Forced-choice Recognition Research Articles

Production of picture names improves picture recognition.

Words read aloud are later recalled and recognized better than words read silently: the production effect. Previous research (Fawcett, Quinlan, & Taylor, 2012) has demonstrated a production effect in old/new recognition of line drawings. The current study examined whether production at encoding can improve memory for the visual details of a picture, or whether it is primarily memory for the picture's verbal label that benefits from production. Participants studied a list of photographs of nameable objects by naming half of the objects aloud and half silently. In Experiment 1, a control group completed a free recall test for the object names while the experimental group completed a 4-alternative forced-choice recognition test for the studied pictures and provided confidence judgments in their recognition decisions. Both groups showed a significant production effect. Experiment 2 obtained image typicality ratings and naming data for use in Experiment 3. In Experiment 3, studied items were tested after a 1-week delay in one of three different types of 2-alternative forced-choice recognition test: versus a different picture exemplar of the same item; versus a different picture; or as a verbal label versus a different verbal label. Results showed a significant production effect in all testing conditions, with the magnitude of the effect similar across conditions. Production improves memory for both the visual details and verbal label of pictures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Does Test Type Influence False Recognition in the DRM Paradigm? Comparison of the Yes/No Recognition Test and Two-Alternative Forced-Choice Test

Abstract Studies attempting to identify the mechanisms that are responsible for the level of false recognition in the DRM paradigm usually apply a manipulation during encoding. The main aim of the studies reported here was to investigate the within- and between-participant effects of a testing method on memory performance using a standard yes/no recognition test and a 2-alternative forced-choice recognition test (2FC). To allow a direct comparison of the 2 testing methods, a 2FC test containing similar items as a typical yes/no test in the DRM paradigm was elaborated on in the pilot study. Moreover, 2 methods of data calculation were used: comparing rates of hit and false alarms with critical lures and with unstudied and unrelated items between the 2 tests and comparing measures of sensitivity (d’) derived from signal detection theory. Both experiments showed a lower false alarm rate to critical lures and higher hit rate in a 2FC test as compared with a yes/no test, depicting a typical mirror effect. A within-participant design (Experiment 1) also showed that this increased accuracy of a 2FC test diminished when memory performance was expressed in terms of a sensitivity measure, which may suggest that similar processes are used during these 2 retrieval methods. A similar analysis performed for a between-participants design (Experiment 2) revealed that a 2FC test was less susceptible to associative memory distortions, but the quality of memory (“remember/know” judgments) remained similar for both tests.

Fluency-based memory decisions in Alzheimer's disease: A matter of source detection?

The primary aim of this study was to test whether differences in the ability of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy participants to detect alternative sources of fluency can account for differences observed in the use of fluency-that is, the ease with which information is processed-as a cue for memory. Twenty-two patients with AD and 22 matched controls were presented with three forced-choice visual recognition tests. In each test, an external source of fluency was provided by manipulating the perceptual quality of the items during the test phase. The detectability of the perceptual manipulation varied in each test (i.e., 10%, 20%, or 30% contrast reduction were given). Data indicated that AD patients rely on fluency in a similar extent than older adults as long as they demonstrate intact detection of differences in the perceptual quality of the items. Specifically, it appears that patients' ability to visually discriminate stimuli differing in terms of their perceptual quality is critical for patients to be able to implement strategies to appropriately use or correctly disqualify fluency during a recognition task. Overall, these findings suggest that the disruption of some basic cognitive processes could prevent AD patients to experience fluency in a similar extent than healthy controls. However, when the ability to detect differences in the perceptual quality of the stimuli was taken into account, patients appeared to be as able as controls to rely on fluency to guide their memory decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Detailed long-term memory for unattended, irrelevant, and incidentally encoded auditory information.

At any moment, a myriad of information reaches our senses, of which only a small fraction is attentively processed. A long-held belief is that unattended information is only weakly processed if attentional demands are high and the unattended information is irrelevant, leaving no recognizable trace in long-term memory. The present study challenges this assumption. Participants (N = 51) were simultaneously presented with a rapid visual stream of words and an auditory stream of everyday sounds, with the instruction to attend to the visual stream and detect word repetitions, and to avoid distraction by the irrelevant sounds. No mention was made that their memory would be tested later. Memory for the sounds was tested in a surprise two-alternative forced choice recognition test with similar foil sounds. Half of the sounds were tested immediately after encoding, the other half after a delay of 24 hr. Memory performance was substantially above chance in both the immediate and the 24-hr delayed test, without significant forgetting across time. These results demonstrate that detailed and durable long-term memory representations are formed for unattended and irrelevant information that is incidentally encoded in a different sensory modality than the attended information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Hunting down the source: How amnesic patients avoid fluency-based memory errors.

