Memory influences subjective experience: Noise judgments.

Abstract

The influence of memory on the subjective experience of later events was investigated in two experiments. In one experiment, previously heard sentences and new sentences were presented against a background of while noise that varied in intensity. In a second experiment, a cue set of words was presented either before or after a target set that was embedded in noise. The cue set was either the same as or different from the target set. In both experiments, one of the tasks was to judge the loudness of the noise. The data show that subjects were unable to discount the contribution of memory to perception when judging the noise level. Subjects appeared to base their noise judgments on ease of interpretatio n of the message presented through noise, with differences in ease being misattributed to a difference in noise level. The advantages of subjective experience as a measure of memory, and the role of subjective experience and misattribution in confusions between cognitive and physical deficits are discussed. Although memory has traditionally been assessed by recall or recognition tests, memory for a prior experience can also be revealed by its influence on the perception of later events. Several recent experiments have demonstrated that memory can serve to increase the accuracy of later perception, and that these effects on perception often arc independent of performance on recall or recognition tests. For example, a prior presentation of a word in the experimental selling can have a large and long-lasting influence on its later identification in perceptually difficult situations, even when the word is not recognized as having been previously presented (e.g., Jacoby, 1983; Jacoby & Dallas, 1981). The experiments reported in this article describe another influence of memory on perception. Rather than examining effects of memory on accuracy of perception, we investigated the influence of memory on the subjective experience of later events. Owing to the influence of behaviorism, perhaps, reporting accuracy has been the major focus of contemporary investigations of memory and perception. This contrasts with the focus on subjective experience and the use of introspection as a tool that marked earlier traditions, James (1890), for example, discussed the influence of attention and of expertise in terms of their effects on subjective experience. Attention and expertise were said to increase the intensity and the clarity of a sensation. Effects of the sort that James described are commonplace. Most of us have experienced the voice of the person with whom one is conversing at a cocktail party as