Memory & Cognition最新文献

In reasoning experiments, participants usually evaluate conclusions by clicking on predefined response alternatives or rating scales. However, such response formats may elicit specific cognitive reasoning strategies. To avoid such biases, we employed an open response format, allowing participants to formulate and explain their conclusions freely in complete sentences. Across two experiments, participants generated over 1,300 written responses, which we categorized as certain, uncertain based on counterexamples, or uncertain based on probabilities, using a predefined coding scheme. Participants frequently provided certain responses rather than expressing graded degrees of belief. When uncertainty was expressed, it was more often justified by concrete counterexamples than by probabilistic reasoning. We introduce the term probabilistic masking to describe the phenomenon whereby graded response formats may suppress the consideration of certain inferences or counterexamples, thereby biasing empirical accounts of human inference toward probabilistic interpretations.

Actions are often learnt incidentally by observing other individuals. How aspects inherent to the social context in which an action is seen affect action learning remains poorly understood. Here we study the effect of a special social signal, the eye gaze of the demonstrator, on the immediate and delayed memory and execution of observed actions. In Experiment 1, healthy young adult volunteers (N = 37) watched short videos of a demonstrator performing novel actions with novel objects only once, and were tested for immediate and delayed recall of those actions through action execution. Overall, novel actions on novel objects were recalled more accurately if, during demonstration, the demonstrator had repeatedly gazed towards the participant (direct gaze) versus towards an object (control condition). Experiment 2 (N = 41) investigated the immediate and delayed recall of novel and familiar object-use actions performed on familiar objects. In this condition, which involved familiar information, direct gaze had no effect or was even detrimental for recall. These findings show that direct gaze benefits incidental learning and retention of novel information only (novel actions paired with novel objects in Experiment 1), and interferes with the retention of familiar information (familiar objects paired with familiar actions in Experiment 2). This study suggests a role of ostensive eye contact in incidentally learning new actions. At the same time, it limits its beneficial role to a specific type of learning scenario, one involving only novel (as opposed to familiar) information, unveiling the selective function of ostensive eye contact in the transmission of novel cultural behaviors.

Bridging information facilitates comprehension in both textual and pictorial stories, but its effects when both types of information are present remain unclear. This study examines how bridging information and individual differences influence comprehension across texts and pictures. Participants read four-segment stories under six conditions: 1) picture-original (pictorial stories), 2) picture-to-text-switch (pictorial stories with textual bridging information), 3) picture-missing (pictorial stories without bridging information), 4) text-original (textual stories), (5) text-to-picture-switch (textual stories with pictorial bridging information), and (6) text-missing (textual stories without bridging information). L1 and L2 Chinese and English speakers participated. Missing conditions led to longer comprehension times across all groups, confirming the facilitative role of bridging information. Crucially, the picture-to-text switch caused no disruption, and Chinese L1 speakers were unaffected by the text-to-picture switch, suggesting that bridging information can be processed during text and picture integration without extra cognitive resources. However, English L1 and L2 speakers, as well as Chinese L2 speakers, showed increased comprehension times in the text-to-picture switch condition, indicating greater processing difficulty for alphabetic and L2 texts. Robust effects of individual differences were also revealed.

Memories of repeated events are one form of memory thought to be intermediate on a proposed semantic-episodic continuum. However, it is not yet understood where repeated-event memories fall on this continuum, and which factors may be associated with greater or lesser reliance on episodic and semantic memory during recall. We investigated similarity amongst instances of repeated events as one factor which may be associated with where repeated events fall on the semantic-episodic continuum. In two preregistered studies, we asked participants to recall three repeated-event memories from their own lives (N₁ = 97 participants, 291 memories; N₂ = 419 participants, 1,257 memories) and report on the similarity amongst instances as well as the degree to which they relied on semantic memory, a single episode, and a mix of episodes in their recall of each event. In line with our predictions, similarity was positively correlated with reliance on semantic memory in both studies. In Study 2, similarity was negatively correlated with reliance on a single episode. We also conducted exploratory latent profile analyses using our three memory reliance variables, revealing three types of repeated-event memories. In both studies, similarity of place and emotional arousal were each associated with different memory profiles. Our findings highlight the importance of considering similarity in basic and applied repeated-event memory research, as different conditions of similarity (e.g., low vs. high) can manifest in different patterns of reliance on episodic and semantic memory.

Working memory is the ability to maintain a limited amount of information after it has been removed from perception. It is a key cognitive ability, thought to play a role in other cognitive functions, including perception, attention and action. Given its importance, its accurate and efficient measurement is a major goal in working memory research. Here we introduce a novel working memory tracking paradigm, inspired by continuous psychophysics and multiple object tracking. Participants viewed a sequence of stimuli moving along variable paths and were asked to reproduce the path by tracing it on a touchscreen. This reproduction was then compared to the original stimulus to determine error and thus memory performance. Across three experiments, we found that this new method is efficient, reliable and powerful, with only ten trials per condition required for stable performance estimates. We have also shown that the method is only minimally affected by perceptual or attentional confounds. Most importantly, since performance was measured across the trial, this method also allows for the investigation of how working memory changes across time. By averaging equivalent time points across trials, we identified influences from both primacy and recency effects, and quantified performance around particularly important points along the motion path. The working memory tracking paradigm is therefore especially useful when experimental time is limited, experimental conditions are extensive or when the time-course is a key interest. The method also opens up the study of working memory with dynamic stimuli.

