Interrupting recognition memory: tests of familiarity-based accounts of the revelation effect.

The revelation effect is a puzzling phenomenon in which items on a recognition test are more likely to be judged as "old" when they are immediately preceded by a problem-solving task, such as anagram solution. The present experiments were designed to evaluate Westerman and Greene's (1998) and Hicks and Marsh's (1998) familiarity-based accounts of this effect. We found comparable revelation effects when probes were preceded by an anagram or a numerical addition task and when subjects performed either one or two of these tasks. Taken together, the results do not support familiarity-based accounts of the revelation effect but are consistent with a proposed decision-based interpretation (i.e., criterion flux), in which it is assumed that the revelation task displaces the study list context in working memory, leading subjects to adopt a more liberal recognition decision criterion, thereby increasing the hit and false alarm rates.

Interrupting recognition memory: tests of a criterion-change account of the revelation effect.

The revelation effect is evidenced by an increase in positive recognition responses when the test probe is immediately preceded by an unrelated problem-solving task. As an alternative to familiarity-based explanations of this effect (Hicks & Marsh, 1998; Westerman & Greene, 1998), Niewiadomski and Hockley (2001) proposed a decision-based account in which it is assumed that the problem-solving task displaces the study list context in working memory, leading subjects to adopt a more liberal recognition criterion. In the present study, we show that the revelation effect is seen when the stimulus materials are pure lists of very rare words or nonwords. In contrast, for mixed lists of common words and very rare words or nonwords, the revelation effect is found for common words but disappears for very rare words and nonwords. We argue that, in mixed lists, the liberal decision bias following the revelation task and the criterion changes between common words and very rare words and nonwords serve to offset each other.

The revelation effect for item and associative recognition: familiarity versus recollection.

The revelation effect occurs when items on a recognition test are more likely to be judged as being old if they are preceded by a cognitive task that involves the processing of similar types of stimuli. This effect was examined for item (single-word) and associative (word-pair) recognition. We found, in Experiments 1 and 2, a revelation effect for item, but not for associative recognition under normal study conditions. A revelation effect for both item and associative recognition was observed in Experiments 3 and 4 when study time was extremely brief, thus limiting the encoding of information that would support recall or recollection. In Experiment 5, we demonstrated that the revelation effect for item recognition is eliminated when item recognition decisions are made in the context of a study item. The results show that the revelation task influenced recognition decisions based on familiarity, but not decisions that involved recall or recollection.

Recollection and familiarity through the looking glass: when old does not mirror new.

The authors use the qualitative differences logic to demonstrate that 2 separate memory influences underlie performance in recognition memory tasks, familiarity and recollection. The experiments focus on the mirror effect, the finding that more memorable stimulus classes produce higher hit rates but lower false-alarm rates than less memorable stimulus classes. The authors demonstrate across a number of experiments that manipulations assumed to decrease recollection eliminate or even reverse the hit-rate portion of the mirror effect while leaving the false-alarm portion intact. This occurs whether the critical distinction between conditions is created during the test phase or manipulated during the study phase. Thus, when recollection is present, it dominates familiarity so that the hit-rate portion of the mirror effect primarily reflects recollection; when recollection is largely absent, the opposite pattern associated with the familiarity process emerges.

Familiarity and recollection in item and associative recognition.

Recognition memory for item information (single words) and associative information (word pairs) was tested immediately and after retention intervals of 30 min and 1 day (Experiment 1) and 2 days and 7 days (Experiment 2) using Tulving's (1985) remember/know response procedure. Associative recognition decisions were accompanied by more "remember" responses and less "know" responses than item recognition decisions. Overall recognition performance and the proportion of remember responses declined at similar rates for item and associative information. The pattern of results for item recognition was consistent with Donaldson's (1996) single-factor signal detection model of remember/know responses, as comparisons based on A' between overall item recognition and remember item recognition showed no significant differences. For associative recognition, however, A' for remember responses was reliably greater than for overall recognition. The results show that recollection plays a significant role in associative recognition.

Shades of the mirror effect: recognition of faces with and without sunglasses.

A mirror effect was found for a stimulus manipulation introduced at test. When subjects studied a set of normal faces and then were tested with new and old faces that were normal or wearing sunglasses, the hit rate was higher and the false alarm rate was lower for normal faces. Hit rate differences were reflected in remember and sure recognition responses, whereas differences in false alarm rates were largely seen in know and unsure judgments. In contrast, when subjects studied faces wearing sunglasses, the hit rate was greater for test faces with sunglasses than for normal faces, but there was no difference in false alarm rates. These findings are problematic for single-factor theories of the mirror effect, but can be accommodated within a two-factor account.

