Word-Imagery Effects on Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory

2005 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 716-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ward O'Neill

The Remember/Know procedure was used to investigate the effects of word imageability on recognition memory. An experiment, using French-speaking undergraduate students (17 women and 3 men), replicated Dewhurst and Conway's 1994 finding that rated imageability significantly increased accurate Remember responses but not Know responses when analyzed in the traditional way, assuming that the response types are mutually exclusive. Data were also analyzed using the Yonelinas, et al. 1998 dual-process signal-detection model, for estimating recollection and familiarity while assuming that Remember and Know responses are independent. Analysis indicated significant enhancement of imageability for estimates of both recollection and familiarity. This was interpreted as meaning that imageability enhanced both item-specific and contextual information associated with studied words.

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (8) ◽  
pp. 1242-1260
Author(s):  
Rory W Spanton ◽  
Christopher J Berry

Despite the unequal variance signal-detection (UVSD) model’s prominence as a model of recognition memory, a psychological explanation for the unequal variance assumption has yet to be verified. According to the encoding variability hypothesis, old item memory strength variance (σo) is greater than that of new items because items are incremented by variable, rather than fixed, amounts of strength at encoding. Conditions that increase encoding variability should therefore result in greater estimates of σo. We conducted three experiments to test this prediction. In Experiment 1, encoding variability was manipulated by presenting items for a fixed or variable (normally distributed) duration at study. In Experiment 2, we used an attentional manipulation whereby participants studied items while performing an auditory one-back task in which distractors were presented at fixed or variable intervals. In Experiment 3, participants studied stimuli with either high or low variance in word frequency. Across experiments, estimates of σo were unaffected by our attempts to manipulate encoding variability, even though the manipulations weakly affected subsequent recognition. Instead, estimates of σo tended to be positively correlated with estimates of the mean difference in strength between new and studied items ( d), as might be expected if σo generally scales with d. Our results show that it is surprisingly hard to successfully manipulate encoding variability, and they provide a signpost for others seeking to test the encoding variability hypothesis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (10) ◽  
pp. 2026-2047 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kempnich ◽  
Josephine A. Urquhart ◽  
Akira R. O'Connor ◽  
Chris J.A. Moulin

It is widely held that episodic retrieval can recruit two processes: a threshold context retrieval process (recollection) and a continuous signal strength process (familiarity). Conversely the processes recruited during semantic retrieval are less well specified. We developed a semantic task analogous to single-item episodic recognition to interrogate semantic recognition receiver-operating characteristics (ROCs) for a marker of a threshold retrieval process. We fitted observed ROC points to three signal detection models: two models typically used in episodic recognition (unequal variance and dual-process signal detection models) and a novel dual-process recollect-to-reject (DP-RR) signal detection model that allows a threshold recollection process to aid both target identification and lure rejection. Given the nature of most semantic questions, we anticipated the DP-RR model would best fit the semantic task data. Experiment 1 (506 participants) provided evidence for a threshold retrieval process in semantic memory, with overall best fits to the DP-RR model. Experiment 2 (316 participants) found within-subjects estimates of episodic and semantic threshold retrieval to be uncorrelated. Our findings add weight to the proposal that semantic and episodic memory are served by similar dual-process retrieval systems, though the relationship between the two threshold processes needs to be more fully elucidated.


2009 ◽  
Vol 217 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis S. Bellezza

Multinomial processing-tree modeling has had a major impact on process-dissociation theory. Buchner, Erdfelder, and Vaterrodt-Plünnecke (1995) added guessing parameters to the original model of Jacoby (1991) and created a class of process-dissociation models. Furthermore, Erfelder and Buchner (1998) formulated criterion values of the dual-process signal-detection model ( Yonelinas, 1994 ) as multinomial parameters. Buchner, Erdfelder, Steffens, and Martensen (1997) suggested a new approach by proposing a multinomial source-monitoring model for process-dissociation data. Two experiments described here demonstrated that dual-process signal-detection theory must assume different levels of familiarity in inclusion and exclusion tests. Similarly, in some cases the source-monitoring model must assume different levels of recognition guessing in the two tests. Reasons are given for preferring the source-monitoring model.


1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew P. Yonelinas ◽  
Ian Dobbins ◽  
Michael D. Szymanski ◽  
Harpreet S. Dhaliwal ◽  
Ling King

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