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.

Does context recollection depend on the base-rate of contextual features?

Episodic recollection is defined by the re-experiencing of contextual and target details of a past event. The base-rate dependency hypothesis assumes that the retrieval of one contextual feature from an integrated episodic trace cues the retrieval of another associated feature, and that the more often a particular configuration of features occurs, the more effective this mutual cueing will be. Alternatively, the conditional probability of one feature given another feature may be neglected in memory for contextual features since they are not directly bound to one another. Three conjoint recognition experiments investigated whether memory for context is sensitive to the base-rates of features. Participants studied frequent versus infrequent configurations of features and, during the test, they were asked to recognise one of these features with (vs. without) another feature reinstated. The results showed that the context recollection parameter, representing the re-experience of contextual features in the dual-recollection model, was higher for frequent than infrequent feature configurations only when the binding of feature information was made easier and the differences in the base-rates were extreme, otherwise no difference was found. Similarly, base-rates of features influenced response guessing only in the condition with salient differences in base-rates. The Bayes factor analyses showed that the evidence from two of our experiments favoured the base-rate neglect hypothesis over the base-rate dependency hypothesis; the opposite result was obtained in the third experiment, but only when high base-rate disproportion and facilitated feature binding conditions were used.

The effects of forewarning and divided attention on context retrieval in false recognition

After studying a list of words that are semantically associated to a critical lure, participants are more likely to attribute a falsely recognised critical lure to the context of its strong than weak semantic associates. This is known as the source-strength effect. The current study investigated the roles of automatic and controlled processing in context retrieval in false recognition that is demonstrated by the source-strength effect. The results revealed that the source-strength effect was impervious to forewarning (Experiment 1) and remained intact when attentional resources at encoding were reduced (Experiment 2), suggesting that context retrieval in false recognition is based on automatic processes that are not amenable to conscious control and do not require many attentional resources. This interpretation is consistent with the associative activation theory, which proposes that context retrieval in false recognition is based on memory associations between contexts and critical lures that are automatically created when critical lures become automatically activated via spreading activation process.

Forgetting of specific and gist visual associative episodic memory representations across time

Associative binding between components of an episode is vulnerable to forgetting across time. We investigated whether these forgetting effects on inter-item associative memory occur only at specific or also at gist levels of representation. In two experiments, young adult participants (n = 90, and 86, respectively) encoded face-scene pairs and were then tested either immediately after encoding or following a 24-hour delay. Tests featured conjoint recognition judgments, in which participants were tasked with discriminating intact pairs from highly similar foils, less similar foils, and completely dissimilar foils. In both experiments, the 24-hour delay resulted in deficits in specific memory for face-scene pairs, as measured using multinomial-processing-tree analyses. In Experiment 1, gist memory was not affected by the 24-hour delay, but when associative memory was strengthened through pair repetition (Experiment 2), deficits in gist memory following a 24-hour delay were observed. Results suggest that specific representations of associations in episodic memory, and under some conditions gist representations, as well, are susceptible to forgetting across time.

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.

The effects of divided attention at encoding on specific and gist-based associative episodic memory

Effects of divided attention (DA) during encoding on later memory performance are widely documented. However, the precise nature of these effects on underlying memory representations and subsequent retrieval processes has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we examined whether DA at encoding would disrupt young adults' ability to remember associations in episodic memory at highly specific levels of representation (i.e., verbatim memory), or whether the effects of DA extend also to gist memory for associations. Two groups of participants (one under full attention, one under DA) studied face-scene pairs. The DA group simultaneously completed an auditory choice reaction-time task during encoding. Following either a short or long delay, participants were tested on their ability to discriminate intact face-scene pairs from recombined pairs that were either highly similar, less similar, or completely unrelated to originally studied pairs. The DA group performed more poorly than the full attention participants at correctly classifying most types of test pairs at both delays, and results from a multinomial-processing-tree model demonstrated that participants who encoded associations under DA experienced deficits in both specific and gist memory retrieval. We also compared the DA group to full attention older adults who were tested with the same paradigm (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, Psychological Science, 31[3], 316-331, 2020). The DA group had lower estimates of gist retrieval than the older adults but similar estimates of verbatim memory. These results suggest that DA at encoding disrupts episodic memories at multiple levels of representation, in contrast to age-related effects, which are restricted only to the highest levels of specificity.

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.

