Informative and uninformative pre-stimulus encoding cues benefit source memory

Research using both neuroimaging and psychophysiology show that neural activity elicited by an informative pre-stimulus cue predicts subsequent memory. However, it remains unclear whether pre-stimulus encoding cues actually benefit subsequent memory performance. We investigated this issue across three pre-registered experiments. At encoding, participants made one of two semantic judgments on words that were preceded by an informative pre-stimulus cue that identified the upcoming semantic judgment, an uninformative pre-stimulus cue that signaled an upcoming trial but no information about the semantic judgment, or no cue. There was little evidence that pre-stimulus cues improved old/new recognition discrimination or subjective estimates of recollection and familiarity derived from receiver operating characteristic curves. Importantly, both informative and uninformative pre-stimulus cues enhanced source memory accuracy for the encoding task compared to the no cue condition. These findings suggest that pre-stimulus cues can strengthen the processes that support successful memory encoding and benefit subsequent source memory.

Cognitive control depletion reduces pre-stimulus and recollection-related measures of strategic retrieval

Background: The ability to strategically retrieve task-relevant information from episodic memory is thought to rely on goal-directed executive processes, and there is evidence that neural correlates of strategic retrieval are sensitive to reserves of cognitive control. The present study extended this work, exploring the role of cognitive control in the flexible orienting of strategic retrieval processes across alternating retrieval goals. Method: Pre-stimulus cues directed participants to endorse memory targets from one of two encoding contexts, with the target encoding context alternating every two trials. Items from the nontarget encoding context were rejected alongside new items. One group of participants completed a Stroop task prior to the memory test in order to deplete their reserves of cognitive control, while a second group performed a control task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded throughout the memory task, and time-locked to both pre-stimulus cues and memory probes. Results: Control participants’ pre-stimulus ERPs showed sustained divergences at frontal electrode sites according to retrieval goal. This effect was evident on the first trial of each memory task, and linked with the initiation of goal-specific retrieval orientations. Control participants also showed enhanced ERP correlates of recollection (the ‘left parietal effect’) for correctly classified targets relative to nontargets on the second trial of each memory task, indexing strategic retrieval of task-relevant information. Both the pre-stimulus index of retrieval orientation and the target/nontarget left parietal effect were significantly attenuated in participants that completed the Stroop task. Conclusions: The reduction of pre-stimulus and stimulus-locked ERP effects following the Stroop task indicates that available reserves of cognitive control play an important role in both proactive and recollection-related aspects of strategic retrieval.

Cognitive control depletion reduces pre-stimulus and recollection-related measures of strategic retrieval

Background: The ability to strategically retrieve task-relevant information from episodic memory is thought to rely on goal-directed executive processes, and there is evidence that neural correlates of strategic retrieval are sensitive to reserves of cognitive control. The present study extended this work, exploring the role of cognitive control in the flexible orienting of strategic retrieval processes across alternating retrieval goals. Method: Pre-stimulus cues directed participants to endorse memory targets from one of two encoding contexts, with the target encoding context alternating every two trials. Items from the nontarget encoding context were rejected alongside new items. One group of participants completed a Stroop task prior to the memory test in order to deplete their reserves of cognitive control, while a second group performed a control task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded throughout the memory task, and time-locked to both pre-stimulus cues and memory probes. Results: Control participants’ pre-stimulus ERPs showed sustained divergences at frontal electrode sites according to retrieval goal. This effect was evident on the first trial of each memory task, and linked with the initiation of goal-specific retrieval orientations. Control participants also showed enhanced ERP correlates of recollection (the ‘left parietal effect’) for correctly classified targets relative to nontargets on the second trial of each memory task, indexing strategic retrieval of task-relevant information. Both the pre-stimulus index of retrieval orientation and the target/nontarget left parietal effect were significantly attenuated in participants that completed the Stroop task. Conclusions: The reduction of pre-stimulus and stimulus-locked ERP effects following the Stroop task indicates that available reserves of cognitive control play an important role in both proactive and recollection-related aspects of strategic retrieval.

The Visual Dynamics of Upper Palaeolithic Cave Art

Franco-Cantabrian cave art continues to be the focus of much speculation but despite the many theories put forward there has been little progress in explaining the range of perplexing features of this ‘art’. Only by regarding such wide-ranging and anomalous characteristics as central to this debate might some progress as to derivation be possible. The account presented in this article will demonstrate how the many ‘contradictions’ prevailing might provide an important indication as to provenance that can be explained through an understanding of the shifting nature of visual imagery in the context of the everyday lives of Upper Palaeolithic communities. This will be based on the notion that the visual world as perceived can be disrupted by certain types of psychological effects that can be subsequently triggered by particular kinds of stimulus cues and evocative situations.

The Malleability of Automatic Stereotypes and Prejudice

The present article reviews evidence for the malleability of automatic stereotypes and prejudice. In contrast to assumptions that such responses are fixed and inescapable, it is shown that automatic stereotypes and prejudice are influenced by, (a) self- and social motives, (b) specific strategies, (c) the perceiver's focus of attention, and (d) the configuration of stimulus cues. In addition, group members' individual characteristics are shown to influence the extent to which (global) stereotypes and prejudice are automatically activated. This evidence has significant implications for conceptions of automaticity, models of stereotyping and prejudice, and attitude representation. The review concludes with the description of an initial model of early social information processing.