Continued effects of context reinstatement in recognition

The context reinstatement effect refers to the enhanced memory performance found when the context information paired with a target item at study is re-­‐presented at test. Here we investigated the consequences of the way context information is processed in such a setting that gives rise to its beneficial effect on item recognition memory. Specifically, we assessed whether reinstating context in a recognition test facilitates subsequent memory for this context beyond facilitation conferred by presentation of the same context with a different study item. Reinstating study context at test led to better accuracy in 2-­‐alternative forced choice recognition for target faces than did re-­‐pairing those faces with another context encountered during the study phase. The advantage for reinstated over re-­‐paired conditions occurred for both within (Experiment 1) and between subjects (Experiment 2) manipulations. Critically, in a subsequent recognition test for the contexts themselves, contexts serving previously in the reinstated condition were recognized better than contexts serving previously in the re-­‐paired context condition. This constitutes the first demonstration of continuous effects of context reinstatement for memory for context

Negative priming in free recall reconsidered

Recent investigations of the phenomenon of forgetting have been driven mostly by the development of a novel theoretical framework which places great emphasis on inhibitory control (Anderson, 2003; Anderson & Spellman, 1995; Bjork, 1989). Whereas traditional, interference-based theories consider forgetting to be a by-product of storing new information, the inhibitory framework postulates a specialized mechanism, or a group of mechanisms, that serves the function of ‘deactivating’ information which is currently irrelevant. This process of inhibiting currently irrelevant information is thought to have lasting consequences, affecting memory for the irrelevant information on subsequent tests. The active and functional perspective on forgetting embedded in the inhibitory framework opens new fields for examining the role of forgetting in cognitive functioning. Differences in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information have been postulated to play important roles in a range of clinical conditions (e.g., Soriano, Jiménez, Román, & Bajo, 2009; Storm & White, 2010) and the trajectory of cognitive development (e.g., Aslan & Bäuml, 2010) as well as contributing to individual differences in many other cognitive and social domains (Redick, Heitz, & Engle, 2007)

Feeling of knowing and restudy choices

Feeling-of-knowing judgments (FOK-Js) reflect people’s confidence that they would be able to recognize a currently unrecallable item. Although much research has been devoted to the factors determining the magnitude and accuracy of FOK-Js, much less work has addressed the issue of whether FOK-Js are related to any form of metacognitive control over memory processes. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that FOK-Js are related to participants’ choices of which unrecallable items should be restudied. In three experiments, we showed that participants tend to choose for restudy items with high FOK-Js, both when they are explicitly asked to choose for restudy items that can be mastered in the restudy session (Exps. 1a and 2) and when such specific instructions are omitted (Exp. 1b). The study further demonstrated that increasing FOK-Js via priming cues affects restudy choices, even though it does not affect recall directly. Finally, Experiment 2 showed the strategy of restudying unrecalled items with high FOK-Js to be adaptive, because the efficacy of restudy is greater for these items than for items with low FOK-Js. Altogether, the present findings underscore an important role of FOK-Js for the metacognitive control of study operations

Two routes to memory benefits of guessing

Attempting to guess an answer to a memory question has repeatedly been shown to benefit memory for the answer compared to merely reading what the answer is, even when the guess is incorrect. In this study, we investigate 2 potential explanations for this effect in a single experimental procedure. According to the semantic explanation, the benefits of guessing require a clear semantic relationship between the cue, the guess, and the target, and these benefits arise at the stage of guessing. The attentional explanation places the locus of the effect at the stage of feedback presentation and ignores the issue of semantic relatedness. To disentangle the 2 mechanisms, we used homograph cues with at least 2 different meanings (e.g., arms) and asked participants to either study an intact cue−target pair or guess a word related to each cue before being presented with the target. This allowed us to compare memory performance on trials in which participants’ guesses tapped the same meaning of the cue as the later presented target (e.g., a guess legs for a pair arms−hug), versus a different meaning (e.g., weapons). In 4 experiments, we demonstrated that both the semantic and the attentional mechanism operate in the guessing task, but their roles are different: Semantic relatedness supports memory for cue-to-target associations, whereas increased attention to feedback benefits memory for targets alone. We discuss these findings in the context of educational utility of errorful learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved

Learning through clamor: the allocation and perception of study time in noise

Memory tasks involve a degree of judgment and strategic decision-making, based upon the perceived benefits of particular learning, maintenance and recall strategies. The consequences of these metacognitive judgments for memory have been amply documented under experimental conditions that require participants to focus upon a task in the absence of distractors. Eight experiments consider the impact of less benign environmental conditions —specifically, the presence of distracting speech —upon the metacognitive aspects of memory. Distraction reliably disrupted free recall and, as indicated by Judgments of Learning, participants were aware of this effect. However, because participants did not adjust study time in compensation, the distraction effect was exaggerated relative to experimenter-imposed presentation rates. This finding appears to be the consequence of distraction-induced disruption of time perception at encoding, rather than any deliberate strategy. The results are interpreted in terms of a limited self-regulation hypothesis and highlight the need to consider the impact of more challenging environments on metacognition generally

Metamemory in a familiar place: the effects of environmental context on feeling of knowing

Feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments are judgments of future recognizability of currently inaccessible information. They are known to depend both on the access to partial information about a target of retrieval and on the familiarity of the cue that is used as a memory probe. In the present study we assessed whether FOK judgments could also be shaped by incidental environmental context in which these judgments are made. To this end, we investigated 2 phenomena previously documented in studies on recognition memory—a context familiarity effect and a context reinstatement effect—in the procedure used to investigate FOK judgments. In 2 experiments, we found that FOK judgments increase in the presence of a familiar environmental context. The results of both experiments further revealed still higher FOK judgments when made in the presence of environmental context matching the encoding context of both cue and its associated target. The effect of context familiarity on FOK judgment was paralleled by an effect on the latencies of an unsuccessful memory search, but the effect of context reinstatement was not. Importantly, the elevated feeling of knowing in reinstated and familiar contexts was not accompanied by an increase in the accuracy of those judgments. Together, these results demonstrate that metacognitive processes are shaped by the overall volume of memory information accessed at retrieval, independently of whether this memory information is related to a cue, a target, or a context in which remembering takes place

