Context memory and the selection of frequency estimation strategies.

When people estimate event frequency, they sometimes retrieve and count event instances. This study demonstrates a direct relation between the use of these enumeration-based strategies and the contents of memory. In 3 experiments, participants studied target–context word pairs, estimated presentation frequency for target words, and recalled context words. Study time, target–context relatedness, and study-phase instructions were manipulated, producing large differences in memory for context words. When context memory was best, estimation time increased sharply with presentation frequency, and the steepness of this estimation time–presentation frequency function decreased with context memory. These results indicate that enumeration was common only when context memory was good, that encoding factors determine how frequency is represented, and that the contents of memory restrict strategy selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert G. Crowder (1939–2000).

Memorializes Robert George Crowder, a psychologist in the tradition of American psychology, who spent his entire career at Yale University. Crowder became famous in 1969 when he and J. Morton proposed a theory of precategorical storage (PAS; or echoic memory) that elegantly accounted for memory phenomena such as the modality effect and the suffix effect. Other milestones of his career in empirical psychology are described here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misleading postevent information and the memory impairment hypothesis: Comment on Belli and reply to Tversky and Tuchin.

R. F. Belli (see record 1989-24859-001) and B. Tversky and M. Tuchin (see record 1989-24890-001) used a "Yes"/"No" recognition procedure to explore effects of misleading postevent information on memory for events. We examine the data and arguments presented in these studies, concluding that neither study demonstrates that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source misattributions and the suggestibility of eyewitness memory.

Although the suggestibility of eyewitness memory is well documented, previous studies have not clearly established the extent to which misled Ss might come to believe they actually remember seeing the suggested details they report. To assess whether Ss confuse misleading suggestions for their "real memories" of a witnessed event, Ss were asked specific questions about their memory for the source of suggested items. The results of 5 experiments showed that misled Ss do sometimes come to believe they remember seeing items that were merely suggested to them, a phenomenon we refer to as the source misattribution effect. Nevertheless, the results also showed that the magnitude of this effect varies and that source misattributions are not an inevitable consequence of exposure to suggestions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender stereotyping and decision processes: Extending and reversing the gender bias in fame judgments.

M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald (1995) demonstrated a gender bias in fame judgments—that is, an increase in judged fame due to prior processing that was larger for male than for female names. They suggested that participants shift criteria between judging men and women, using the more liberal criterion for judging men. This "criterion-shift" account appeared problematic for a number of reasons. In this article, 3 experiments are reported that were designed to evaluate the criterion-shift account of the gender bias in the false-fame effect against a distribution-shift account. The results were consistent with the criterion-shift account, and they helped to define more precisely the situations in which people may be ready to shift their response criterion on an item-by-item basis. In addition, the results were incompatible with an interpretation of the criterion shift as an artifact of the experimental situation in the experiments reported by M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood dependent memory for events of the personal past.

Previous research on mood dependent memory (MDM) suggests that the more one must rely on internal resources, rather than on external aids, to generate both the target events and the cues required for their retrieval, the more likely is one's memory for these events to be mood dependent. To instantiate this "do-it-yourself" principle, 3 experiments were conducted in which Ss experiencing either a pleasant or an unpleasant mood generated autobiographical events in response to neutral nouns. Subsequently, Ss were tested for event free recall while in the same or the alternative mood state. All 3 studies showed MDM, such that the likelihood of recalling an event generated 2 or 3 days ago was higher when generation and recall moods matched than when they mismatched. Prospects for future research aimed at elucidating and extending these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental and intellectual differences in self-report and strategy use.

