Memory & Cognition最新文献

To find an item of interest among candidate objects we are directed by attentional sets that reflect our expectations and intentions and may also vary by whether items should be attended or ignored. We investigated how different attentional sets influence target search and the effect of prior experience on these attentional sets. Our participants had to identify a target object given a set of objects that either contained the target itself (direct attentional set) or contained only cues that defined the target by exclusion (indirect attentional set). We found that response times were significantly slower for indirect attentional sets and when sets were mixed within blocks. To analyze the impact of attentional sets on priming, we fitted behavioral time series using multiple dynamic ideal observer models based on a first-order memory mechanism with three consecutive stages: set identification (direct vs. indirect), target identification (based on set cues), and response. The different models involved different assumptions about each stage, and we compared them via information criterion to identify mechanisms that consistently lead to good expected out-of-sample performance. We found strong repetition priming when both set and target were repeated. For direct attentional set, repetition priming was consistent with a first-order memory mechanism that tracks objects and colors likely connected to feature-specific neural mechanisms and frontoparietal attention network. In contrast, the processing of indirect attentional sets relies on qualitatively different mechanisms and search strategies than conventional visual search, likely related to neural networks involved in task switching and generation of attentional set.

When recalling real-world events, people typically remember a sequence of key moments rather than a continuous stream, often omitting portions of their previous experience. It remains unclear whether such omissions reflect gaps in memory encoding or whether the corresponding moments are available in memory but not accessed during retrieval. To investigate this, the present study assessed recognition memory for recalled versus omitted segments. Participants walked around their university campus while wearing eye-tracking glasses that recorded their experience. Twenty-four hours later, they freely recalled the events and completed a recognition task, discriminating between 5-s video clips from their own walk and those from other participants. Recognition accuracy was lower for unrecalled than for recalled moments, but nevertheless above chance. A second experiment replicated these results and tested whether overlaying participants' original eye movements on the clips during recognition would enhance performance-it did not. These results suggest that omissions in the recall of events result from both encoding and retrieval processes: while some moments may not be stored, others are available but not accessed during recall. We discuss how the dynamics of event perception and memory reconstruction contribute to the selective recall of real-world experiences.

Some theoretical accounts of relief distinguish between temporal relief, experienced due to the ending of an aversive episode, and counterfactual relief, experienced because an aversive outcome was avoided. Recent results suggest that the prototypical relief experience has both elements: the avoidance of an aversive outcome and the ending of a period of anxiety regarding that outcome. This result is consistent with an alternative theoretical approach that all instances of relief necessarily have a temporal precursor, with the aversive experience that comes to an end in the prototypical case being the cessation of anxiety. We examined whether people experience counterfactual relief in the absence of a prior period of anxiety and whether such instances differ markedly in intensity from instances of counterfactual relief involving anxiety cessation. In Study 1 (N = 238) participants readily described instances of purely counterfactual relief when directed. In Studies 2 (N = 38) and 3 (N = 98), participants' attributions of relief in cases with purely counterfactual precursors were comparable to their attributions when there was also a temporal precursor. These results suggest that purely counterfactual relief is experienced in everyday life and that the intensity of the relief experienced is of the same order as that of counterfactual relief that is preceded by anxiety cessation.

Humans can mentally create and elaborately describe events, detailing not just the who, what, and where, but also the connections and intricacies of these elements. Propositional density (proportion of propositions/total words) can be leveraged to assess how elaborately the elements of memories are described. The present experiments used propositional density to investigate how age relates to the elaborateness of orally shared autobiographical event memories. Experiment 1 included 94 young adults (ages 18-26) and 91 older adults (ages 60-95) who completed two narrative tasks, including describing a recent autobiographical event. Experiment 2 was a preregistered experiment that included a larger sample: 110 young adults (ages 18-35) and 161 cognitively normal middle-aged/older adults (ages 50-83) who recalled multiple autobiographical event memories. Propositional density scores were calculated using Computerized Propositional Idea Density Rater (CPIDR 5.1). In Experiment 1's autobiographical event memory task, propositional density was higher in older adults relative to young adults, p < .001, although this effect was driven by younger-old adults (ages 60-71), d = 0.80. Experiment 2, however, did not replicate the results of Experiment 1, instead finding that propositional density was higher in young adults relative to the oldest group of older adults in our sample (ages 69-83), p = .016, d = 0.41. In summary, the present experiments failed to find robust evidence that propositional density is higher in older relative to young adults within autobiographical event memory oral narratives. Rather, autobiographical event memory narrative elaborateness may be in a state of decline by advanced older age.

A critical step in analogical problem solving is recognizing structural similarities between the source (a known problem and its solution) and the target (the current problem). This task becomes particularly challenging when the source and target come from semantically distant domains. Previous research has suggested that global spatial configurations play an important role in detecting structural similarities. However, this effect has only been demonstrated in visual analogies. The present study aimed to investigate whether the salience of spatial structures is also relevant in verbal analogical problem solving. To this end, we manipulated the explicitness of the spatial relations described in the source narrative, as well as the method used for source processing (written summary, schematic drawing, or analogy creation). The results indicated that both the inclusion of explicit spatial features and schematic drawing enhanced analogical transfer. Schematic drawing was particularly effective when the narrative did not make the spatial properties explicit, suggesting that it promoted the inference of spatial relations. However, these effects only emerged when participants were informed about the relevance of the source. In contrast, analogy creation, which promotes the abstraction of causal relations leading to the solution, facilitated spontaneous analogical transfer. This effect was more pronounced when the source narrative included explicit spatial features. Therefore, while salient global spatial relations enhance the recognition of structural similarities between source and target analogs, understanding the causal relations underlying the solution supports successful analogical problem solving.

