S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Papers 144–150 Saturday Morning
sults by the simultaneous use of task and temporal context representations
to probe memory.
8:40–8:55 (144)
The Zero-Sum Trade-Off and Scallop Effects in Spacing Designs.
PETER F. DELANEY, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, &
PETER P. J. L. VERKOEIJEN, Erasmus University Rotterdam—The
present work explored two systematic within-list serial position effects
that arise from including repeated presentations of items within
a list: the zero-sum trade-off effect and the scallop effect. A zero-sum
trade-off effect occurs when the height in the primacy region of the
serial position function is inversely correlated with the height in the
rest of the list. Unequal zero-sum trade-off effects across experimental
conditions can be mistaken for other effects if primacy and recency
regions are discarded from recall, or if ceiling effects occur in the primacy
region. A scallop effect occurs when people use repeated long
presentations to consolidate the preceding short presentations, as
when several massed items follow several spaced items. The scallop
effect results in some spaced items being better recalled than others,
which can be confused with lag effects.
9:00–9:15 (145)
Exploring the Limits of Memory Access Control and Binding
Mechanisms. MICHAEL S. HUMPHREYS, KRISTA L. MURRAY,
& ANGELA M. MAGUIRE, University of Queensland—An analogue
to the problem of remembering where you parked today, in the face of
interference from prior parking memories, was instantiated by having
participants learn a long list before learning a series of short lists.
After each short list they received two cues. Both cues could refer to
the short list (no-switch trials) or the first cue could refer to the long
list and the second to the short list (switch trials). Each experiment
made the task of focusing retrieval progressively more difficult. In the
first experiment switch and no-switch trials occurred in blocks and in
the second and third they were randomly intermixed. In addition, in
the third experiment the same words were used in the long and short
lists (an AB ABr paradigm, which requires a 3-way binding). In all
three experiments participants were able to flexibly focus their retrieval
efforts though it came with a cost.
9:20–9:35 (146)
Divided Attention and Repetition at Study: Effects on Group Recall.
LUCIANE P. PEREIRA-PASARIN & SUPARNA RAJARAM,
Stony Brook University (read by Suparna Rajaram)—Collaborative inhibition
refers to the phenomenon that a group that works together
performs worse than a nominal group where an equal number of individuals
work alone and their nonredundant responses are pooled. We
asked whether collaborative inhibition can be reduced under conditions
where poorer or stronger individual memory changes the
strength of individual organization. Participants studied categorized
word lists and performed a free recall test in groups of 3 (collaborative)
or individually (nominal). In Experiment 1, divided attention at
study predictably reduced recall and weakened the individual subjective
organization (ARC scores) of information. Critically, and as a result,
collaborative inhibition also reduced following divided attention
encoding. In Experiment 2, repetition at study predictably improved
recall and strengthened individual subjective organization. Consequently,
this opposite effect on organization also reduced collaborative
inhibition. We discuss when collaboration can benefit or hurt individual
performance and the role of individual organization in
modulating this process.
9:40–9:55 (147)
The Ins and Outs of Memory: Written Versus Spoken Recall.
RONALD T. KELLOGG, St. Louis University—Explicit memory is
known to depend on input modality, with recent events showing a
strong advantage when presented aurally rather than visually. The effects
of output modality are less clear, but a writing deficit is plausible.
In contrast to speaking, writing uses both phonological and or-
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thographic representations that must be maintained in working memory
for relatively long intervals due to slow motor output. It is also
less practiced and automatic compared with speaking. Because writing
makes greater demands on working memory storage and executive
attention, it may reduce retrieval effort as a consequence. The evidence
from word list recall is mixed, with some data even supporting
the opposite conclusion of a writing superiority effect. However, recalling
texts, complex visual events, autobiographical events, and category
exemplars all show a writing deficit. These tests all require a
significant degree of retrieval effort that writing appears to disrupt.
Cognitive Control
Beacon B, Saturday Morning, 8:00–9:40
Chaired by Keith A. Hutchison, Montana State University
8:00–8:15 (148)
Attentional Control, Relatedness Proportion, and Target Degradation
Effects on Semantic Priming. KEITH A. HUTCHISON, Montana
State University—Past research has demonstrated that target degradation
effects (degradation � priming interactions) only occur when
participants receive a stimulus list with many related items (i.e., a relatedness
proportion, RP, of .50 or more). In this study, participants
completed both an attentional control battery (Ospan, Antisaccade,
and Stroop tasks) and a semantic priming task in which target words
were presented either clearly or visually degraded and RP was manipulated
within participants, within blocks using prime color to indicate
the probability (.78 or .22) a to-be-named target would be related.
Replicating Hutchison (2007), significant RP effects occurred
and linearly increased with attentional control, indicating participants’
flexible use of an effortful conscious expectancy process. However,
overall target degradation effects occurred that were not dependent
upon conditional RP or levels of attentional control, suggesting
that degradation effects are not under participants’ conscious control
and are a function of overall, rather than conditional, RP
8:20–8:35 (149)
Cognitive Control, Task Goals, and Memory. FREDERICK VER-
BRUGGEN, Ghent University and Vanderbilt University, & GOR-
DON D. LOGAN, Vanderbilt University—Cognitive control theories
attribute control to executive processes that adjust and control behavior
online. Theories of automaticity attribute control of skilled behavior
to memory retrieval (MR). We contrasted online adjustments
(OA) with MR, elucidating their roles in controlling performance in
the stop-signal paradigm. We found evidence of short-term OA after
unsuccessful stopping. In addition, we found that MR can slow responses
for 1–10 trials after successful inhibition, suggesting the automatic
retrieval of task goals. Based on these findings, we concluded
that cognitive control can rely on both MR and OA.
8:40–8:55 (150)
Postconflict Slowing Depends on Relative Frequency of Conflict.
WIM NOTEBAERT, WIM GEVERS, WIM FIAS, & TOM VERGUTS,
Ghent University—Cognitive control processes impose behavioral
adaptations after the detection of conflict (e.g., incongruent Stroop
stimuli) and errors. The literature reveals that adaptation after conflict
differs from adaptation after errors; after an error, reaction times increase,
while this is not observed after conflict trials. An important
difference between errors and conflict trials is the frequency of their
occurrence: Whereas conflict typically occurs on 50% of the trials, errors
occur with a much lower frequency. In this study, we investigated
whether the frequency of conflict trials determines the occurrence of
postconflict slowing. When conflict occurred on 25% of the trials,
postconflict slowing was observed, but when conflict occurred on
75% of the trials, slowing was observed after nonconflict (congruent)
trials. This suggests that slowing is not triggered by conflict (or error),
but rather by the detection of unexpected events. The results are discussed
in terms of conflict monitoring theory.