Characterizing the Relationship Between Related and Unrelated Items in Recognition Memory (original) (raw)
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The Effects of Word Frequency and Similarity on Recognition Judgments: The Role of Recollection
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2005
(2004) reported more false alarms for low-than high-frequency words when the foils were similar to the targets. According to the source of activation confusion (SAC) model of memory, that pattern is based on recollection of an underspecified episodic trace rather than the error-prone familiarity process. The authors tested the SAC account by varying whether participants were warned about the nature of similar foils and whether the recognition test required the discrimination. More false alarms for low-frequency similar items occurred only when participants were not warned at study about the subtle features to be discriminated later. The differential false-alarm rate by word frequency corresponded to the pattern of remember responses obtained when the test instructions did not ask for a subtle discrimination, supporting the SAC account that reversed false-alarm rates to similar foils are based on the recollection process.
The stimulus familiarity problem in semantic memory research
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1980
Much of the research in the area of semantic memory is concerned with determining what characteristics of words (eg, category size) or relationships between words (eg, instancecategory relatedness) influence reaction time (RT) in sentence verification tasks. Research of this ...
Journal of Memory and Language, 2007
Participants read lists of words and then made recognition judgments to pairs of words, each of which consisted of a prime word and a test word. At issue was the effect of a semantic relationship between the prime word and the test word on the recognition judgment to the test word. Under standard recognition conditions, semantic priming impeded correct recognition judgments to new test words and had no effect on recognition judgments to old test words. The overall effect was to reduce the level of discrimination for recognition judgments to the test word. Under conditions in which familiarity assessment would be expected to play a greater role in judgments to old test words, semantic priming facilitated those judgments. The results are explained in terms of a dual process account of recognition.
Memory & Cognition, 2005
Four experiments examined contributions of conceptual relatedness and feelings of familiarity to false recognition. Participants first studied lists of unrelated items (e.g., table, lock) followed by a recognition test with three types of items: (1) studied items (e.g., table), (2) semantically related lures (e.g., key), and (3) unrelated lures (e.g., cup). Participants falsely recognized more related than unrelated lures when the stimuli were words (Experiment 1A) and pictures (Experiment 1B), when the studied items and related lures differed in language (Experiment 2), and when they differed in perceptual format (Experiment 3). In Experiment 4, an attribution manipulation, designed to make feelings of familiarity nondiagnostic for memory judgments, eliminated the false-recognition effect obtained in Experiment 3. Overall, the study suggests that conceptual relatedness produces false recognition even in the absence of shared perceptual surface features between study and test items, and it does so by generating feelings of familiarity.
When distraction benefits memory through semantic similarity
Journal of Memory and Language, 2017
The processing of the relation between targets and distracters which underpins the impairment in memory for visually presented words when accompanied by semantically related auditory distracters-the between-sequence semantic similarity effect-might also disambiguate category membership of to-be-remembered words, bringing about improved memory for these words at recall. In this series of experiments the usual impairment of the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is reversed: we show that related distracters can improve memory performance when multiple-category lists are studied and a category-cued recall test is used at retrieval. The results indicate not only that irrelevant speech distracters are routinely processed for meaning, but also that semantic information gleaned from this stream is retained until recall of the memoranda is cued. The data are consistent with a revised interaction-by-process framework.
Memory & Cognition, 2011
Low-frequency (LF) words produce higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates than high-frequency (HF) words. This word frequency mirror pattern has been interpreted within dual-process models of recognition, which assume the contributions of a slower recollective process and a relatively fast-acting familiarity process. In the present experiments, recollection and familiarity were placed in opposition using Jacoby, L. L., Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 513-541 (1991), two-list exclusion paradigm with HF and LF words. Exclusion errors to LF words exceeded those to HF words at fast deadlines, whereas the reverse occurred at slow deadlines. In Experiments 2 and 3, false alarms to HF nonpresented lures were higher than to LF nonpresented lures, indicating the use of baseline familiarity for totally new items. Combined, these results indicate that in addition to baseline familiarity and recollection, a third process involving the assessment of a relative change in familiarity is involved in recognition performance. Both relative changes in familiarity and recollection processes have distinct time courses and are engaged when there is diagnostic list information available, whereas baseline familiarity is used when there is no diagnostic information available (e.g., for nonpresented lure items).
Consciousness and cognition, 2018
Subjects studied Deese-Roediger-McDermott semantic-associate lists and took a recognition test. The makeup and number of test probes were manipulated. In Experiments 1 and 2A, one of three or all three distractors were semantically related to the list theme. In Experiment 2B, 6 or 30 related probes were used at test. Results showed that semantically related distractors and a longer list of test words both had a beneficial effect on the accurate discrimination of the prototype lures from the studied semantic associates and on the discrimination of studied from unstudied prototype words. These findings are inconsistent with predictions of memory interference and activation theories. We propose that the counterintuitive findings can be explained by the notion of old/new recognition as categorization learning and that relatedness and a larger number of test probes provide more accurate information about the prototype lure as a distractor, thereby improving its classification as a distra...
Remembering words not presented in sentences: How study context changes patterns of false memories
Memory & Cognition, 2009
People falsely endorse semantic associates and morpheme rearrangements of studied words at high rates in recognition testing. The coexistence of these results is paradoxical: Models of reading that presume automatic extraction of meaning cannot account for elevated false memory for foils that are related to studied stimuli only by their visual form; models without such a process cannot account for false memory for semantic foils. Here we show how sentence and list study contexts encourage different encoding modes and consequently lead to different patterns of memory errors. Participants studied compound words, such as tailspin and floodgate, as single words or embedded in sentences. We show that sentence contexts led subjects to be better able to discriminate conjunction lures (e.g., tailgate) from old words than did list contexts. Conversely, list contexts led to superior discrimination of semantic lures (e.g., nosedive) from old words than did sentence contexts.
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000
People falsely endorse semantic associates and morpheme rearrangements of studied words at high rates in recognition testing. The coexistence of these results is paradoxical: Models of reading that presume automatic extraction of meaning cannot account for elevated false memory for foils that are related to studied stimuli only by their visual form; models without such a process cannot account for false memory for semantic foils. Here we show how sentence and list study contexts encourage different encoding modes and consequently lead to different patterns of memory errors. Participants studied compound words, such as tailspin and floodgate, as single words or embedded in sentences. We show that sentence contexts led subjects to be better able to discriminate conjunction lures (e.g., tailgate) from old words than did list contexts. Conversely, list contexts led to superior discrimination of semantic lures (e.g., nosedive) from old words than did sentence contexts.