Adaptive memory: Stereotype activation is not enough

Studies have shown that survival processing leads to superior memorability. The aim of the present study was to examine whether this survival recall advantage might result from stereotype activation. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a pilot study and two experiments in which participants were primed with stereotypes (Experiment 1, professor and elderly person; Experiment 2, survival-stereotype). In Experiment 1, 120 undergraduates were randomly assigned to a survival, professor stereotype, elderly person stereotype, or moving scenario and rated words for their relevance to the imagined scenario. In Experiment 2, 75 undergraduates were given a survival, survival-stereotype (based on our pilot study), or moving scenario. Both experiments showed that survival processing leads to a greater recall advantage over the stereotype groups and control group. These data indicate that the mere activation of stereotypes cannot explain the survival recall advantage

Boundaries of Semantic Distraction: Dominance and Lexicality Act at Retrieval

Three experiments investigated memory for semantic information with the goal of determining boundary conditions for the manifestation of semantic auditory distraction. Irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars to an equal degree regardless of whether the speech coincided with presentation or test phases of the task (Experiment 1) and occurred regardless of whether it comprised random words or coherent sentences (Experiment 2). The effects of background speech were greater when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material, but only when the irrelevant words were high in output dominance (Experiment 3). The implications of these findings in relation to the processing of task material and the processing of background speech is discussed

Survival processing in times of stress

Recent studies have found that processing information according to an evolutionary relevant (i.e., survival) scenario improves its subsequent memorability, potentially as a result of fitness advantages gained in the ancestral past. So far, research has not revealed much about any proximate mechanisms that might underlie this so-called survival processing advantage in memory. Intriguingly, research has shown that the memorability of stressful situations is enhanced via the release of stress hormones acting on brain regions involved in memory. Since survival situations habitually involve some degree of stress, in the present study, we investigated whether stress serves as a proximate mechanism to promote survival processing. Participants rated words for their relevance to either a survival or a neutral (moving) scenario after they had been exposed to a psychosocial stressor or a no-stress control condition. Surprise retention tests immediately following the rating task revealed that survival processing and acute stress independently boosted memory performance. These results therefore suggest that stress does not serve as a proximate mechanism of the survival processing advantage in memory

Enhanced text spacing improves reading performance in individuals with macular disease

The search by many investigators for a solution to the reading problems encountered by individuals with no central vision has been long and, to date, not very fruitful. Most textual manipulations, including font size, have led to only modest gains in reading speed. Previous work on spatial integrative properties of peripheral retina suggests that 'visual crowding' may be a major factor contributing to inefficient reading. Crowding refers to the fact that juxtaposed targets viewed eccentrically may be difficult to identify. The purpose of this study was to assess the combined effects of line spacing and word spacing on the ability of individuals with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) to read short passages of text that were printed with either high (87.5%) or low contrast (17.5%) letters. Low contrast text was used to avoid potential ceiling effects and to mimic a possible reduction in letter contrast with light scatter from media opacities. For both low and high contrast text, the fastest reading speeds we measured were for passages of text with double line and double word spacing. In comparison with standard single spacing, double word/line spacing increased reading speed by approximately 26% with high contrast text (p < 0.001), and by 46% with low contrast text (p < 0.001). In addition, double line/word spacing more than halved the number of reading errors obtained with single spaced text. We compare our results with previous reading studies on ARMD patients, and conclude that crowding is detrimental to reading and that its effects can be reduced with enhanced text spacing. Spacing is particularly important when the contrast of the text is reduced, as may occur with intraocular light scatter or poor viewing conditions. We recommend that macular disease patients should employ double line spacing and double-character word spacing to maximize their reading efficiency. © 2013 Blackmore-Wright et al

Meta-metakognition : The regulation of confidence realism in episodic and semantic memory

The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether people have the ability to make their confidence judgments for episodic and semantic memory tasks more realistic. How realistic a person’s confidence judgments are reflects how well their confidence judgments for their memory reports correspond to the actual correctness of the reports. The regulation of first-order confidence judgments by making successful second-order judgments can be seen as a form of meta-metacognition, since it aims at regulating a metacognitive process. Study I consisted of two experiments, and investigated whether people could increase the realism in their reports by excluding the confidence judgments they believed were unrealistic. The participants were shown a video clip and, in the Confidence task, were told to answer questions about the video and rate how confident they were that they had answered the questions correctly. Half of the participants answered two-alternative questions (recognition), and half had to come up with their own answers (recall). The participants then performed the Exclusion task, in which they were asked to exclude the 15 answers they believed had the most unrealistic confidence judgments. In Experiment 1 the recognition condition decreased their level of realism in their report, and in Experiment 2 the recall condition increased their level of realism. In Study II, the aim was to investigate whether people could increase the realism in their report by modifying the confidence judgments they believed were unrealistic. The relationship between realism of confidence and two possible memory cues, the phenomenological memory qualities Remember/Know and processing fluency, was investigated as well. The procedure was similar to that in Study I, with the exception that all participants answered recall questions and that the participants in the so-called Adjustment task were told to modify the confidence judgments they believed were unrealistic. Results showed that the participants were able to increase the realism of their confidence judgments, even though the effect was small. In Study III, the aim was to investigate whether people had the possibility to increase their confidence realism in semantic memory reports and whether individual differences, personality and cognitive styles, could help explain differences in this ability. The procedure was very similar to that in Study II, and the results showed that the participants only managed to increase the realism for correct items in the Adjustment task. In Study IV, the aim was to investigate whether the improvements in realism found in Study II could be further enhanced by giving people advice during the Adjustment task and asking them to “try more” in an Extra Adjustment task. However, results showed that although the participants managed to improve their realism like in Study II, they were not able to further improve it when given advice or by “trying more”. In all, Studies II, III and IV (and to some extent also Study I) lend support to the idea that people are able to regulate the realism of their confidence judgments by making successful second-order judgments

Enhanced recognition of words previously presented in a task with nonfocal prospective memory requirements

Remembering to perform deferred actions when events are encountered in the future is referred to as event-based prospective memory. Individuals can be slower to respond to ongoing tasks when they have prospective memory task requirements. These costs are interpreted as evidence for cognitive control processes allocated to the prospective memory task, but we know little about these processes. In the present article, the recognition of nontargets previously presented in an ongoing task with prospective memory task requirements provided evidence for the differential processing of individual ongoing task items. Participants performed a lexical decision task, where some participants were required to make an alternative prospective memory response either to a specific word (focal) or to exemplars of a category (nonfocal). Participants were slower to respond to the ongoing task in the nonfocal conditions than in the control condition (costs), regardless of whether or not prospective memory task importance was emphasized. Participants were also slower to respond to the ongoing task in the focal conditions than in the control condition, but only when prospective memory task importance was emphasized. This task was followed by a surprise recognition memory test in which nontarget words from the lexical decision task were intermixed with new words. Focal conditions, but not nonfocal conditions, showed better discrimination on the recognition task, as compared with the control condition. Participants in nonfocal conditions mapped the semantic features of the ongoing task letter strings onto the semantic features of their prospective memory category, and this elaboration in the processing of individual nontargets increased incidental learning and produced the recognition benefit