Underdeveloped recollection during adolescence: Semantic elaboration and inhibition as underlying mechanisms

Recognition memory abilities undergo important developmental changes until adulthood, with earlier studies showing different trajectories for recollection and familiarity-based processes. However, previous work has primarily focused on childhood, and differences in memory retrieval, notably in recollection, between adolescents and adults, have been hard to confirm. To address this gap in the literature and to better characterize the development of recollection and familiarity during adolescence, we applied the process dissociation procedure to a word recognition memory task, after semantic and perceptual encoding of words, in adolescents (n = 30, 13-15 years of age) and young adults (n = 30, 20-22 years). Relative to young adults, adolescents' lower recognition memory performance was restricted to context recollection of semantically encoded items. This effect was predicted by individual differences in inhibitory control abilities. These findings highlight the distinct developmental trajectories of familiarity and context recollection over the course of adolescence, and suggest that semantic elaboration and inhibition are two key mechanisms toward the full maturation of recollection processes.

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

The effects of levels of processing (LoP) on memory performance have been extensively studied in cognitive psychology for about half a century. The initial observation of superior memory for words studied under a semantic orienting task rather than a perceptual orienting task elicited a theoretical debate about the underlying mechanisms of this effect. Next, research on LoP effects was extended to pictorial stimuli and connected with analyses of recollection and familiarity processes of recognition memory. The main aim of the current study was to explore the effects of LoP on two distinct components of recollection memory: context recollection, and target recollection-processes recently differentiated in dual-recollection theory. Verbal and pictorial materials were used in several experiments and the participants were asked to remember the study context defined by the kind of orienting task performed. LoP effects were confirmed for context and target recollection when words were used as stimuli. However, reversed LoP effects for context recollection were found in experiments using pictures as the to-be-remembered material. The function of the distinctiveness of pictorial material and the role of the effortfulness of cognitive operations for recollection were analysed and discussed from the perspective of the sensory-semantic model and the source monitoring framework.

Similar time course of fast familiarity and slow recollection processes for recognition memory in humans and macaques

According to dual-process theory, recognition memory performance draws upon two processes, familiarity and recollection. The relative contribution to recognition memory are commonly distinguished in humans by analyzing receiver-operating-characteristics (ROC) curves; analogous methods are more complex and very rare in animals but fast familiarity and slow recollective-like processes (FF/SR) have been detected in nonhuman primates (NHPs) based on analyzing recognition error response time profiles. The relative utility of these methods to investigate familiarity and recollection/recollection-like processes across species is uncertain; indeed, even how comparable the FF/SR measures are across humans and NHPs remains unclear. Therefore, in this study a broadly similar recognition memory task was exploited in both humans and a NHP to investigate the time course of the two recognition processes. We first show that the FF/SR dissociation exists in this task in human participants and then we demonstrate a similar profile in the NHP which suggests that FF/SR processes are comparable across species. We then verified, using ROC-derived indices for each time-bin in the FF/SR profile, that the ROC and FF/SR measures are related. Hence, we argue that the FF/SR approach, procedurally easier in nonhuman animals, can be used as a decent proxy to investigate these two recognition processes in future animal studies, important given that scant data exists as to the neural basis underlying recollection yet many of the most informative techniques primarily exist in animal models.

A Specificity Principle of Memory: Evidence From Aging and Associative Memory

The ability to remember associations among components of an event, which is central to episodic memory, declines with normal aging. In accord with the specificity principle of memory, these declines may occur because associative memory requires retrieval of specific information. Guided by this principle, we endeavored to determine whether ubiquitous age-related deficits in associative memory are restricted to specific representations or extend to the gist of associations. Young and older adults (30 each in Experiment 1, 40 each in Experiment 2) studied face-scene pairs and then performed associative-recognition tests following variable delays. Whereas both young and older adults could retrieve the gist of associations, older adults were impaired in their ability to retrieve more specific representations. Our results also show that associations can be retrieved from multiple levels of specificity, suggesting that episodic memory might be accessed on a continuum of specificity.

The inhibition process underlying correct rejection of lures under different attentional states: an event-related potential study

This study explored the effects of different attentional states on correct rejection of lures (CRL) by studying event-related potentials. Healthy college students were recruited to complete a study-test task. Results showed that CRL processing was regulated by participants' attentional states. Under focused attention, CRL was confirmed using subsequent diagnostic monitoring. Under distracted attention, lures were identified using early-familiarity processing; in addition, subsequent processes of CRL under distracted attention might reflect subjects' confidence in making rejection judgments. Time-frequency results indicated that a top-down inhibition process from the frontal cortex to the hippocampus supported by theta oscillation might play an important role in CRL. These findings provide new inspiration and directions for future research on CRL neural mechanisms.

