Suppression of Misinformation in Memory

Agents in a dynamic world must continue to comprehend and reason about events, even after they learn that previously encoded information about an event is incorrect. As a result, some mechanism is needed to modify incorrect information in memory, and allow one to use new, superceding knowledge instead. Ho w is misinformation suppressed in human memory? A study using a text understanding paradigm and a standard anaphoric inference task investigates this problem of updating memory. Subjects read a set of stories, half of which contained a conection, and were asked to make a speeded wordrecognition judgment for a probe word appearing after an anaphor sentence. Subjects in a short delay condition showed slower reaction times to correct referents in correction stories than in control stories that did not contain misinformation. Those in the longer delay condition showed no difference in reaction times to correct referents, but more priming for invalidated items in correction stories. These results suggest that misinformation can interfere with accessing correct information, but that an additional comprehension process, possibly suppression-like, may facilitate access to correct information after delay

Memory and Discredited Information: Can You Forget I Ever Said That?

Previous research has found that when information stored in memory is discredited, it can still influence later inferences one makes. This has previously been considered as an editing problem, where one has inferences based on the information prestored in memory before the discrediting, and one cannot successfully trace out and alter those inferences. However, in the course of comprehending an account, one can potentially make inferences after a discrediting, which may also show influence from the discredited information. In this experiment, subjects read a series of reports about a fire investigation, and their opportunity to make inferences before a correction appeared in the series was manipulated. Subjects received a correction statement either directly following the information it was to discredit, or with several statements intervening. The results show that subjects w h o received the correction directly after the information it corrected made as many inferences based on the discredited information as subjects w ho received the correction later (and thus could presumably make many more inferences before the correction occurred). This suggests that discredited information can influence inferences made after a correction, as well as those made before. Several hypotheses accounting for this effect are proposed

The role of predictive features in retrieving analogical cases

Access to prior cases in memory is a central issue in analogical reasoning. Previous research accounts for access in terms of overall similarity between complete new exemplars compared to complete stored instances and stresses the relative importance of surface-level similarities in access to complete cases (Gentner & Landers, 1985; Rattermann & Gentner, 1987). However, for cross-domain remindings, abstract similarities capture the important commonalities between cases ( Schank, 1982; Seifert, McKoon, Abelson, & Ratcliff, 1986). Therefore, models of analogy must account for structural-level remindings when they do occur in terms of abstract similarities. In planning and problem-solving tasks, a stored exemplar may be more useful if accessed before the new pattern is complete, when past experience can bring to bear possible solutions or warn of potential dangers while the outcome is yet undetermined. Further, different partial sets of abstract features may result in differing access to analogous cases. Features that predict when prior cases might be useful to problem solving could serve as better retrieval cues than other abstract cues that are equally similar, yet less distinctive to the specific problem situation. To test these hypotheses, several experiments were conducted using thematic stories in a modification of the reminding paradigm developed by Gentner and Landers (1985). By examining the relative effectiveness of subsets of features in accessing relevant cases, it was found that a subset of abstract cue features predicting when a planning failure might occur led to more reliable access to complete prior analogies than did a subset of abstract features expressing specific information about planning decisions and outcomes. Further experiments show that how distinctly the feature sets characterize the conditions leading up to the planning decision point, and not differences in the overall similarity to the case, determines access based on abstract cues.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29825/1/0000172.pd

The Implications of Corrections : Then Why Did You Mention It?

How can misreported information be effectively corrected? Wilkes and Leatherbarrow (1988) found that people relied upon invalidated information to answer questions despite their awareness of its inaccuracy, a phenomenon called the "continued influence effect" (Johnson & Seifert, in press). But corrections in which an assertion is made and then denied (e.g., "X is true ... actually, X is untrue") ma y violate important conversational assumptions. Grice (1967/1989) and others have argued that people expect speakers to offer only information that is both truthful and conversationally relevant; thus, people may seek interpretations for corrections that will incorporate both the literal meaning and the conversational implications of the contradictory statements. Our hypothesis was that corrections would be more successful when they explained why the original information was asserted. An empirical study showed that corrections that accounted for conversational implications (e.g., "X, which bad originally been believed because of Y, is actually untrue") could more effectively reduce the continued use of discredited information. Additionally, the results show that reiterating the literal content of a correction ma y actually be perceived as implying that the correction statement should be disbelieved. Since the conversational implications of corrections critically shape comprehension, their examination is crucial in domains (such as courtrooms, newspapers, and classrooms) where informational updates frequently occur

Case-Based Learning: Predictive Features in Indexing

Interest in psychological experimentation from the Artificial Intelligence community often takes the form of rigorous post-hoc evaluation of completed computer models. Through an example of our own collaborative research, we advocate a different view of how psychology and AI may be mutually relevant, and propose an integrated approach to the study of learning in humans and machines. We begin with the problem of learning appropriate indices for storing and retrieving information from memory. From a planning task perspective, the most useful indices may be those that predict potential problems and access relevant plans in memory, improving the planner's ability to predict and avoid planning failures. This “predictive features” hypothesis is then supported as a psychological claim, with results showing that such features offer an advantage in terms of the selectivity of reminding because they more distinctively characterize planning situations where differing plans are appropriate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46907/1/10994_2004_Article_422599.pd

Case-based learning: Predictive features in indexing

Interest in psychological experimentation from the Artificial Intelligence community often takes the form of rigorous post-hoc evaluation of completed computer models. Through an example of our own collaborative research, we advocate a different view of how psychology and AI may be mutually relevant, and propose an integrated approach to the study of learning in humans and machines. We begin with the problem of learning appropriate indices for storing and retrieving information from memory. From a planning task perspective, the most useful indices may be those that predict potential problems and access relevant plans in memory, improving the planner's ability to predict and avoid planning failures. This “predictive features” hypothesis is then supported as a psychological claim, with results showing that such features offer an advantage in terms of the selectivity of reminding because they more distinctively characterize planning situations where differing plans are appropriate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46928/1/10994_2004_Article_BF00993173.pd

Correcting Causal Explanations in Memory

Several lines of research have suggested that information previously integrated into memory can influence inferences and judgments, even w h e n more recent information discredits it. A first experiment tested the prediction that information providing causal structure, versus being mentioned but otherwise unintegrated into the account, would lead to more influence, and found that subjects used both discredited and valid information affording causal structure to make inferences, but not incidentally mentioned information with the same content Experiment 2 found that w hen a plausible causal alternative accompanied the correction, subjects showed less influence from the discredited information than when the correction simply negated earlier information. The findingssuggest that the continued influence of discredited information depends on the causal structure it afford

Predictive Utility In Case-Based Memory Retrieval

The problem of access to prior cases in memory is a central Issue in the case-based reasoning Previous work on thematic knowledge structures has shown that using a complete exemplar of a thematic pattern allows access to the structure and related cases in memory. However, the knowledge and expectations provided by such structures can aid in planning and problem-solving. Therefore, to be most useful, the Information should become available before the Input pattern Is complete. Retrieval must therefore be possible based on only a subset of the features present In the full thematic pattern. This study investigated whether a pattern that contains elements predicting an outcome, but not the outcome itself, would result In access comparable to that found when a full pattern is used. The results showed that subjects were less successful accessing the thematic structure using partial patterns than they were when using full patterns. However, remindings based on partial patterns occurred more often than would be expected by chance. W e conclude that partial patterns contain some predictive features that can allow access to a thematic knowledge structure before the pattern Is complete