The primary aim of this study was to test whether differences in the ability of amnesic and healthy participants to detect alternative sources of fluency can account for differences observed in the use of fluency as a cue for memory. Patients with severe memory deficits and matched controls were presented with 3 forced-choice recognition tests. In each test, an external source of fluency was provided by manipulating the perceptual quality of the studied items during the test phase. The detectability of the perceptual manipulation varied in each test (i.e., a 10%, 20%, or 30% contrast reductions were given). The results indicated that all participants were able to rely on fluency when making recognition decisions as long as the perceptual manipulation remained unnoticed. It is interesting that our data also revealed that the level of contrast reduction at which the alternative source is detected differs between healthy controls and amnesic patients. Specifically, patients with amnesia appeared to disqualify fluency as a cue for memory even when the contrast reduction was moderate, whereas healthy participants disqualified fluency only when the contrast reduction was clearly visible. Overall, our results seem to suggest that the ability to use fluency is probably not impaired in amnesia but undergoes metacognitive changes resulting in the implementation of explicit or implicit strategies aiming at tracking alternative sources in order to reduce memory errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Removing Hand Form Information Specifically Impairs Emotion Recognition for Fearful and Angry Body Stimuli.

Emotion perception research has largely been dominated by work on facial expressions, but emotion is also strongly conveyed from the body. Research exploring emotion recognition from the body tends to refer to “the body” as a whole entity. However, the body is made up of different components (hands, arms, trunk, etc.), all of which could be differentially contributing to emotion recognition. We know that the hands can help to convey actions and, in particular, are important for social communication through gestures, but we currently do not know to what extent the hands influence emotion recognition from the body. Here, 93 adults viewed static emotional body stimuli with either the hands, arms, or both components removed and completed a forced-choice emotion recognition task. Removing the hands significantly reduced recognition accuracy for fear and anger but made no significant difference to the recognition of happiness and sadness. Removing the arms had no effect on emotion recognition accuracy compared with the full-body stimuli. These results suggest the hands may play a key role in the recognition of emotions from the body.

Introducing a forced choice recognition trial to the Rey Complex Figure Test.

Introducing a forced choice recognition trial to the Rey Complex Figure Test.

The Ownership Effect in Dementia Patients

Abstract. Ownership of objects influences memory performance in healthy subjects, a phenomenon referred to as the ownership effect. In dementia patients, memory performance is severely impaired, yet it is not known whether memory performance can be enhanced using the ownership effect. In this contribution we investigated the influence of ownership on memory performance in dementia patients, using an adapted shopping task to induce artificial ownership. Dementia patients ( N = 32) fictitiously owned half of the objects presented to them on picture cards. Memory performance was tested using a forced-choice recognition task that also included novel objects. Corrected hit rates of owned and previously unowned objects were compared using analysis of variance. The corrected hit rate for objects fictitiously owned by dementia patients was significantly higher than the hit rate for unowned objects ( p = .027; partial η2 = .152). Results indicate a significant memory enhancement for objects fictitiously owned by dementia patients. Our findings suggest that the memory performance of dementia patients can be influenced using the ownership effect, and that this effect could be used to design interventions that try to improve memory performance for relevant information in dementia patients.

Implicit and explicit systems differently predict possible dangers

One strategy to address new potential dangers is to generate defensive responses to stimuli that remind learned threats, a phenomenon called fear generalization. During a threatening experience, the brain encodes implicit and explicit memory traces. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies comparing implicit and explicit response patterns to novel stimuli. Here, by adopting a discriminative threat conditioning paradigm and a two-alternative forced-choice recognition task, we found that the implicit reactions were selectively elicited by the learned threat and not by a novel similar but perceptually discriminable stimulus. Conversely, subjects explicitly misidentified the same novel stimulus as the learned threat. This generalization response was not due to stress-related interference with learning, but related to the embedded threatening value. Therefore, we suggest a dissociation between implicit and explicit threat recognition profiles and propose that the generalization of explicit responses stems from a flexible cognitive mechanism dedicated to the prediction of danger.