This study investigates the impact of internet access on creativity and identifies potential hidden costs of internet use for groups. Using the alternative uses task, we randomized participants (N = 244) into separate conditions to generate ideas for nonstandard uses for one of two common objects-a shield or an umbrella-either with or without internet access. Nominal group analysis reveals that while individual creativity may be enhanced by internet access, groups articulate fewer novel solutions when provided internet access, suggesting that internet access may constrain collective creative fluency. We also ran a reanalysis of previous data sets on creativity and internet use and found robust converging evidence across different paradigms, coders, and contexts. We further explore robustness by examining alternative operationalizations of fluency: quality of responses, as measured by coders' evaluations of effectiveness, novelty, and subjective evaluations of creativity. While overall trends suggest an advantage for subjects who do not have internet access, this patterning depends to some degree on variation among coders. Implications for the way digital tools influence creative processes are discussed.

While early accounts of idiomatic expressions proposed that they are compositional or else directly retrievable from memory, the multi-determined view posited that idiom comprehension depends on observable characteristics, such as meaningfulness, familiarity, literal plausibility, global decomposability, and final word predictability. This led researchers to periodically undertake norming tasks in which participants rate idioms on these dimensions. The current study extends this tradition while investigating 36 American English idioms, expressed as She/he verbed x noun (e.g., He fanned the flames). Study 1 introduced a new control (Nonsense idioms), which encourages the exploitation of a scale's lower end, while recruiting sub-samples of participants online for each of the five aforementioned dimensions. Our findings, which primarily concern correlations among dimensions, very largely confirm the prior findings. Study 2 introduced a novel norming dimension that we call presupposition strength. This asks participants to provide a likelihood score about background information that is not conventionally associated with each idiom. The 36 idioms were presented through a vignette (e.g., Tom fanned the flames at the meeting) after which we collected scores to a presuppositional probe question (e.g., How likely is it that there was tension before the meeting?). Participants' mean scores for an individual idiom's presupposition strength were compared to two yoked controls, a paraphrase (from dictionary definitions) and a nonsense idiom. Presuppositional strength for idiomatic expressions led to significantly superior scores, pointing to the importance of this feature to these figures. Intriguingly, correlations between presupposition strength and (Study 1's) meaningfulness and familiarity were statistically significant.

While work on improving comprehension has primarily focused on open-ended generative activities, closed-ended practice tests using inference-type questions may also benefit understanding from text. Four experiments were designed to investigate how practice tests, specifically in multiple-choice and true-false formats, may support comprehension. Experiments 1 and 2 compared the two practice test formats to rereading. Both formats improved performance on a final essay test in Experiment 1, but in Experiment 2, only multiple-choice practice enhanced performance on a short-answer (SA) test. Experiment 3 introduced feedback on practice tests, but found no added benefit on the final SA test, which remained consistently better for those who completed the multiple-choice as compared with the true-false version of the practice test. Finally, manipulating text availability during practice tests in Experiment 4 improved performance on the final SA test. However, multiple-choice practice consistently led to better SA performance than true-false, regardless of text availability. The present work illustrates that the benefits from a closed-ended practice test with multiple-choice questions can persist over a delay and transfer to a set of new comprehension questions. At the same time, the results also highlight important constraints in that subtle nuances in question design can impact the observed benefits of practice testing on learning outcomes.

Déjà vu-the strange, inexplicable sensation that a current situation has been experienced before-is often accompanied by an illusory feeling of knowing regarding what is about to happen next. Studies have shown that when déjà vu occurs during virtual tours of scenes, an illusory sense of being able to predict the direction of the next turn frequently accompanies it. The present study examined whether a similar illusory sense of prediction might also accompany the auditory analog of déjà vu known as déjà entendu. Participants heard simple piano pieces, some of which had been experimentally familiarized through previous exposure to some of their features (e.g., isolated rhythm). Upon stopping each piano piece, participants made a familiarity judgment, a déjà entendu judgment, a feeling-of-prediction judgment, a prediction regarding the likely characteristics of the next note, and finally, an identification attempt. In Experiment 1, the prediction judgments were about the contour of the proceeding note (will ascend vs. descend in pitch). In Experiment 2, prediction judgments were about the location of the next note (left vs. right speaker), which was randomly predetermined and therefore unpredictable. Déjà entendu reports were significantly more likely to be accompanied by a feeling of prediction for the proceeding note's contour or location. However, these feelings were illusory, as participants did not show above-chance prediction accuracy in Experiment 1 concerning song contour, and predicting the proceeding note's location was not possible in Experiment 2.

The episodic flanker task is a memory analog of the classic perceptual flanker task. It was designed to test the conjecture that memory retrieval is perceptual attention turned inward. It measures the sharpness of the focus of attention on memory and produces episodic compatibility effects from flanking items analogous to the perceptual flanker task. Here we ask whether the episodic flanker compatibility effect results from a local match between the probe item and the cued item in the memory list, a global match between the entire (multiletter) probe and the memory list, or a combination of the two. We report two episodic flanker experiments that manipulate the compatibility of near (adjacent to the target) and far (nonadjacent) flankers independently. Local matching predicts no effect of remote targets. Global matching predicts that remote flankers will modulate the compatibility effect, reducing it when one is compatible and the other is incompatible. The results of both experiments confirmed the global matching prediction. A third experiment manipulated near and far flankers in a classic perceptual flanker task and found that far flankers modulated the compatibility effect in the same way, strengthening the parallels between episodic and perceptual flanker tasks. We conclude that the episodic flanker compatibility effect, like the perceptual effect, depends on both local and global matching. Our results provide converging evidence for the idea that memory retrieval is perceptual attention turned inward.