The veridicality and reactivity of children's self-report of covert and overt memory strategies were investigated in a task allowing a direct comparison of self-report and the strategy observed. External memory strategies (e.g., moving objects) were investigated with 7-, 9-, 11-, and 17-year-old typical children and 11- and 17-year-old children with mild mental retardation. Participants placed objects in specified spatial locations after hearing sequences of tape-recorded sentences. After each trial, half of the children immediately reported the strategy used. There were strong positive correlations between the frequency of reported strategy use and observed strategy use. Self-reports were accurate but not always complete. There was no effect of the self-reporting procedure on measures of verbal strategies, external memory strategies, and accuracy of recall. Children were less likely to report strategies not related to recall; these results are compatible with a "goal-sketch" mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term memory for the terrorist attack of September 11: Flashbulb memories, event memories, and the factors that influence their retention.

More than 3,000 individuals from 7 U.S. cities reported on their memories of learning of the terrorist attacks of September 11, as well as details about the attack, 1 week, 11 months, and/or 35 months after the assault. Some studies of flashbulb memories examining long-term retention show slowing in the rate of forgetting after a year, whereas others demonstrate accelerated forgetting. This article indicates that (a) the rate of forgetting for flashbulb memories and event memory (memory for details about the event itself) slows after a year, (b) the strong emotional reactions elicited by flashbulb events are remembered poorly, worse than nonemotional features such as where and from whom one learned of the attack, and (c) the content of flashbulb and event memories stabilizes after a year. The results are discussed in terms of community memory practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-report measures of prospective memory are reliable but not valid.

Are self-report measures of prospective memory (ProM) reliable and valid? To examine this question, 240 undergraduate student volunteers completed several widely used self-report measures of ProM including the Prospective Memory Questionnaire (PMQ), the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ), the Comprehensive Assessment of Prospective Memory (CAPM) questionnaire, self-reports of retrospective memory (RetM), objective measures of ProM and RetM, and measures of involvement in activities and events, memory strategies and aids use, personality and verbal intelligence. The results showed that both convergent and divergent validity of ProM self-reports are poor, even though we assessed ProM using a newly developed, reliable continuous measure. Further analyses showed that a substantial proportion of variability in ProM self-report scores was due to verbal intelligence, personality (conscientiousness, neuroticism), activities and event involvement (busyness), and use of memory strategies and aids. ProM self-reports have adequate reliability, but poor validity and should not be interpreted as reflecting ProM ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misled subjects may know more than their performance implies.

Many studies have demonstrated that subjects exposed to misleading postevent information are likely to report the misinformation with confidence on subsequent tests of memory for the event. The purpose of the present studies was to determine whether subjects exposed to misleading postevent information come to believe they remember seeing the misinformation at the original event. A second question addressed by the present studies is whether exposure to misinformation reduces subjects' ability to remember the source of items they witnessed at the original event. In two experiments, subjects viewed a slide sequence depicting an event, were subsequently exposed to misleading information or neutral information about selected aspects of the event, and were later tested on their memory for the source of original and misleading details. The results showed that exposure to misinformation did not lead subjects to believe they remembered seeing the misinformation, nor did it reduce subjects' ability to accurately identify the source of originally seen details. The same pattern of results was obtained whether subjects were tested immediately (Experiment 1) or after a 1-day delay (Experiment 2). Collectively, the results suggest that subjects may report misinformation even if they know they do not remember seeing it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of hue memory.

A hue memory test consisting of 20 chips from the Farnsworth-Munsell hue series (S is required to select a same-hued chip after brief exposure of each test chip) was developed. Test-retest reliabilities for two groups were .68 and .59. Item data and correlations with the Woods Color Aptitude Test and the ISCC CAT are presented. "Neither the present test nor Woods' test is a valid substitute for the ISCC CAT… . By itself, the present test is certainly valid as a test of hue memory since it is a direct test of immediate memory for hue dissociated from the factor of configuration." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the nature of echoic persistence: Experiments with running memory.

