Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Friday Morning Papers 41–47
conceptual-oriented cued recall test. When processes of study and test
were congruent, cued recall performance and metamemory predictions
were more accurate than when study and test were incongruent.
These findings suggest that a transfer-appropriate processing framework
could extend to metamemory for text.
11:20–11:35 (41)
Retrieval and Memory: Test-Enhanced Learning. MARK A. MC-
DANIEL & SEAN KANG, Washington University, JANIS ANDER-
SON, Harvard University, KATHLEEN B. MCDERMOTT & HENRY L.
ROEDIGER III, Washington University—We investigated the effect
of testing on later performance and whether effects are modulated by
the format of the initial test. In a laboratory experiment, after reading
short journal articles, participants received a multiple-choice or shortanswer
test (both with feedback) or the target items for additional
study. Regardless of the format of the final test (multiple choice or
short answer), an initial short-answer test provided the greatest enhancement
on the final test. A parallel experiment conducted in the
classroom found converging results. College students in a psychology
course given initial short-answer tests (with feedback) on course content
had the best performance on the unit exams (testing several weeks
of content), relative to taking an initial multiple-choice test (with feedback)
or reading statements that corresponded to tested facts. These
findings on memory have implications for the type of quizzes that educators
may employ to enhance learning.
11:35–11:50 (42)
Negative Consequences of Testing. ELIZABETH J. MARSH, Duke
University, HENRY L. ROEDIGER III, Washington University,
ROBERT A. BJORK & ELIZABETH LIGON BJORK, UCLA—Although
tests are typically treated as assessment tools in educational
settings, it is also well known that they can improve memory through
retrieval practice (the testing effect). However, multiple-choice tests
typically expose students to more incorrect answers than correct ones.
The prediction from other suggestibility paradigms (such as Loftus’s
misinformation procedure) is that the lures have the potential to interfere
with later retrieval of the correct answer. When we examined
the consequences of taking multiple-choice tests on later general
knowledge tests, large positive testing effects were always obtained:
Prior testing aided final cued recall performance. But prior testing
also led to the production of multiple-choice and true–false lures as
answers on later tests. Effects are not explainable by simple activation
accounts; negative consequences were reduced (but still significant)
when questions involved applying knowledge (as opposed to retrieving
facts) or when cued recall questions were reworded from the original
questions.
Aging and Memory
Grand Ballroom East, Friday Morning, 10:20–12:00
Chaired by Marilyn Hartman
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
10:20–10:35 (43)
Temporal Integration: Measuring Age Differences in Working
Memory Capacity and Consolidation. MARILYN HARTMAN &
NICOLE D. PUKAY-MARTIN, University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill, JENNIFER MCCABE, Marietta College, & JAMES R. BROCK-
MOLE, Michigan State University—The temporal integration paradigm
(Di Lollo, 1980) can be used to examine the nature of age differences
in working memory (WM). This task requires the integration of information
from two successive visual arrays; prior research has shown
that Array 1 information is available briefly in a perceptual store and
is retained after that only if it can be consolidated into WM (Brockmole
et al., 2002). Comparison of younger and older adults’ performance,
using a range of interarray intervals, showed slower WM consolidation
for older adults and smaller asymptotic WM capacity.
Despite age-related reductions in sensory/perceptual ability and in the
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ability to integrate a percept with a WM image, there was no evidence
of a causal link to deficits in working memory. These findings are discussed
in relationship to theories of age differences in WM.
10:40–10:55 (44)
Aging Dissociates Recollection-Based Monitoring Processes. DAVID
A. GALLO, University of Chicago, SIVAN COTEL, Wesleyan University,
CHRISTOPHER MOORE, Princeton University, & DANIEL L.
SCHACTER, Harvard University—We used the criterial recollection
task to investigate two types of false recognition suppression in
younger and older adults. After studying a list of red words and pictures,
subjects were given two tests (using black words as cues). On
the red word test, they decided (yes/no) if the item was studied as a
red word, and vice versa on the picture test. In younger adults, false
recognition was lower on the picture test than on the red word test,
demonstrating a distinctiveness heuristic (i.e., “I don’t recall a picture,
so I probably didn’t study one”). False recognition was further reduced
when study formats were mutually exclusive, as compared with a control
condition, demonstrating a recall-to-reject strategy (i.e., “I recall
a picture, so this item couldn’t have been studied as a red word”). Critically,
aging spared the distinctiveness heuristic but impaired recall to
reject, providing the first experimental dissociation of these two monitoring
processes.
11:00–11:15 (45)
Memories of September 11 and a Personal Control Event: Effects
of Age and Time of Initial Testing. LIA KVAVILASHVILI, SIMONE
J. T. SCHLAGMAN, KERRY FOLEY, JENNIFER MIRANI, & DIANA
E. KORNBROT, University of Hertfordshire—A question about the
special status of flashbulb memory has remained controversial, with
some studies showing a good test–retest consistency and others substantial
distortion and forgetting. Study 1 investigated the consistency
of flashbulb memories of September 11 as a function of age (young,
old), delay between the event and an initial test (1–2 days, 10–11
days), and the number of initial tests (one, two). An identical design
was used in Study 2 to investigate the consistency of control memories
about hearing some unimportant personal news. The consistency
of flashbulb memories with the test–retest delay of 23–24 months was
significantly higher than for memories of the control event with a
delay of only 11–12 months. The number of initial tests, the delay between
the event and the initial test, as well as the age group, did not
have any effects on the consistency of flashbulb and control memories.
11:20–11:35 (46)
Source Memory in Young and Old Adults for Schema-Congruent
Utterances. SAMI GULGOZ & MIRI BESKEN, Koç University—
Memory for source was investigated in young and older adults as a
function of schemas of sources, activation time of schemas, and similarity
between sources. Forty young and 40 older adults were presented
48 statements that were schema congruent, schema incongruent, or
neutral from two sources. The sources were paired as doctor–nurse for
half the participants and as doctor–cashier for the other half. The profession
was revealed either before or after item presentation. In the
test phase, participants were asked to discriminate 36 old and 18 new
items, as uttered by one of the sources or as new. The analyses of hits,
misattributions, misses, false alarms, and the conditional source identification
measure revealed that schema similarity facilitated source
identification, particularly for older participants who were given the
profession information prior to the presentation of the items. The results
also indicated an additive effect of age, rather than a qualitative
change in source memory performance.
11:40–11:55 (47)
I Misremember It Well: Why Older Adults Are Unreliable Eyewitnesses.
CHAD S. DODSON & LACY E. KRUEGER, University of
Virginia—We used the eyewitness suggestibility paradigm to evaluate
two explanations for why cognitive aging is associated with increased
memory distortions. We found no support for the consensus