Familiarity Breeds Differentiation: A Subjective-Likelihood Appoach to the Effects of Experience in Recognition Memory (original) (raw)
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Psychological Review, 1998
With repeated exposure, people become better at identifying presented items and better at rejecting items that have not been presented. This differentiation effect is captured in a model consisting of item detectors that learn estimates of conditional probabilities of item features. The model is used to account for a number of findings in the recognition memory literature, including (a) the basic differentiation effect (strength-mirror effect ), (b) the fact that adding items to a list reduces recognition accuracy (list-length effect) but extra study of some items does not reduce recognition accuracy for other items (null list-strength effect), (c) nonlinear effects of strengthening items on false recognition of similar distractors, (d) a number of different kinds of mirror effects, (e) appropriate z-ROC curves, and (f) one type of deviation from optimality exhibited in recognition experiments.
Recognition memory: A cue and information analysis
Memory & Cognition, 1983
Recall and recognition are operationally distinct procedures, yet there is increasing evidence for the involvement of recall in recognition decisions. Although this observation is not generally disputed, there has been no agreement about the appropriate level of theoretical analysis. Our contention in this paper is that the most fundamental level of analysis is in terms of the cues used, with the next level referring to the nature of the information employed as evidence. We compare at length two dual-information models to demonstrate important differences in their cuing assumptions and the difficulty of establishing that anything more than a cue analysis is required. We conclude tentatively in support of an information distinction and devote the final section to determining whether item information is contextually descriptive or is a strength variable that merely correlates with occurrence in the experiment.
Recollection and familiarity in recognition memory: Evidence from ROC curves
Journal of Memory and Language, 2006
Does recognition memory rely on discrete recollection, continuous evidence, or both? Is continuous evidence sensitive to only the recency and duration of study (familiarity), or is it also sensitive to details of the study episode? Dual process theories assume recognition is based on recollection and familiarity, with only recollection providing knowledge about study details. Single process theories assume a single continuous evidence dimension that can provide information about familiarity and details. We replicated list and plural discrimination experiments requiring knowledge of details to discriminate targets from similar non-targets. We also ran modified versions of these experiments aiming to increase recollection by removing non-targets that could be discriminated by familiarity alone. Single process models provided the best trade-off between goodness-of-fit and model complexity and dual process models were able to account for the data only when they incorporated continuous evidence sensitive to details.
Similarity and Strategic Effects in Recognition Memory
We introduce a class of artificial stimuli that lack preexperimental associations or encoding strategies. In a set of recognition memory experiments using these stimuli, we manipulate the similarity between studied items and between targets and foils, thus investigating the effects of pure perceptual similarity. We also assign values to studied items in order to induce encoding strategies that might emphasize encoding distinctive or overlapping features. Applying a stochastic signal detection model to these data, we find that blocked presentation and increased category size lead to poorer encoding of individual items, indicating that participants fail to encode distinctive features when list homogeneity is increased. Further, items assigned a negative value are encoded more poorly, a sign that participants may attempt to find overlapping features among negative items.
Re-exposure to studied items at test does not influence false recognition
Memory, 2006
In two experiments, we investigated whether re-exposure to previously studied items at test affects false recognition in the DRM paradigm. Furthermore, we examined whether exposure to the critical lure at test influences memory for subsequently presented study items. In Experiment 1, immediately following each studied DRM list, participants were given a recognition test. The tests were constructed such that the number of studied items preceding the critical lure varied from zero to five. Neither false recognition for critical lures nor accurate memory for studied items was affected by this manipulation. In Experiment 2, we replicated this pattern of results under speeded conditions at test. Both experiments confirm that exposure to previously studied items at test does not affect true or false recognition in the DRM paradigm. This pattern strongly suggests that retrieval processes do not influence false recognition in the DRM paradigm.
Memory strength and the decision process in recognition memory
Memory & Cognition, 2007
We investigated the role that memory strength plays in the decision process by examining the extent to which strength is used as a cue to dynamically modify recognition criteria. The study list consisted of strong and weak items, with strength a function of study duration or repetition. The recognition test list was divided into two consecutive blocks; strong items appeared in one block, weak items in the other. If the change in item strength across blocks leads to a shift in criterion, the false alarm rate should change accordingly. In four experiments, the false alarm rates did not change across blocks, even when the difference between the strong and the weak items was magnified and marked with semantic cues. However, the strength of the items in the first test block affected the false alarm rate. Thus, strength cues influence initial criterion placement but fail to induce criterion shifts following permanent and even dramatic changes in item strength. These null findings are contrasted with those in a fifth experiment, in which accuracy feedback produced dynamic criterion shifts. Memory & Cognition 2007, 35 (2), 254-262 M. F. Verde, michael.verde@plymouth.ac.uk
Journal of Memory and Language, 1998
Dual process models of recognition have identified two underlying processes which contribute to recognition performance: recollection, which involves the retrieval of qualitative information regarding an event occurrence, and familiarity, which represents a generalized feeling of prior occurrence. It has been proposed that recognition and free recall may be related because both involve the retrieval of qualitative event information. To examine this possibility, we compared recognition and free recall under different levels of word frequency, presentation frequency, and distinctiveness of semantic encoding. All three variables dissociated across recognition and recall. Most importantly, shifting the semantic orienting task between preexposure and study lists greatly facilitated recognition, yet left free recall unaffected. This benefit occurred primarily because the shift enabled subjects to more efficiently reject distractors that were familiar as a result of preexposure, but not encoded on the appropriate dimension. Since subjects in recall conditions were not prone to intrusions as a function of preexposure, and, in fact, could not intentionally provide sizable numbers of these items, such a selection mechanism was unnecessary. The current findings, in conjunction with those from process dissociation studies, emphasize the role of recollection in terms of selective responding in the presence of highly familiar competitors. Retrieved information which is not distinctive cannot serve as a basis for excluding alternative sources, and therefore will not contribute to performance nor be reflected in estimates of recollection. As a result, recollection estimates may often diverge from free recall performance. ᭧ 1998
Item recognition memory and the ROC.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 2003
Four experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of study time, study repetition, semantic and orthographic similarity, and category length on item recognition memory receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). Analyses of ROC shape rejected A. P. Yonelinas's (1994) dual-process model. The normal unequal variance signal-detection model provided a better account of the data, except for a small but consistent excess of high-confidence errors. It was found that z-transformed ROC slope was increased by similarity, category length, and study item repetition, rejecting R. "constancy-of-slopes" generalization for these variables, but slope was relatively unaffected by massed study time.