The Effects of Repeated Sequential Context on Recognition Memory

2021

Two fundamental issues in memory research concern when later experiences strengthen or weaken initial memories and when the two memories become linked or remain independent. A promising candidate for explaining these issues is semantic relatedness. Here, across five paired associate learning experiments (N=1000), we systematically varied the semantic relatedness between initial and later cues, initial and later targets, or both. We found that learning retroactively benefited long-term memory performance for semantically related words (versus unshown control words), and these benefits increased as a function of relatedness. Critically, memory dependence between initial and later pairs also increased with relatedness, suggesting that pre-existing semantic relationships interdependence for memories formed across episodes. We also found that modest retroactive benefits, but not interdependencies, emerged when subjects learned via studying rather than practice testing. These findings dem...

2016

Previous work has shown that semantic similarity results in a memory bias in which related words are more likely than unrelated words to be labeled as studied in recognition memory. I explored the relationship between semantic similarity memory bias and memory for unrelated words. I varied the strength of the related word memory bias by manipulating the proportion of related to unrelated words, and the type of related word used. I showed that as the bias for related words increases, the unrelated false alarm rate decreases. To further characterize the relationship between related and unrelated words, I examined how the related and unrelated words affect memory decisions when they are experienced separately at test. This manipulation diminished the related word memory bias, but the decrease in unrelated word false alarms remained. These findings suggest a compelling relationship between semantic similarity and unrelated items that warrants further investigation. Characterizing the Re...

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2008

Although much is known about the factors that influence the acquisition and retention of individual paired associates, the existence of temporally defined associations spanning multiple pairs has not been demonstrated. We report two experiments in which subjects studied randomly paired nouns for a subsequent cued recall test. When subjects recalled nontarget items, their intrusions tended to come from nearby pairs. This across-pair contiguity effect was graded, spanning noncontiguously studied word pairs. The existence of such long-range temporally defined associations lends further support to contextual-retrieval models of episodic association.

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).

2006

When asked to recall the words from a just-presented target list, subjects occasionally recall words that were not on the list. These intrusions either appeared on earlier lists (prior-list intrusions, or PLIs) or had not appeared over the course of the experiment (extra-list intrusions). The authors examined the factors that elicit PLIs in free recall. A reanalysis of earlier studies revealed that PLIs tend to come from semantic associates as well as from recently studied lists, with the rate of PLIs decreasing sharply with list recency. The authors report 3 new experiments in which some items in a given list also appeared on earlier lists. Although repetition enhanced recall of list items, subjects were significantly more likely to make PLIs following the recall of repeated items, suggesting that temporal associations formed in earlier lists can induce recall errors. The authors interpret this finding as evidence for the interacting roles of associative and contextual retrieval processes in recall. Although contextual information helps to focus recall on words in the target list, it does not form an impermeable boundary between current-and prior-list experiences.

Handbook of Latent Semantic Analysis, 2014

In remembering a list of words, subjects' order of recall can reveal the influence of both semantic and temporal associations among items. In this chapter, we examine how well measures of semantic relatedness (e.g., Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Steyvers, Shiffrin, & Nelson, 2004) predict the order of subject's recalls. Analysis of recall transitions reveal that subtle variations in semantic relatedness strongly influence memory retrieval. Contrary to the view that temporal and semantic similarity strictly compete as retrieval cues, the data reveal that these two factors are separately modifiable, at least under certain conditions. These findings are not easily reconciled within current models of episodic and semantic memory. A central function of episodic memory is to form and utilize associations between items experienced at nearby times. In addition to these newly-formed episodic associations, subjects enter the laboratory with a great deal of knowledge about verbal stimuli. Studying the relation between episodic and pre-existing, or semantic, associations can help shed light on the processes that lead to episodic retrieval. One prominent view is that episodic memory and semantic memory are separate memory systems (Tulving, 1983, 2002), and

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, instance—category relatedness) influence reaction time (RT) in sentence verification tasks. Research of this ...

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A-human Experimental Psychology, 1999

Infor mation stor age in semantic memory was investigated by looking at automatic priming effects for new associations in two experiments. In the study phase, word pairs were presented in a paired-associate lear ning task. L exical decision and perceptual identi® cation were used to examine priming effects during and after the study phase. T here was autom atic priming for new associations. T he priming effect was greatly reduced wh en different semantic tasks were used at study and test com pared to when identical tasks were used at study and test. T he results show that new associations in sem antic memory can be accessed automatically but are still context dependent. T his suggests that rather than being abstract and static, retrieval from semantic memory interacts dynamically with the context. T H E QUART ERLY JOU RNAL OF EXP ERIM EN T AL PSYCH O L OG Y, 1999, 52A (3), 593±614

Consciousness and cognition, 2004

A variant of the process dissociation procedure was coupled with a manipulation of response signal lag to assess whether manipulations of context affect one or both of the familiarity and search processes described by the dual process model of recognition. Participants studied a list of word pairs (context + target) followed by a recognition test with target words presented in the same or different context, and in the same or different form as study (singular/plural). Participants were asked to recognize any target word regardless of changes to form (inclusion), or to only recognise words that were presented in the same form (exclusion). The standard context reinstatement effect was evident even at the short response lags. Analyses of the estimates of the contributions of familiarity and search processes suggest that the context effect demonstrated here can be attributed in part to the influence of familiarity on recognition, whereas the effect on recollection was less clear.

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

One aspect of successful cognition is the efficient use of prior relevant knowledge in novel situations. Remindings-stimulus-guided retrievals of prior events-allow us to link prior knowledge to current problems by prompting us to retrieve relevant knowledge from events that are distant from the present. Theorizing in research on higher cognition makes much use of the concept of remindings, yet many basic mnemonic consequences of remindings are untested.