Psychosis as a confounder of symptom credibility testing in a transcultural sample

ABSTRACTTo check the credibility of impairments reported by refugees, so-called performance validity tests may be administered. We explored whether a psychotic condition may compromise performance on such test in patients admitted to a referral center for refugee mental health in the Netherlands (n = 231). We selected patients with no clear incentive to exaggerate their complaints (n = 80); psychotic patients in this subsample (n = 44) made significantly more errors on a simple forced-choice emotion recognition task than non-psychotic patients (n = 36), means being 9.0 (SD = 6.8) and 5.9 (SD = 5.1), respectively. Next, we selected patients with an incentive to deny complaints (n = 24); 79% of these patients had a psychotic disorder. Their failure rate on the emotion recognition test (21%) was the same as the failure rate of a control group of Dutch chronic psychotic patients (n = 47), but significantly above that (2%) of a control group of healthy controls (n = 51). We regard this as preliminary evidence that psychotic symptoms and/or antipsychotic medication may put a constraint on testing symptom credibility in refugees.

Item-based directed forgetting for categorized lists: Forgetting of words that were not presented.

The effect of item-based directed forgetting (DF) on recognition memory for categorized word lists was examined. For half of the categories, all studied exemplars were followed by a remember cue; for the other half of the categories, all studied exemplars were followed by a forget cue. In Experiment 1, a 2-alternative forced-choice recognition test showed decreased recognition for to-be-forgotten items. This effect was seen both when the distractor was from the same category as the target requiring discrimination be based on memory for the specific studied exemplars (exemplar test condition) and when the distractor was from a novel category and discrimination could be based on memory for the studied categories (category test condition). In Experiment 2, a yes-no recognition test showed a DF effect not only in higher hit rates for remember-cued targets compared to forget-cued targets, but also in higher false alarm rates for new exemplars from remember-cued compared to forget-cued categories. The effects of intentional forgetting of categorized word lists are seen not only for the studied exemplars but also for the studied categories and the unstudied typical exemplars of these categories. These results pose a theoretical challenge for the attentional inhibition account of DF. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Impaired relational memory in the early stage of psychosis

BackgroundHumans constantly take in vast amounts of information, which must be filtered, flexibly manipulated, and integrated into cohesive relational memories in order to choose relevant behaviors. Relational memory is impaired in chronic schizophrenia, which has been linked to hippocampal dysfunction. It is unclear whether relational memory is impaired in the early stage of psychosis. MethodsWe studied eye movements during a face-scene pairs task as an indirect measure of relational memory in 89 patients in the early stage of psychosis and 84 healthy control participants. During testing, scenes were overlaid with three equally-familiar faces and participants were asked to recall the matching (i.e. previously-paired) face. During Match trials, one face had been previously paired with the scene. During Non-Match trials, no faces matched the scene. Forced-choice explicit recognition was recorded as a direct measure of relational memory. ResultsHealthy control subjects rapidly (within 250–500 ms) showed preferential viewing of the matching face during Match trials. In contrast, preferential viewing was delayed in patients in the early stage of psychosis. Explicit recognition of the matching face was also impaired in the patient group. ConclusionsThis study provides novel evidence for a relational memory deficit in the early stage of psychosis. Patients showed deficits in both explicit recognition as well as abnormal eye-movement patterns during memory recall. Eye movements provide a promising avenue for the study of relational memory in psychosis, as they allow for the assessment of rapid, nonverbal memory processes.

A Comparison of Performance Validity Measures in Predicting MMPI-2 Lie Scale Results

Objective: This study examined the relationship between tests of performance validity (PVT) and symptom validity (SVT) among claimants undergoing independent neuropsychological evaluations. Previous research comparing PVTs with SVTs has examined symptom validity with respect to overreporting impairment, whereas the current study focused on how PVTs predict underreporting of psychological symptoms and minimization of negative personality characteristics.Method: The sample included 99 claimants presenting with psychological and cognitive complaints who were assessed in a private practice setting. Participants were administered several SVTs (MMPI-2 Lie Scale (L), Superlative Self Presentation Scale (S), Correction Scale (K)) and PVTs, including Reliable Digit Span (RDS), California Verbal Learning Test forced choice recognition, the Victoria Symptom Validity Test (VSVT), and the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM).Results: Analyses revealed moderate yet significant (p<.001) negative correlations between the L Scale and PVTs with exception of the VSVT. These relationships were substantiated by moderate to large effect sizes (d = 0.56–0.81) when comparing L Scale scores in above and below PVT cutoff conditions. Significant relationships between PVTs and the K and S Scales were not observed. Exploratory analyses revealed that PVT/L Scale relationships were not significantly moderated by presenting concern.Conclusions: Claimants exhibiting invalid PVT performance were more likely to endorse virtuous personality characteristics on the L Scale, supporting the idea that PVT and SVT constructs are interrelated, particularly in the domain of underreporting moral flaws.

Can unconscious sequential integration of semantic information occur when the prime Chinese characters are displayed from left to right?

