S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 3085–3091 Friday Evening
(3085)
Impairment of Scene Recall Due to Part-Set Cuing. DANIEL R.
KIMBALL, WILLIAM A. COKER, & JAMES R. ERICKSON, University
of Texas, Arlington—Recall impairment due to part-set cuing
has been studied extensively using verbal stimuli, but to date there has
been no evidence reporting applicability of the phenomenon to more
ecologically valid stimuli, such as everyday scenes (kitchen, office,
etc.). We found reliable part-set cue-induced impairment of recall for
objects in such scenes when the cues were the names of schematically
consistent objects, whether or not such cues had appeared in the scene.
However, the effect of cue number varied depending on whether the
cues had or had not appeared in the scene: When the cues had appeared,
such impairment increased as a function of the number of
cues, as with word list recall. When the cues had not appeared in the
scene, impairment did not differ with cue number, unlike with word
lists. These results have practical ramifications for eyewitness memory
and present a challenge to part-set cuing theories.
• LEARNING AND MEMORY •
(3086)
Feedback Timing in Semantic Learning: Spacing and the Delay-
Retention Effect. TROY A. SMITH, DANIEL R. KIMBALL, &
MARTHA MANN, University of Texas, Arlington—The empirical
findings to date regarding the effects of delaying feedback on learning
and long-term retention are unclear: Some studies have found an
advantage for delayed feedback, some an advantage for immediate
feedback, and some no difference. In three experiments involving new
semantic learning of trivia facts, we tested the extent to which spacing
and lag effects can account for the seemingly contradictory findings
in the literature. Experiment 1 compared the effects of varying
the timing of repeated study trials, repeated test trials, and feedback
trials. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the effects of restudy and retest
opportunities following immediate and delayed feedback trials, and
the impact of varying the lag between initial study and feedback. The
results support the spacing hypothesis and challenge competing theories
of feedback timing. We compare the results to predictions of the
new theory of disuse (Bjork & Bjork, 1992).
(3087)
Contribution of Prior Semantic Knowledge to New Episodic Learning
in Amnesia. IRENE P. KAN & MIEKE VERFAELLIE, Boston
VA Healthcare System—We evaluated whether prior semantic knowledge
would enhance episodic learning in amnesia. Subjects studied
prices that are either congruent (i.e., market value) or incongruent
(i.e., four times higher) with prior price knowledge for household and
grocery items and then performed a forced choice recognition test for
the studied prices. Consistent with a previous report, healthy controls’
performance was enhanced by price knowledge congruency; however,
only a subset of amnesic patients experienced the same benefit.
Whereas patients with damage restricted to the medial temporal lobes
experienced a significant congruency benefit, patients with damage
also including the lateral temporal lobes did not experience a congruency
benefit. Moreover, the extent to which patients experienced
a congruency benefit was positively correlated with their prior price
knowledge. Our findings are consistent with the idea that episodic
memory is enhanced when the to-be-remembered information can be
anchored to prior knowledge.
(3088)
Early Encoding Impairment in Schizophrenia. MARIE-LAURE
GRILLON & CAROLINE HURON, INSERM—Investigations of
memory impairment in schizophrenia have frequently revealed a
strategic processing deficit at encoding. The present experiment was
designed to investigate an early encoding process, refreshing (i.e., the
process of thinking of a stimulus that has just been seen). Twenty-five
patients with schizophrenia and 25 control subjects read words out
aloud as they appeared on a screen. Critical words were read, re-
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freshed, or repeated, following presentation of a column of three
words or a single word in the top, middle, or bottom position of the
screen. As a surprise test, participants were asked to recognize the
words seen previously and to give remember, know, or guess responses.
The results showed that patients were disproportionately
slower or less accurate in the refresh condition. Nor, in contrast to controls,
did they derive the beneficial effect of refreshing on conscious
recollection. These results provide evidence that schizophrenia impairs
an early encoding process.
(3089)
Ironic Effects of Censorship: Generating Censored Lyrics Enhances
Memory. MATTHEW R. KELLEY, Lake Forest College, JAMES E.
BRIGGS, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, JAMES C. CHAM-
BERS, Wheaton College, EMILY BLEGEN & DUSTIN KOCH, Lake
Forest College, & JOANNA C. BOVEE, University of Illinois, Chicago—
Two experiments explored the generation effect—mnemonic advantage
for self-generated information—in the applied setting of lyrical censorship.
Participants listened to an original song in which a subset of
nouns were either partially or completely censored and then completed
a recognition memory test consisting of heard, censored, and
distractor items. Overall, recognition accuracy did not differ for censored
and heard items, despite the fact that the censored items were
never presented. More importantly, when the data were made conditional
upon successful generation of the censored item during encoding,
the standard generation effect was observed—recognition accuracy
was significantly higher for the generated censored items
compared with the heard items. Additionally, when asked to judge the
source of the recognized words, participants routinely erred and indicated
that they remembered “hearing” these nonpresented words.
These results suggest that, by omitting certain words from songs, censors
might actually make those words more memorable!
(3090)
What Form of Memory Underlies Novelty Preferences? KELLY A.
SNYDER, University of Denver, & MICHAEL P. BLANK & CHAD J.
MARSOLEK, University of Minnesota (sponsored by Chad J. Marsolek)—Novelty
preferences (longer fixations on new stimuli than on
previously presented stimuli) are widely used to assess memory in
nonverbal populations such as human infants and experimental animals,
yet important questions remain about the nature of the processes
that underlie them. We used a classical conditioning paradigm to test
whether novelty preferences reflect a stimulus-driven bias toward novelty
in visual selective attention or explicit memory for old stimuli.
The results indicated that conditioning affected adults’ looking behavior
in the visual paired comparison task but not their recognition
memory judgments. Furthermore, the typically observed novelty preference
occurred only when a bias toward novelty had no competition
from a bias toward salience due to conditioning. These results suggest
that novelty preferences may reflect attentional processes and implicit
memory to a greater degree than explicit memory, a finding with important
implications for understanding memory in nonverbal populations
and the development of memory in humans.
(3091)
Individual Differences in Intentional Versus Incidental Learning: Effects
of Handedness and Interhemispheric Interaction. STEPHEN D.
CHRISTMAN & MICHAEL BUTLER, University of Toledo—Research
indicates a robust episodic memory advantage for mixed-, relative to
strong right-, handers, arising from increased interaction between left
hemisphere-based encoding and right hemisphere-based retrieval
processes in mixed-handers. Most of this research has employed intentional
learning. The purpose of the present study was to investigate
possible handedness differences under conditions of incidental learning,
using the procedure developed by Craik and Tulving (1975) in
which subjects make either structural, phonemic, or semantic judgments
about words, followed by a surprise memory test. A fourth
group studied words under intentional learning instructions. Repli-