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2006
On the premise that committing a word to memory is a type of covert action capable of being stopp... more On the premise that committing a word to memory is a type of covert action capable of being stopped, this study merged an item-method directed forgetting paradigm with a stop signal paradigm. The primary dependent measure was immediate recall. Indicating that participants were able to countermand the default instruction to remember, there was an overall directed forgetting effect, the magnitude of which varied as a function of forget signal delay. The results suggest that the covert act of intentionally forgetting may engage cognitive control processes at encoding that are analogous to those required to prevent the execution of prepotent overt responses.
Memory & cognition, 2017
Much is known about how the emotional content of words affects memory for those words, but only r... more Much is known about how the emotional content of words affects memory for those words, but only recently have researchers begun to investigate whether emotional content influences metamemory-that is, learners' assessments of what is or is not memorable. The present study replicated recent work demonstrating that judgments of learning (JOLs) do indeed reflect the superior memorability of words with emotional content. We further contrasted two hypotheses regarding this effect: a physiological account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their arousing properties, versus a cognitive account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their cognitive distinctiveness. Two results supported the latter account. First, both normed arousal (Exp. 1) and normed valence (Exp. 2) independently influenced JOLs, even though only an effect of arousal would be expected under a physiological account. Second, emotional content no longer influe...
Memory & cognition, Jan 6, 2017
The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presente... more The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presented against different background pictures and were followed by a cue to remember (R) or forget (F) the target item. The effects of incidental and intentional encoding of context on recognition of the study words were examined in Experiments 1 and 2. Recognition memory for the picture contexts was assessed in Experiments 3a and 3b. Recognition was greater for R-cued compared to F-cued targets, demonstrating an effect of directed forgetting. In contrast, no directed forgetting effect was seen for the background pictures. An effect of context-dependent recognition was seen in Experiments 1 and 2, such that the hit rate and the false-alarm rate were greater for items tested in an old compared to a novel context. An effect of context-dependent discrimination was also observed in Experiment 2 as the hit rate was greater for targets shown in their same old study context compared to a different ol...
Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2016
Strategies for learning face-name associations are generally difficult and time-consuming. Howeve... more Strategies for learning face-name associations are generally difficult and time-consuming. However, research has shown that saying a word aloud improves our memory for that word relative to words from the same set that were read silently. Such production effects have been shown for words, pictures, text material, and even word pairs. Can production improve memory for face-name associations? In Experiment 1, participants studied face-name pairs by reading half of the names aloud and half of the names silently, and were tested with cued recall. In Experiment 2, names were repeated aloud (or silently) for the full trial duration. Neither experiment showed a production effect in cued recall. Bayesian analyses showed positive support for the null effect. One possibility is that participants spontaneously implemented more elaborate encoding strategies that overrode any influence of production. However, a more likely explanation for the null production effect is that only half of each stim...
Memory Cognition, Dec 1, 2009
Canadian Society For Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science 17th Annual Meeting, Jun 15, 2007
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09658211 2013 804091, Mar 31, 2014
Although there is an abundance of research on how stimulus characteristics and encoding condition... more Although there is an abundance of research on how stimulus characteristics and encoding conditions affect metamemory, and how those effects either do or do not mirror effects on memory, there is little research on whether and how characteristics of participants' states-like mood, fatigue, or hunger-affect metamemory. The present study examined whether metamemory ability fluctuates with time of day. Specifically, we evaluated whether learners can successfully account for the effects of time of day on their memory, and whether metacognitive monitoring is more accurate at an individual's optimal time of day. Young adults studied and recalled lists of words in both the morning and the afternoon, providing various metamemory judgements during each test session. We replicated the finding that young participants recalled more words in the afternoon than in the morning. Prior to study, participants did not predict superior recall in the afternoon, but they did after they had an opportunity to study the list (but before the test on that material). We also found that item-by-item predictions were more accurate in the afternoon, suggesting that self-regulated learning might benefit from being scheduled during times of day that accord with individuals' peak arousal.
Memory, 2015
Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but the emotional bene... more Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but the emotional benefit for positive information is less consistently observed than the benefit for negative information. The current study examined whether positive emotional pictures are recognised better than neutral pictures, and further examined whether participants can predict how emotion affects picture recognition. In two experiments, participants studied a mixed list of positive and neutral pictures, and made immediate judgements of learning (JOLs). JOLs for positive pictures were consistently higher than for neutral pictures. However, recognition performance displayed an inconsistent pattern. In Experiment 1, neutral pictures were more discriminable than positive pictures, but Experiment 2 found no difference in recognition based on emotional content. Despite participants' beliefs, positive emotional content does not appear to consistently benefit picture memory.
Memory, 2015
The purpose of this study was to see how people perceive their own learning during a category lea... more The purpose of this study was to see how people perceive their own learning during a category learning task, and whether their perceptions matched their performance. In two experiments, participants were asked to learn natural categories, of both high and low variability, and make category learning judgements (CLJs). Variability was manipulated by varying the number of exemplars and the number of times each exemplar was presented within each category. Experiment 1 showed that participants were generally overconfident in their knowledge of low variability families, suggesting that they considered repetition to be more useful for learning than it actually was. Also, a correct trial, for a particular category, was more likely to occur if the previous trial was correct. CLJs had the largest increase when a trial was correct following an incorrect trial and the largest decrease when an incorrect trial followed a correct trial. Experiment 2 replicated these results, but also demonstrated that global CLJ ratings showed the same bias towards repetition. These results indicate that we generally identify success as being the biggest determinant of learning, but do not always recognise cues, such as variability, that enhance learning.
Memory & cognition, Jan 11, 2015
Although it is well known that organized lists of words (e.g., categories) are recalled better th... more Although it is well known that organized lists of words (e.g., categories) are recalled better than unrelated lists, little research has examined whether participants can predict how categorical relatedness influences recall. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words that included items from big categories (12 items), small categories (4 items), and unrelated items, and provided immediate JOLs. In Experiment 1, free recall was highest for items from large categories and lowest for unrelated items. Importantly, participants were sensitive to the effects of category size on recall, with JOLs to items from big categories actually increasing over the study list. In Experiment 2, one group of participants was cued to recall all exemplars from the categories in a blocked manner, whereas the other group was cued in a random order. As expected, the random group did not show the recall benefit for big categories over small categories observed in free recall, while the blocked g...
Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, 2012
The Cross-Race Effect (CRE) in face recognition is the well-replicated finding that people are be... more The Cross-Race Effect (CRE) in face recognition is the well-replicated finding that people are better at recognizing faces from their own race, relative to other races. The CRE reveals systematic limitations on eyewitness identification accuracy and suggests that some caution is warranted in evaluating cross-race identification. The CRE is a problem because jurors value eyewitness identification highly in verdict decisions. In the present paper, we explore how accurate people are in predicting their ability to recognize own-race and other-race faces. Caucasian and Asian participants viewed photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces, and made immediate judgments of learning during study. An old/new recognition test replicated the CRE: both groups displayed superior discriminability of own-race faces, relative to other-race faces. Importantly, relative metamnemonic accuracy was also greater for own-race faces, indicating that the accuracy of predictions about face recognition is influen...