Modality effects in running memory were explored in a series of 5 experiments. The precategorical acoustic storage (PAS) model of Crowder and Morton (1969) predicts an auditory advantage over the last item or 2 if recall is delayed by a rehearsal-preventing task, but the prediction for immediate recall in running memory is less clear. Exp 1 demonstrated superior recall for vocalized presentation further back into the memory sequence than predicted for both immediate and delayed recall. Exps 2–5 investigated the effects of delaying a distractor task by an unfilled interval of 10.8 s. When the distractors were vocalized a decrement was observed across all positions, independent of the modality of presentation. Silent copying of the distractors caused no significant interference with recall at all. I argue that these results create difficulties for the current conceptualization of PAS and they conflict with some previous evidence of modality-specific interference from delayed distraction on which theories of direct utilization have been based. Difficulties raised by these results can be more satisfactorily handled by a process view, emphasizing the principle of distinctiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What Do You Do When Things Go Right? The Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Benefits of Sharing Positive Events.

Four studies examined the intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of seeking out others when good things happen (i.e., capitalization). Two studies showed that communicating personal positive events with others was associated with increased daily positive affect and well-being, above and beyond the impact of the positive event itself and other daily events. Moreover, when others were perceived to respond actively and constructively (and not passively or destructively) to capitalization attempts, the benefits were further enhanced. Two studies found that close relationships in which one's partner typically responds to capitalization attempts enthusiastically were associated with higher relationship well-being (e.g., intimacy, daily marital satisfaction). The results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and empirical importance of understanding how people "cope" with positive events, cultivate positive emotions, and enhance social bonds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity of the salience asymmetry account of the Implicit Association Test: Reply to Greenwald, Nosek, Banaji, and Klauer (2005).

In their comment on K. Rothermund and D. Wentura (see record 2004-14313-001), A. G. Greenwald, B. A. Nosek, M. R. Banaji, and K. C. Klauer (see record 2005-09704-008) agreed that salience asymmetries can be a source of Implicit Association Test (IAT) effects. The authors applaud this conclusion but point to problems with the other points that Greenwald et al. made. The authors have difficulties understanding the nominal feature account that Greenwald et al. put forward and have doubts about the usefulness of their broad conception of the concept association. The authors also argue that existing evidence concerning the construct validity of the IAT does not allow one to discriminate between the association and the salience accounts. In addition, the new studies that were presented by Greenwald et al. do not provide insights into what the IAT measures because they are either irrelevant for a decision between the different accounts or contain methodological problems that prevent a meaningful interpretation in terms of the models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating fame judgments: on the generality of hypotheses, conclusions, and measurement models

In this article, we try to clarify some of the issues raised by S.C. Draine, A.G. Greenwald, and M.R. Banaji (1996) concerning our investigation into the gender bias in fame judgments (A. Buchner & W. Wippich, 1996). First, we did not test the general hypothesis and did draw the general conclusion that Drain et al. suggest we did. Second, we did did not reject M.R. Banaji and A.G. Greenwald's (1995) assumptions about the familiarity of male and female names in the fame judgment task, but we showed how one could have come to reject it using a widespread measurement model for the process dissociation procedure. Third, we argue that the processes which Draine et al. suggest should also be included in the measurement model we used are probably negligible, and if they are not, then the validity of the results of a number of fame judgment experiments must be called into question. In general, however, we agree with what seems to be the main message of M.R. Banaji and A.G. Greenwald's (1995) research, namely, that social categories have to be considered whenever priming is investigated within a social domain.     

Representation of frequency in memory.

A review of the literature indicates that although event frequency is known to have many behavioral consequences, the intervening representation process(es) are not well understood. Storage of frequency information poses a number of theoretical and methodological problems. 4 hypotheses regarding frequency representation are distinguished (trace-strength, multiple-trace, numerical inference, and multiple-process), and evidence from previous experiments using verbal, nonverbal, and nonstimulus events is evaluated. None of the proposed models can be ruled out entirely, although the multiple-trace hypothesis offers the best explanation for data obtained from "verbal" studies. Unfortunately, nearly all the data collected to date involve verbal stimuli and traditional verbal-learning paradigms, raising the question of representativeness. If frequency can be stored other than by trace multiplexing, it would most likely show up in other event domains. Acquisition of frequency information is typically by incidental means, making such factors as set, task characteristics, and event composition (i.e., anything that could control attention during acquisition) doubly important. It is argued that any real understanding of basic frequency mechanisms must await an expanded scope of investigation. (54 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive resources, valence, and memory retrieval of emotional events in older adults.