Memory, metamemory, and social cues: between conformity and resistance [forthcoming]

When presented with responses of another person, people incorporate these responses into memory reports: a finding termed memory conformity. Research on memory conformity in recognition reveals that people rely on external social cues to guide their memory responses when their own ability to respond is at chance. In this way, conforming to a reliable source boosts recognition performance but conforming to a random source does not impair it. In the present study we assessed whether people would conform indiscriminately to reliable and unreliable (random) sources when they are given the opportunity to exercise metamemory control over their responding by withholding answers in a recognition test. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found the pattern of memory conformity to reliable and unreliable sources in two variants of a free-report recognition test, yet at the same time the provision of external cues did not affect the rate of response withholding. In Experiment 3, we provided participants with initial feedback on their recognition decisions, facilitating the discrimination between the reliable and unreliable source. This led to the reduction of memory conformity to the unreliable source, and at the same time modulated metamemory decisions concerning response withholding: participants displayed metamemory conformity to the reliable source, volunteering more responses in their memory report, and metamemory resistance to the random source, withholding more responses from the memory report. Together, the results show how metamemory decisions dissociate various types of memory conformity and that memory and metamemory decisions can be independent of each other

Remind me of the context: Memory and metacognition at restudy

Mastering study materials often requires repeated learning. However, the strategy of restudying the same materials has been criticized for not giving sufficient opportunity for retrieval in the form of self-assessments that are known to benefit not only learning but also metacognitive monitoring of the learning process. Here we focus on the contribution of retrieval processes to repeated learning that does not include explicit self-assessments. By manipulating environmental context in which restudy takes place, we demonstrate that repeated learning in the same environmental context augments both learning and metacognitive monitoring (as tapped into by immediate judgments of learning). These benefits arise because reinstated context facilitates spontaneous retrieval during learning in the form of recollection of previous study opportunities. At the same time, we demonstrate that explicit self-assessments – delayed judgments of learning – can be led astray by non-diagnostic spurious familiarity of environmental context which accompanies these assessments. The study thus reveals the positive effects of environmental context on restudy and metacognitive monitoring of restudy, while highlighting possible inaccuracies of metacognitive processes involved in explicit self-assessments of learning

Estudo do potencial nutricional de cogumelos do gênero Pleurotus cultivados em resíduos agrícolas

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Curso de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia QuímicaResíduos lignocelulósicos são gerados em grande quantidade anualmente no Brasil e no mundo. Apesar de parte destes resíduos encontrarem aplicação na agricultura e na geração de energia, resta ainda um grande excedente inaproveitado. No entanto, após fermentação em estado sólido por fungos comestíveis, estes resíduos podem ser incluídos na dieta de ruminantes e em outros processos produtivos, graças ao aumento de sua digestibilidade. Além disso, a produção de cogumelos comestíveis apresenta-se como fonte alternativa de renda para agricultores, que podem aproveitar os resíduos lignocelulósicos gerados na propriedade, para obtenção de um produto com elevado valor nutricional e gastronômico. Com base nessas constatações, este trabalho objetivou avaliar o valor nutricional dos corpos frutíferos de Pleurotus ostreatus DSM 1833 e Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB 019, após o primeiro e o segundo fluxos produtivos, bem como verificar a degradação dos componentes das palhas de bananeira e arroz após o cultivo. Em relação ao rendimento de corpos frutíferos, observou-se valores mais elevados para Pleurotus ostreatus DSM 1833 e Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB 019 cultivados em palha de arroz que em palha de bananeira. Cogumelos provenientes de primeiro fluxo apresentaram maior teor de minerais que os provenientes de segundo fluxo, que apresentaram, por sua vez, menor teor de gorduras. Pleurotus ostreatus DSM 1833 não apresentou diferença significativa no teor de umidade (87,25%), independentemente do fluxo e do substrato de cultivo. Já Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB 019 apresentou maior teor de umidade (88,0%) quando cultivado em palha de arroz. Não foi observado diferença significativa no teor de carboidratos (43,00%) em corpos frutíferos de Pleurotus ostreatus DSM 1833 e Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB 019 em função do substrato de cultivo. Teor protéico (1,54 a 3,10%) de corpos frutíferos de Pleurotus mostrou-se similar ou superior ao teor encontrado em vários vegetais sendo, no entanto, inferior ao teor protéico de ovos, carnes e queijos, dentre outros. Ao final do cultivo de Pleurotus ostreatus DSM 1833 e Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB 019 observou-se diminuição do conteúdo de lignina em palha de bananeira (66,85%) e palha de arroz (60,7%) e, consequentemente, aumento da digestibilidade destes substratos, indicando seu potencial para uso em alimentação animal

When distraction benefits memory through semantic similarity

The processing of the relation between targets and distracters which underpins the impairment in memory for visually presented words when accompanied by semantically related auditory distracters—the between-sequence semantic similarity effect—might also disambiguate category membership of to-be-remembered words, bringing about improved memory for these words at recall. In this series of experiments the usual impairment of the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is reversed: we show that related distracters can improve memory performance when multiple-category lists are studied and a category-cued recall test is used at retrieval. The results indicate not only that irrelevant speech distracters are routinely processed for meaning, but also that semantic information gleaned from this stream is retained until recall of the memoranda is cued. The data are consistent with a revised interaction-by-process framework