Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 5045–5050 Saturday Evening
examining working memory functions in the production of metaphors.
We administered 281 participants the retrieval fluency task, the pair
cancellation task, and the listening span task as measures of working
memory executive function. In addition we administered the PPVT, a
verbal IQ test. For the metaphor production task, participants were
given topics (e.g., “billboards ____”) plus a property that had to be
attributed (e.g., “billboards are something noticeable and unattractive”).
For each item, they had to provide a vehicle term (e.g.,
“warts”) that can be used to attribute the property to the topic. The resulting
metaphors were rated on a five-point scale. We found that
while verbal IQ predicted the quality of metaphors produced, measures
of working memory executive function predicted additional
variance in metaphor quality, independently of verbal IQ.
(5045)
Stereotype Threat and Working Memory: What Is Threatened, and
Can It Be Alleviated? SIAN L. BEILOCK, University of Chicago,
ROBERT J. RYDELL, University of California, Santa Barbara, &
ALLEN R. MCCONNELL, Miami University—Highlighting a negative
social group stereotype produces less-than-optimal performance
by members of that group (i.e., a stereotype threat [ST]). But why?
Three experiments demonstrated that an ST induces performancerelated
worries that co-opt the verbal working memory resources required
for successful math performance. Experiment 1 demonstrated
that horizontally oriented (but not vertically oriented) mental arithmetic
problems rely heavily on verbal working memory resources. Experiment
2 examined the impact of ST (induced by highlighting gender
differences in math) on women’s performance of vertical and
horizontal math problems. All women reported performance-related
worries under ST yet performance decrements were revealed only on
difficult horizontal problems (i.e., problems requiring considerable
verbal resources). Experiment 3 implemented a training regimen to alleviate
ST’s impact. Women repeatedly practiced some horizontal
math problems until their answers were retrieved directly from longterm
memory. ST did not harm practiced problems, whereas performance
on new problems (which relied heavily on working memory)
was impaired.
(5046)
Forcing Attention to Printed Words by Altering Case and Concept
Familiarity. PAULA GOOLKASIAN & PAUL W. FOOS, University
of North Carolina, Charlotte—Three experiments investigated whether
concept familiarity and alternating the upper- and lowercase of printed
words would reduce the recall advantage of picture and spoken words
over printed words. A working memory task was used, and participants
were required to remember three or six concrete nouns presented
in varied presentation formats while verifying the accuracy of
a visual/spatial reasoning task. Presenting words in alternating case
was found to be an effective way of improving recall, and it worked
for both short and long lists of to-be-remembered items. Items with
high concept familiarity were recalled better when presented in long
lists of spoken words, but this advantage was absent for printed words.
These findings extend our previous work with the allocation of attention
hypothesis by demonstrating that the recall advantage typically
found with spoken words and pictures over printed words can be reduced
by requiring participants to actively process the printed words.
• RECOGNITION MEMORY •
(5047)
Two-Process Theory in Recognition Memory: Evidence From zROC
Curves and Temporally Defined Associations. MARC W. HOWARD,
Syracuse University—Recognition memory has been hypothesized by
some to reflect two processes, typically referred to as recollection and
familiarity. Others have argued that recognition is supported by a single,
variable memory process. We review three studies of recognition
memory for travel scenes that provide strong support for a twoprocess
account. All three studies showed nonlinear zROC curves.
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One study (Schwartz et al., in press) shows evidence that temporally
defined associations result from recollection, but not from familiarity.
Another study (Sherman et al., 2003) showed strong evidence for
a bimodal strength distribution for old items when subjects were administered
scopolamine. A third study (Howard et al., 2005) showed
different levels of recollection across younger and older adults. These
studies, taken as a whole, suggest that two processes contribute to
recognition memory, that recollection is variable rather than all or
none, and that successful recollection is accompanied by recovery of
temporal context.
(5048)
Exploring the Nature of the Recognition Memory Impairment in
Parkinson’s Disease. PATRICK S. DAVIDSON & DAVID ANAKI,
Rotman Research Institute, JEAN A. SAINT-CYR, Toronto Western Research
Institute, & MORRIS MOSCOVITCH, University of Toronto
(sponsored by Morris Moscovitch)—Dual-process theories suggest that
recognition memory can be based on either recollection or familiarity
(Jacoby, 1991; Mandler, 1980), but the relation between these two
processes remains unclear. For example, it is rare to find people who
are impaired in familiarity and not in recollection. We sought to determine
whether recollection and familiarity are differentially impaired
in Parkinson’s disease (PD), using a list discrimination version
of the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991). We tested PD
patients (free of dementia and depression) and a group of age- and
education-matched controls. Overall, the PD group showed impaired
recognition memory (hits minus false alarms). However, the process
dissociation estimates suggested that this was due more to a decline
in familiarity than to a decline in recollection. We discuss how these
data conform with another recent study conducted on the word frequency
mirror effect and how they may help us evaluate models of
recollection and familiarity in recognition memory.
(5049)
Memory Strength and the Decision Process in Recognition.
MICHAEL F. VERDE, University of Plymouth, & CAREN M. RO-
TELLO, University of Massachusetts, Amherst—Which stimulus cues
affect the placement and maintenance of the decision criterion in
recognition? At study, strong items were repeated four times and weak
items were repeated one time. Previous studies suggest that strong
items are associated with more conservative criteria. In Experiment 1,
strong items were tested in Block 1, and weak items in Block 2. There
was no evidence of criterion change following the change in item type.
In Experiment 2, weak items were tested in Block 1, and strong items
in Block 2. Again, there was no evidence of criterion change following
the change in item type. However, initial criterion placement was
less conservative than in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment
1 with the addition of accuracy feedback, which produced
dynamic criterion change. In sum, subjects initially choose their criterion
on the basis of test item strength but do not shift this criterion
in response to changes in strength.
(5050)
Hierarchical Multinomial Processing Tree Models. JARED B. SMITH
& WILLIAM H. BATCHELDER, University of California, Irvine—
Analysis of traditional multinomial processing tree (MPT) models has
often assumed identical parameters across subjects. This assumption
can be quite suspect in ordinary psychological experiments. One method
for dealing with parameter variability is to consider the parameters as
coming from their own distributions through the use of hierarchical
modeling. In this paper, we examine the construction and analysis of
a hierarchical MPT model for the learning of word pairs. We show that
a simple version of this hierarchical MPT pair-clustering model can
capture the presence of subject parameter variability but is unable to
capture underlying group structure or parameter correlation. We will
present a number of more complex candidate hierarchical distributions
to overcome these limitations. Also, we will present some tips
on how to construct a distribution for the hierarchical level depend-