Although there is substantial experimental evidence that the morphemic constituents of compound words (e.g., snowball) are activated during compound word access, it is unclear exactly how the presence of constituents impacts word access. A series of experiments using a masked repetition primed lexical decision task investigates the role played by the morphology of compounds in word access. Semantically transparent compound words show consistent advantages relative to their frequency- and length-matched non-compound controls, but opaque compound words do not. For both kinds of compounds, the effect of repetition priming is the same for the compounds and their controls at short prime durations (50 and 100 ms). However, at long prime durations (300 ms), the compounds show more priming than their controls. In short, the compound advantage appears to be independent of the facilitation provided by short duration primes, but affected by long duration primes, and it appears to depend on the semantic transparency of the compound. Pseudo-compound words, such as carpet, provide an interesting comparison to compounds, because the language system cannot, a priori, determine whether they are compounds or not. Pseudo-compounds appear to be more difficult to process than their controls, and at long prime durations they show less priming than their controls. These results suggest that the compound advantage in processing arises relatively late in processing and is sensitive to the match between the semantics/morphology of a constructed compound interpretation and the required whole word.

When intercepting a moving target, responses are systematically biased toward the time of impact from the previous trial. This phenomenon, known as serial dependence, relies on a memory mechanism that remains poorly understood. In interceptive tasks, multiple stimulus features-such as speed, time, or motor responses-can guide behavior on the current trial and may be stored to influence subsequent trials. Here, we examined how memory decays over short intertrial intervals (Experiment 1, N = 23) and whether interleaved tasks influence serial dependence (Experiment 2, N = 28). Participants performed either a temporal reproduction task or a speed judgment task, designed to compete for temporal and speed-processing resources, respectively. Our findings reveal that serial dependence persists across all intertrial durations and remains unaffected by intervening tasks. While serial dependence was neither reduced nor eliminated, variations in responses were partially influenced by prior temporal reproductions from the interfering task. These results suggest that serial dependence in visuomotor tasks is robust to both the passage of time and external interference, though task responses may be subtly modulated by preceding temporal reproductions.

Two experiments explored a previous finding that 120 repetitions of the same six-item array for change detection resulted in no or very slow learning. This contrasts with learning from six repetitions tested by recall. Shimi and Logie (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72, 1387-1400, 2019) proposed that array repetition for change detection is supported by a limited capacity, temporary visual cache memory, with contents replaced by the next study array, even if it is identical. This is coupled with a weak episodic trace that strengthens across repeated presentations but requires more than 60 repetitions for learning. Experiment 1 tested whether (a) a short study-test interval would result in reliance on the visual cache with no evidence of learning across 120 repetitions, and (b) a longer study-test interval would gradually strengthen the episodic trace but require many repetitions for learning. A 500-ms study-test interval showed no learning after 120 repetitions, and participants reported being unaware of the repetition. A 5,000-ms study-test interval showed performance improvements, but only after 40 repetitions, and participants reported becoming aware of the repetition. In Experiment 2, different arrays on each of 120 trials with short and long study-test intervals showed the same lack of learning found for the 500-ms study-test interval in Experiment 1. Results appear consistent with a limited capacity visual cache memory for change detection that retains the array only for the current trial, working in tandem with a weak episodic trace that accumulates across trials but only supports performance after multiple repetitions and longer study-test intervals.

In this experiment, we examined pressures that influence linearization decisions when speakers plan and produce spoken descriptions that extend across multiple utterances. More specifically, we aimed to investigate macroplanning in discourse-level production using data from both speech and eye movements. Participants were shown 48 networks that contained two separate branches varying in length (number of nodes) and complexity (number of choice points). Each participant described 24 experimental networks and 24 filler networks while their eye movements and speech were recorded. We found that the location of prespeech fixations did not predict the first described branch. We also found that once speakers began to speak, they described the networks highly incrementally. These results are consistent with extensive planning prior to initiation of a complex description, as well as being indicative of a highly incremental production strategy following the onset of the description. Lastly, we report that speakers prioritize the shorter side of the network, regardless of branch complexity, which may suggest that speakers evaluate perceptual features and prioritize the side that appears to be easier to describe based simply on its length. Overall, our results are consistent with speakers using an apprehension phase to develop a macroplan for multi-utterance descriptions, a plan that is based on perceptual features. These findings offer support for incrementalism in language production, extending this principle to discourse-level production.

What mental representations and processes support moving aesthetic reactions to abstract art? We argue that the elicitation of autobiographical memories enables viewers to appreciate abstract art through the process of personal meaning-making. In three studies, we gave participants the opportunity to associate personal memories with works of art and measured how aesthetically moved they felt while viewing. We found that participants were significantly more moved by paintings that they could associate with a specific episode in their life (Study 1). This effect replicated across all studies and was present, albeit slightly weaker, even when the memory was cued after aesthetic ratings was made (Study 2). However, the positive effect of memory association on aesthetic experience diminished significantly when participants were asked to associate memories with all paintings (Study 3). These findings suggest that memory recollection enhances aesthetic experience when it arises spontaneously during art viewing.