S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Papers 237–243 Saturday Afternoon
lowing work on the development of these capacities in humans, investigators
have recently begun to study metacognition in nonhuman
species, particularly monkeys. I will briefly summarize these findings
from nonhumans and highlight some methodological issues critical in
the study of metacognition in nonverbal subjects. Consideration of
these issues prompts some re-evaluation of the diversity of metacognitive
phenomena in humans.
5:10–5:25 (237)
Tapping Into Tool Use. DOROTHY M. FRAGASZY, University of
Georgia—Monkeys and apes, like humans, may use tools to extend
the reach of the hand and to afford mechanical advantage, as in using
a hammer, a rake, or a probe. These achievements arise through similar
developmental trajectories across species, until tool use blossoms
in young humans during early childhood to include forms not seen in
other primates. I describe tool use in terms of spatial relational reasoning,
and discuss the spontaneous development and variations of
tool use in monkeys, apes, and humans in natural settings from this
perspective. This exercise highlights evolutionary and developmental
continuities in this domain, and clarifies in what sense tool use in humans
differs from that of other primates.
Memory Processes
Beacon A, Saturday Afternoon, 3:10–5:30
Chaired by Colin M. MacLeod, University of Waterloo
3:10–3:25 (238)
The Production Effect: Improving Explicit but Not Implicit Memory.
COLIN M. MACLEOD, NIGEL GOPIE, KATHLEEN L. HOURIHAN,
& KAREN R. NEARY, University of Waterloo—A series of experiments
investigated the production effect—that speaking or “mouthing” a
word during study improves explicit memory, relative to reading a
word silently. The effect is restricted to within-subjects designs where
only some individual words are produced. It is not evident when a single
repeated manual or vocal response is made to some words. We
argue that producing a subset of studied words makes those words distinctive,
and that distinctiveness is useful for discriminating studied
from unstudied words at the time of test. Production is consistently
beneficial in explicit memory, even incrementing the generation effect.
Yet production consistently failed to benefit the implicit memory
test—speeded reading aloud—that would appear to be optimally
transfer appropriate. This is also consistent with the distinctiveness
account: Distinctiveness is relevant only for conscious recollection.
The production effect represents a simple but powerful mechanism for
improving explicit memory for selected information.
3:30–3:45 (239)
Reconsolidation of Episodic Memories: The Conditions That Trigger
Updating. REBECCA GOMEZ & ALMUT HUPBACH, University
of Arizona, OLLI HARDT, McGill University, & LYNN NADEL,
University of Arizona—Consolidated memories re-enter a labile state
at the time they are reactivated. During this time, memories can be
modified and subsequently require reconsolidation. We recently
demonstrated reconsolidation effects in human episodic memory:
Memory for a list of objects was modified by the presentation of a new
list, if and only if participants were reminded of the first learning
episode before learning the new list. The reminder was comprised of
three different components: the experimenter, a reminder question, and
the spatial context. We have now evaluated the contribution of each of
those reminder components, and showed that the spatial context carries
the reminder effect. An additional study looked at the boundary
conditions for contextual reminders. We found that the spatial context
triggers reconsolidation only in unfamiliar but not in familiar contexts.
3:50–4:05 (240)
Encoding During Retrieval: Effects in Recognition but Not in Free
Recall. MARTIN BUSCHKUEHL, SUSANNE M. JAEGGI, HELEN
37
WYLER, & WALTER J. PERRIG, University of Bern—Previous research
(Buckner et al., 2001) showed that the encoding effect of recognition
judgments on new words in a following unexpected second
recognition task was the same as in conditions of deep encoding and
intentional learning. We extended the used experimental design in
adding a free recall task to the unexpected recognition task in order
to test the hypothesis that the performance in free recall is better in
the intentional condition compared to the incidental ones. As expected,
we could replicate the effects by Buckner et al. for the recognition
data, but surprisingly, we found no differences at all in the free
recall, regardless of the encoding condition. We assume that although
we could establish an episodic memory representation accessible in
data driven retrieval in the recognition performance, this representation
was not deep enough to show up in the self-initiated free recall,
producing a phenomenon of amnesia in healthy subjects.
4:10–4:25 (241)
The Influence of Prior Knowledge in an Analog Recall Task.
MARK STEYVERS & PERNILLE HEMMER, University of California,
Irvine—Our memory for events can be shaped by prior knowledge
for those events, an influence that is often regarded as a source
of bias leading to inaccurate reconstructions of actual events. However,
a Bayesian analysis of reconstructive memory suggests that prior
knowledge should be utilized when our episodic memory system is
noisy. With an analog recall memory task involving natural objects,
we show how the remembered sizes of objects regress toward the prior
mean size for those objects. For example, a larger than average apple
shown at study tends to be remembered as a somewhat smaller apple
at test. Using a Bayesian approach, we estimate the relative contributions
of prior knowledge and episodic traces in reconstructive memory.
In accordance with the model, we find that the prior exerts the
strongest influence when the participants has not seen the object very
often or is uncertain about recognizing the object.
4:30–4:45 (242)
Remembering to Do Things for Others: When Incentives Hurt.
MARIA A. BRANDIMONTE, Suor Orsola Benincasa University,
DONATELLA FERRANTE, University of Trieste, CARMELA
BIANCO, Suor Orsola Benincasa University, & MARIA G. VILLANI,
Parthenope University—Memory for intentions, or prospective memory,
often involves remembering to do things for others rather than for
oneself. Yet, virtually nothing is known about prosocial prospective
memory. In two experiments, we explored the effects of different
types of rewards on prosocial prospective remembering. Across the
experiments, participants received material and/or nonmaterial rewards
for their prosocial prospective behavior. The results revealed
that prospective memory was better when the participant’s action had
a social relevance as compared to a standard nonsocial condition.
They also showed that prosocial prospective memory was equally
good under high- and no-incentive conditions. However, consistent
with social and economic theories of altruism, when a small explicit
incentive was introduced, it crowded out intrinsic motivation, hence
reducing prosocial remembering. These effects emerged with both
material and nonmaterial rewards. These results shed new light on the
relationship among cognitive, social, and motivational mechanisms
underlying memory for intentions.
4:50–5:05 (243)
When Emotional Expectations Fail to Become Reality, Memory
Suffers. MARA MATHER & MARISA KNIGHT, University of California,
Santa Cruz—Neutral stimuli that previously preceded aversive
events elicit emotional reactions when encountered again. However,
presentation of the emotional harbinger alone, without the emotional
outcome, eventually leads to the extinction of the aversive reaction.
Although much research has focused on extinction of conditioned behaviors,
little is known about the impact of expectation and outcome
on explicit memory. Our findings reveal amnesia for events that involve
unfulfilled emotional expectations (both negative and positive).