In 2 studies with older adults, the authors investigated the effect of executive attention resources on the retrieval of emotional public events. Participants completed a battery of working memory tasks, as a measure of executive attention, and a battery of tasks assessing memory, as well as subjective experiences associated with the retrieval of remote public events. Participants also rated the valence of each public event story. The group-rated valence of the public event stories predicted retrieval and the quality of experiences associated with them, such that emotionally arousing events elicited the highest memory rates and the richest experiences. Furthermore, positive public events elicited the highest memory rates. Executive attention moderated only the relationship between event valence and how participants' associated memories are experienced at retrieval, such that superior executive attention resources predicted richer experiences associated with positive relative to neutral and negative stories. The current results extend previous findings on the effects of aging on emotion regulation, suggesting that cognitive control resources modulate subjective experiences associated with retrieved memories for remote real life events, but not memory retrieval itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Framing discrimination: Effects of inclusion versus exclusion mind-sets on stereotypic judgments.

Three studies investigated how inclusion versus exclusion strategies differentially lead to stereotypic decisions. In inclusion strategies, suitable targets are selected from a list of candidates, whereas in exclusion strategies, unsuitable candidates are eliminated. Across 2 separate target domains (Study 1: male and female politicians; Studies 2 and 3: African American and European American basketball players), exclusion strategies, as compared with inclusion strategies, elicited higher levels of both sensitivity stereotyping (i.e., greater difficulty distinguishing among members of stereotyped groups) and criterion stereotyping (i.e., setting different decision thresholds for judging members of different groups; see M. R. Banaji & A. G. Greenwald, 1995). Thus, the strategy used during decision making can influence the final decision via 2 theoretically distinct stereotyping mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frequency of occurrence and the criteria for automatic processing.

Three experiments were conducted to assess the automaticity of event frequency processing. Using a modified concept-learning task, Experiment 1 showed that intentional frequency processing led to more accurate frequency judgments than incidental processing. Experiment 2 demonstrated that nonspecific (general memory) instructions in incidental processing conditions can actually lead to subjects' intentional processing of frequency information, which undermines the effectiveness of an intentionality manipulation. And, in Experiment 3, frequency processing accuracy was found to be interfered with by concurrent cover task capacity requirements, even though frequency processing occurred incidentally. The findings that frequency judgment is influenced by intentionality and by concurrent task factors clearly violate two of Hasher and Zacks' (1979, 1984) empirical criteria used to define automatic processing; they also challenge the assumption that automatic processing is always optimal. In light of our and others' data, either event frequency, the prototypical automatic process, is not automatic, or the assumption that a process must be optimal if it is to be considered automatic must be dropped. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions as inferences and explanations: Conjunction effects.

When asked to estimate the probability of an interpretation for an event, observers may either assess whether the event can give rise to the interpretation (an inference set) or assess whether the interpretation can give rise to the event (an explanation set). These two strategies may moderate the conjunction effects (Leddo, Abelson, & Gross, 1984)—attributors' tendency to assign lower probabilities to single-reason interpretations than to their conjunctions. Our two studies showed that explanation-set instructions (e.g., "assess the probability that the interpretation could be the reason for the event") produced stronger conjunction effects than inference-set instructions (e.g., "assess the probability that the interpretation could be inferred from the event"). This Set (inference or explanation)?×?Reason (multiple or single) interaction was not affected by whether the events involved voluntary or involuntary behavior or by whether they described events that happened or failed to happen. In a third study, we found that subjects in an inference set were more likely to report that they estimated probability of the interpretation (as opposed to probability of the behavior) than were subjects in an explanation set. The extent to which the explanation set may account for conjunction effects obtained in other studies was discussed. Possible implications and determinants of the inference-explanation distinction were also considered. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)