The benefit (and cost) of drawing as an encoding strategy

Drawing, as an encoding strategy for to-be-remembered words, has previously been shown to provide robust memory benefits. In the current study, we investigated the effect of drawing on false memory endorsements during a recognition test. We found that while drawing led to higher hit rates relative to writing (Experiment 1) and creating visual mental imagery (Experiment 2), it also led to higher false alarm (FA) rates to critical lures in a variant of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. When compared with an encoding strategy requiring listing of object features (Experiment 3), drawing led to a lower FA rate. We suggest that drawing enhances memory by promoting recollection of rich visual contextual information during retrieval, and this leads to the unintended side effect of increasing FA rates to related information.

Recollection is fast and slow

We implemented a new approach to measuring the relative speeds of different cognitive processes, one that extends multinomial models of memory and reasoning from discrete decisions to latencies. We applied it to the dual-process prediction that familiarity is faster than recollection. Relative to prior work on this prediction, the advantages of the new approach are that it jointly measures specific retrieval processes and their latencies, provides separate sets of latency-retrieval parameters for list items and related distractors, and supplies latency parameters for bias processes as well as retrieval processes. Six experiments were conducted using a design (conjoint recognition) in which subjects make traditional old/new decisions about probes, plus two other types of decisions (New but similar to old items? Old or new but similar to old items?). The relative speeds of context recollection, target recollection, familiarity, and bias processes were measured for old list items and for related distractors. Four patterns emerged in all experiments: (a) The speed of recollection did not differ from the speed of familiarity for list items. (b) The speed ordering was context recollection > target recollection = familiarity for related distractors. (c) Bias processes were slower than recollection and familiarity for both list items and related distractors. (d) Bias processes were faster in conditions in which list items were to be accepted than in conditions in which they were to be rejected. Overall, the results suggest that the relative speeds of different retrieval and bias processes are emergent properties of the efficiency of different retrieval cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Task effects determine whether recognition memory is mediated discretely or continuously

How recognition memory is mediated has been of interest to researchers for decades. But the apparent consensus implicating continuous mediation has been challenged. McAdoo, Key, and Gronlund (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,2018. Advanced online publication) demonstrated that recognition memory can be mediated by either discrete or continuous evidence, depending on target-filler similarity. The present paper expands on this research by showing that different recognition tasks also can be mediated by different evidence. Specifically, recognition memory was mediated by continuous evidence in a ranking task, but by discrete evidence in a confidence-rating task. We posit that participants utilize a control process that induces a reliance on discrete or continuous evidence as a function of efficiency (Malmberg, 2008) to suit the demands of the task.

The Dark Side of Context: Context Reinstatement Can Distort Memory

It is widely assumed that context reinstatement benefits memory, but our experiments revealed that context reinstatement can systematically distort memory. Participants viewed pictures of objects superimposed over scenes, and we later tested their ability to differentiate these old objects from similar new objects. Context reinstatement was manipulated by presenting objects on the reinstated or switched scene at test. Not only did context reinstatement increase correct recognition of old objects, but it also consistently increased incorrect recognition of similar objects as old ones. This false recognition effect was robust, as it was found in several experiments, occurred after both immediate and delayed testing, and persisted with high confidence even after participants were warned to avoid the distorting effects of context. To explain this memory illusion, we propose that context reinstatement increases the likelihood of confusing conceptual and perceptual information, potentially in medial temporal brain regions that integrate this information.

Explaining recollection without remembering

Recollection without remembering is a counterintuitive phenomenon that violates a traditional assumption of source memory models-namely, that accurate item memory is a necessary precondition for remembering source details that accompanied an item's presentation. The dual-recollection model explains recollection without remembering as a by-product of the contrasting effects of target and context recollection on item tests versus source tests. We pitted that explanation against 2 others that preserve the traditional assumption, one based on hypothesized testing artifacts and the other derived from multivariate signal detection theory. Our experiments focused on a manipulation that, according to dual-recollection theory, should drive source memory and item memory in opposite directions. In 2 experiments, studied items were tagged with 3 source details (voice gender, taxonomic category, and list), such that either (a) the 3 details were consistent with each other or (b) 1 detail was inconsistent with the other 2. As predicted, source memory was better but item memory was worse when source details were consistent with each other. The recollection without remembering effect was observed in both experiments, and as predicted by dual-recollection theory, it was more robust when item memory was worse than when it was better. A further instance of recollection without remembering was detected that involved distractors rather than presented items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Complementarity in false memory illusions

