Reducing False Recognition in the Deese-Roediger/McDermott Paradigm: Related Lures Reveal How Distinctive Encoding Improves Encoding and Monitoring Processes

In the Deese-Roediger/McDermott (DRM) paradigm, distinctive encoding of list items typically reduces false recognition of critical lures relative to a read-only control. This reduction can be due to enhanced item-specific processing, reduced relational processing, and/or increased test-based monitoring. However, it is unclear whether distinctive encoding reduces false recognition in a selective or global manner. To examine this question, participants studied DRM lists using a distinctive item-specific anagram generation task and then completed a recognition test which included both DRM critical lures and either strongly related lures (Experiment 1) or weakly related lures (Experiment 2). Compared to a read-control group, the generate groups showed increased correct recognition and decreased false recognition of all lure types. We then estimated the separate contributions of encoding and retrieval processes using signal-detection indices. Generation improved correct recognition by both increasing encoding of memory information for list words and by increasing memory monitoring at test. Generation reduced false recognition by reducing the encoding of memory information and by increasing memory monitoring at test. The reduction in false recognition was equivalent for critical lures and related lures, indicating that generation globally reduces the encoding of related non-presented items at study (not just critical lures), while globally increasing list-theme-based monitoring at test

Getting at the Source of Distinctive Encoding Effects in the DRM Paradigm: Evidence From Signal-Detection Measures and Source Judgments

Studying Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists using a distinctive encoding task can reduce the DRM false memory illusion. Reductions for both distinctively encoded lists and non-distinctively encoded lists in a within-group design have been ascribed to use of a distinctiveness heuristic by which participants monitor their memories at test for distinctive-task details. Alternatively, participants might simply set a more conservative response criterion, which would be exceeded by distinctive list items more often than all other test items, including the critical non-studied items. To evaluate these alternatives, we compared a within-group who studied 5 lists by reading, 5 by anagram generation, and 5 by imagery, relative to a control group who studied all 15 lists by reading. Generation and imagery improved recognition accuracy by impairing relational encoding, but the within group did not show greater memory monitoring at test relative to the read control group. Critically, the within group’s pattern of list-based source judgments provided new evidence that participants successfully monitored for distinctive-task details at test. Thus, source judgments revealed evidence of qualitative, recollection-based monitoring in the within group, to which our quantitative signal-detection measure of monitoring was blind

Item-Specific and Relational Processing Both Improve Recall Accuracy in the DRM Paradigm

Using the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm, Huff and Bodner found that both item-specific and relational variants of a task improved correct recognition, but only the item-specific variants reduced false recognition, relative to a read-control condition. Here, we examined the outcome pattern when memory was tested using free recall, using the same item-specific versus relational task variants across three experiments as our previous study (processing instructions, pleasantness ratings, anagram generation). The outcome pattern in recall was similar to recognition, except relational processing at study actually reduced the DRM illusion, though not as much as item-specific processing. To reconcile this task difference, we suggest that the memory information laid down during relational encoding enhances the familiarity of the critical items at test. To the extent that familiarity is used less as a basis for responding in free recall than in recognition, relational processing ironically reduces rather than increases the DRM illusion in recall

Does Taking a Walk in Nature Enhance Long-Term Memory?

Post-print version of article deposited according to Ecopsychology self-archiving policy http://www.liebertpub.com/forauthors/ecopsychology/300/, September 25, 2015. Final publication is available from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/eco.2015.0042.Given recent evidence that contact with nature can enhance cognitive processes, we measured whether students who took a brief on-campus walk in a natural environment showed improved retention of learned materials. Using a within-subjects design, we compared the effects of 10-minute walks in nature, urban, and indoor environments on long-term memory for word lists. Recall and recognition for word lists were tested in the indoor environment either after each walk (Experiment 1) or before each walk (Experiment 2). We failed to find an influence of walk type on either memory test in either experiment. Thus, contact with nature did not enhance students’ long-term memory under the conditions we tested. Our results contrast with a recent study in which learners showed better memory for lecture materials learned in a nature-enhanced classroom than in a control classroom. We identify potential explanations for our null findings and suggest future research directions.NSERC Discovery GrantYe

JOURNAL OF MEMORY AND LANGUAGE 37, 268–293 (1997) ARTICLE NO. ML962507 Masked Repetition Priming of Words and Nonwords: Evidence for a Nonlexical Basis for Priming

Lexical decisions for low- and high-frequency words are equally facilitated by masked repetition priming, whereas nonwords typically show no effect of such priming. This pattern of results has been used to argue against an episodic account of masked priming and in favor of a lexical account in which the prime opens the lexical entry of the upcoming target. We propose that an episodic account can be compatible with additive effects of masked priming and word frequency. We also demonstrate that masked priming of nonwords can be reliably produced, indicating that primes operate at a nonlexical level, primarily to facilitate orthographic encoding. The processing fluency created by a masked prime can work against correct classification of nonwords in a lexical decision task, leading either to no effect of priming or to an interference effect when subjects depend heavily on familiarity as a basis for lexical decisions. � 1997 Academic Press Two classes of word identification theories Lexical accounts of word identification can are fundamentally divided by a debate regard- most easily accommodate repetition priming ing the issue of whether word identification effects by assuming that presentation of a involves access of a stable, abstract, lexical word results in contact with the lexical repreentry corresponding to a word in a mental sentation for that item and in so doing leave