Tests of the separate retrieval of item and associative information using a frequency-judgment task.

The degree to which item and associative information can be distinguished at retrieval was assessed using a frequency-judgment task. Words were shown various numbers of times individually and as members of word pairs. At test, subjects judged the frequency of the word pairs and a word's frequency as an individual item, its frequency as a member of word pairs, or the combined frequency of the word. Subjects made all of these judgments with considerable accuracy. The frequency of presentations in the nontarget format had consistent, but small, effects on the judgments for the target frequencies. The results provide further support for the distinction between item and associative information and for the source-monitoring framework of Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay (1993), and they have important implications for global matching models of memory.

A developmental evaluation of frequency memory for actions presented in lists, scripts, and stories.

In Experiment 1, adults estimated the frequency of typical and atypical actions presented in stories about scripted routines. Judgments of frequency were more accurate for atypical than for typical actions. In Experiments 2 and 3, children and adults estimated the frequency of atypical actions that were presented in lists, or embedded in stories that described activities that are scripted, or in stories that described unfamiliar activities. The results supported Hasher and Zacks's (1984) proposal that encoding of frequency information is automatic and invariant across a wide range of ages. However, both children's and adults' frequency estimates were influenced by manipulations that varied the difficulty of retrieving the representation of each occurrence of an event. The studies also provide novel support for the Script-Pointer-Plus-Tag theory of script memory.

Tests of encoding tradeoffs between item and associative information.

The assumption that item and associative information are processed separately and that there is a tradeoff in the amount of each type of information that can be encoded in a given study interval (e.g., Anderson & Bower, 1972; Murdock, 1982, 1992) was examined. When item information was emphasized at study, recognition memory for associative information was poor, demonstrating that item information can be emphasized over associative information. In contrast, when associative information was emphasized, associative recognition greatly improved but item recognition did not suffer. This pattern of results was found at both fast and slow presentation rates, and for both high and low word concreteness and word frequency. Measures of confidence and response latency were also consistent with this pattern. Thus, the encoding of associative information did not measurably diminish item recognition performance.

Reflections of the mirror effect for item and associative recognition.

In five experiments, participants studied pairs of words and yes/no recognition memory for both item and associative information was tested. Two stimulus manipulations, nouns versus nonnouns and high versus low word concreteness, produced the mirror effect for both item and associative recognition. The mirror effect was reflected in both measures of accuracy and response latency. A word frequency manipulation, however, produced the mirror effect only for item recognition. Two additional experiments showed that the mirror effect could also be obtained between nouns and nonnouns and between high and low concrete words for associative recognition in a forced-choice recognition procedure. The results extend the generality of the mirror effect to measures of response latency and to associative recognition and also suggest that similar retrieval and decision processes underlie recognition of item and associative information.

Availability and category-frequency estimation.

Individuals judged how often examples of taxonomic categories had occurred in a study list. An availability hypothesis was tested--that frequency estimates are based on the retrieval of instances. Cued (by category names) recall of the examples served as an index of availability. The hypothesis was confirmed--there were strong positive correlations between frequency judgments and recall (with the influence of actual frequency removed)--given one or more of the following conditions: List instances were not categorized aloud as they were presented; frequency estimation was preceded by cued recall; frequency estimation was delayed by a week. Limitations on availability occurred under other conditions--notably, when individuals, during list presentation, named the categories to which items belonged and received feedback about their categorizations. Under these circumstances, correlations of frequency estimation and recall were often not significantly different from zero, and frequency judgments and recall sometimes reacted differently to changes in independent variables (e.g., frequency judgments of young and elderly subjects did not differ reliably, even though cued recall of young persons markedly exceeded that of elderly subjects).

Retrieval processes in continuous recognition.

The accuracy and response latency of yes/no recognition decisions were measured in three experiments by the continuous recognition paradigm. The principal independent variable was lag, or the number of intervening items between target presentations. Lag was varied from 0 to 40. A logarithmic function provided a good description of the relation between lag and correct response latency. Item repetition affected the intercept of the logarithmic functions, with little effect on the slope. A noun/nonnoun stimulus manipulation affected the slope of the functions with no appreciable effect on the intercept. The latter result was obtained both for once-repeated and twice-repeated item functions, and both when the stimulus manipulation was a between-lists variable (Experiment 2) and a within-lists variable (Experiment 3). The results were found to be incompatible with Atkinson and Juola's (1973) model and Murdock's (1974) conveyor-belt model. The retrieval theory of Ratcliff (1978) and the multiple-observations model of Pike, Dalgleish, and Wright (1977) provide the most satisfactory account of the present results. However, both models may have difficulty in accounting for the obtained repetition effects.