For some years, the DRM illusion has been the most widely studied form of false memory. The consensus theoretical interpretation is that the illusion is a reality reversal, in which certain new words (critical distractors) are remembered as though they are old list words rather than as what they are-new words that are similar to old ones. This reality-reversal interpretation is supported by compelling lines of evidence, but prior experiments are limited by the fact that their memory tests only asked whether test items were old. We removed that limitation by also asking whether test items were new-similar. This more comprehensive methodology revealed that list words and critical distractors are remembered quite differently. Memory for list words is compensatory: They are remembered as old at high rates and remembered as new-similar at very low rates. In contrast, memory for critical distractors is complementary: They are remembered as both old and new-similar at high rates, which means that the DRM procedure induces a complementarity illusion rather than a reality reversal. The conjoint recognition model explains complementarity as a function of three retrieval processes (semantic familiarity, target recollection, and context recollection), and it predicts that complementarity can be driven up or down by varying the mix of those processes. Our experiments generated data on that prediction and introduced a convenient statistic, the complementarity ratio, which measures (a) the level of complementarity in memory performance and (b) whether its direction is reality-consistent or reality-reversed. (PsycINFO Database Record

False memory for orthographically versus semantically similar words in adolescents with dyslexia: a fuzzy-trace theory perspective

The presented research was conducted in order to investigate the connections between developmental dyslexia and the functioning of verbatim and gist memory traces-assumed in the fuzzy-trace theory. The participants were 71 high school students (33 with dyslexia and 38 without learning difficulties). The modified procedure and multinomial model of Stahl and Klauer (simplified conjoint recognition model) was used to collect and analyze data. Results showed statistically significant differences in four of the model parameters: (a) the probability of verbatim trace recollection upon presentation of orthographically similar stimulus was higher in the control than dyslexia group, (b) the probability of verbatim trace recollection upon presentation of semantically similar stimulus was higher in the control than dyslexia group, (c) the probability of gist trace retrieval upon presentation of semantically similar stimulus was higher in the dyslexia than control group, and (d) the probability of gist trace retrieval upon target stimulus presentation (in the semantic condition) was higher in the control than dyslexia group. The obtained results suggest differences of memory functioning in terms of verbatim and gist trace retrieval between people with and without dyslexia on specific, elementary cognitive processes postulated by the fuzzy-trace theory. These can indicate new approaches in the education of persons with developmental dyslexia, focused on specific impairments and the strengths of their memory functioning.

Free recall test experience potentiates strategy-driven effects of value on memory

People tend to show better memory for information that is deemed valuable or important. By one mechanism, individuals selectively engage deeper, semantic encoding strategies for high value items (Cohen, Rissman, Suthana, Castel, & Knowlton, 2014). By another mechanism, information paired with value or reward is automatically strengthened in memory via dopaminergic projections from midbrain to hippocampus (Shohamy & Adcock, 2010). We hypothesized that the latter mechanism would primarily enhance recollection-based memory, while the former mechanism would strengthen both recollection and familiarity. We also hypothesized that providing interspersed tests during study is a key to encouraging selective engagement of strategies. To test these hypotheses, we presented participants with sets of words, and each word was associated with a high or low point value. In some experiments, free recall tests were given after each list. In all experiments, a recognition test was administered 5 minutes after the final word list. Process dissociation was accomplished via remember/know judgments at recognition, a recall test probing both item memory and memory for a contextual detail (word plurality), and a task dissociation combining a recognition test for plurality (intended to probe recollection) with a speeded item recognition test (to probe familiarity). When recall tests were administered after study lists, high value strengthened both recollection and familiarity. When memory was not tested after each study list, but rather only at the end, value increased recollection but not familiarity. These dual process dissociations suggest that interspersed recall tests guide learners' use of metacognitive control to selectively apply effective encoding strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record

Children's Use of Memory Editing Strategies to Reject Source Misinformation

This is the first reported study of children's use of two metacognitive strategies, recollection rejection and diagnostic monitoring, to reject misinformation. Recollection rejection involves the retrieval of details that disqualify an event, whereas diagnostic monitoring involves the failure to retrieve expected details. First (n = 56, age 7 years) and third graders (n = 52, age 9 years) witnessed a staged classroom interaction involving common and bizarre accidents, were presented with misinformation about the source of these events, and took a memory test. Both age groups used recollection rejection, but third graders were more effective. There was little evidence that diagnostic monitoring influenced responses for bizarre events, potentially because these events were not sufficiently bizarre in the context of the stereotype induction.

Emotionally negative pictures enhance gist memory

In prior work on how true and false memory are influenced by emotion, valence and arousal have often been conflated. Thus, it is difficult to say which specific effects are caused by valence and which are caused by arousal. In the present research, we used a picture-memory paradigm that allowed emotional valence to be manipulated with arousal held constant. Negatively valenced pictures elevated both true and false memory, relative to positive and neutral pictures. Conjoint recognition modeling revealed that negative valence (a) reduced erroneous suppression of true memories and (b) increased the familiarity of the semantic content of both true and false memories. Overall, negative valence impaired the verbatim side of episodic memory but enhanced the gist side, and these effects persisted even after a week-long delay. (PsycINFO Database Record

Recollection is delayed under changed viewing conditions: A graded effect on the latency of the late posterior component

Object recognition is a central human ability. In everyday life, the conditions under which objects have to be recognized are usually not perfect. Often, viewing conditions change in between two encounters with an object; typical are changes in illumination or in the object-observer distance. With such changes, object recognition sometimes feels slightly delayed. We examined this phenomenon empirically by measuring the latency of the well-established electrophysiological correlate of recollection, the late posterior component (LPC), in an object-recognition task. Although the cognitive processes underlying successful recognition are well examined, thus far the consequences of changed viewing conditions on the timing of these processes have not been investigated. The ERP technique is well suited for investigating this question, because it allows differentiating between processes contributing to recognition times (in particular, recollection from familiarity as indexed by the FN400 component) and measuring their time course with high temporal precision. In the present study, participants' task was to differentiate previously studied (old) objects from a set of new objects. Viewing conditions for old objects changed slightly, changed strongly, or remained identical between learning and test. We found that the latency of the LPC in response to an old object was delayed whenever viewing conditions changed. Moreover, this delay in LPC latency scaled with the size of the change. These effects were absent for the FN400. This is the first examination of effects of changes in viewing conditions on the latency of recollection and the first dissociation of FN400 and LPC latencies.

Learning From Others in an Educational Context:Findings From Cognitive Psychology

Students are often placed in groups to facilitate learning. Understanding the cognitive processes involved when students learn from others is important for creating group situations that facilitate learning. Research from cognitive psychology predicts who will learn most from whom and in what situations. It also provides a set of methods that education researchers can use to further explore “Learning from Others.” However, because the goals of cognitive psychologists and educators often differ, it is important to apply cognitive psychology research cautiously within an educational context.

Fuzzy-Trace Theory and Lifespan Cognitive Development

Fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) emphasizes the use of core theoretical principles, such as the verbatim-gist distinction, to predict new findings about cognitive development that are counterintuitive from the perspective of other theories or of common-sense. To the extent that such predictions are confirmed, the range of phenomena that are explained expands without increasing the complexity of the theory's assumptions. We examine research on recent examples of such predictions during four epochs of cognitive development: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and late adulthood. During the first two, the featured predictions are surprising developmental reversals in false memory (childhood) and in risky decision making (adolescence). During young adulthood, FTT predicts that a retrieval operation that figures centrally in dual-process theories of memory, recollection, is bivariate rather than univariate. During the late adulthood, FTT identifies a retrieval operation, reconstruction, that has been omitted from current theories of normal memory declines in aging and pathological declines in dementia. The theory predicts that reconstruction is a major factor in such declines and that it is able to forecast future dementia.

Episodic Memory Does Not Add Up: Verbatim-Gist Superposition Predicts Violations of the Additive Law of Probability

Fuzzy-trace theory's assumptions about memory representation are cognitive examples of the familiar superposition property of physical quantum systems. When those assumptions are implemented in a formal quantum model (QEMc), they predict that episodic memory will violate the additive law of probability: If memory is tested for a partition of an item's possible episodic states, the individual probabilities of remembering the item as belonging to each state must sum to more than 1. We detected this phenomenon using two standard designs, item false memory and source false memory. The quantum implementation of fuzzy-trace theory also predicts that violations of the additive law will vary in strength as a function of reliance on gist memory. That prediction, too, was confirmed via a series of manipulations (e.g., semantic relatedness, testing delay) that are thought to increase gist reliance. Surprisingly, an analysis of the underlying structure of violations of the additive law revealed that as a general rule, increases in remembering correct episodic states do not produce commensurate reductions in remembering incorrect states.