Recent studies have investigated whether conscious awareness is necessary for semantic integration. Although results have varied, simultaneous presentation of words have consistently led to greater semantic integration than sequential presentation in a single location. The current studies were designed to investigate whether the disadvantage of sequential presentation for unconscious semantic integration is specific to unfamiliar word-by-word presentation in one location or extends to the more natural reading conditions of viewing items sequentially from left to right. In Experiment 1, when the first three characters of Chinese idioms were presented simultaneously under masked conditions, performance on a separate two-alternative forced-choice recognition task was at chance level. Despite being unaware of the identity of prime characters, participants were faster to indicate that a subsequent item was a Chinese character when it was congruent with the beginning of the idiom, thus providing evidence of semantic integration. In contrast, when the three (Experiment 2) or two (Experiment 3) prime characters were presented sequentially in time from left to right, there was no evidence of semantic integration. These results indicate that unconscious semantic integration is more limited than previously reported, and may require simultaneous visual presentation.

Sahte Hatıralarda Zorunlu Seçim Yöntemi ile Hatırlıyorum/ Biliyorum ve Modalite Etkileri

<div><!--block-->The main aim of this study was to observe the sensitivity for discriminating old and new words for three word types (critical, related, unrelated) in Deese- Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists. With this aim, for all three kinds of DRM paradigm word types we paired one presented word on study phase against one word that was not presented in each trial in a two-alternative forced choice test. We tried to answer three questions related to false positive responses in the DRM paradigm: First, do false positives stem from a response bias or do the participants have lower sensitivity to distinguish nonstudied from studied words? We used a forced-choice recognition task in order to isolate the effect of sensitivity. Second, is a potential reduction in sensitivity related to recollection or familiarity? We asked participants to classify their responses as “remember”, “know”, or “guess” in order to explore this issue. Third, is there a difference in sensitivity for prior study in auditory and visual list learning tasks and their distribution into the three kinds of recognition responses? For the first question of the study as a result of the research we observed lower sensitivity for the critical words of the DRM lists than words in unrelated lists. When the findings they classified in terms of recognition memory were examined, it was observed that remember responses clearly differentiated for the three types of words. It was an answer for the second question of the study that sensitivity reduction was related with recollection more than familiarity. Modality did not make a difference in any measure.</div>

A Laboratory Word Memory Test Analogue Differentiates Intentional Feigning from True Responding Using the P300 Event-Related Potential.

Symptom exaggeration and feigned cognitive impairment occur commonly in forensic and medicolegal evaluations. As a result, methods to detect feigned cognitive impairment are an indispensable component of neuropsychological assessments. This study reports the results of two neurophysiological experiments using a forced-choice recognition task built from the stimuli of the Word Memory Test and Medical Symptom Validity Test as well as a new linguistically informed stimulus set. Participant volunteers were instructed either to do their best or to feign cognitive impairment consistent with a mild traumatic brain injury while their brain activity was monitored using event-related potentials (ERP). Experiment 1 varied instructions across individuals, whereas Experiment 2 varied instructions within individuals. The target brain component was a positive deflection indicating stimulus recognition that occurs approximately 300 ms after exposure to a stimulus (i.e., the P300). Multimodal comparison (P300 amplitude to behavioral accuracy) allowed the detection of feigned cognitive impairment. Results indicate that, for correct responses, P300s were equivalent for the simulated malingering and good effort conditions. However, for incorrect responses, feigned impairment produced reliable but significantly reduced P300 amplitudes. Although the P300 is an automatic index of recognition—even when knowledge is hidden—its amplitude appears capable of modulation by feigning strategies. Implications of this finding are discussed for research and clinical applications.

The communicative advantage: how kinematic signaling supports semantic comprehension

Humans are unique in their ability to communicate information through representational gestures which visually simulate an action (eg. moving hands as if opening a jar). Previous research indicates that the intention to communicate modulates the kinematics (e.g., velocity, size) of such gestures. If and how this modulation influences addressees’ comprehension of gestures have not been investigated. Here we ask whether communicative kinematic modulation enhances semantic comprehension (i.e., identification) of gestures. We additionally investigate whether any comprehension advantage is due to enhanced early identification or late identification. Participants (n = 20) watched videos of representational gestures produced in a more- (n = 60) or less-communicative (n = 60) context and performed a forced-choice recognition task. We tested the isolated role of kinematics by removing visibility of actor’s faces in Experiment I, and by reducing the stimuli to stick-light figures in Experiment II. Three video lengths were used to disentangle early identification from late identification. Accuracy and response time quantified main effects. Kinematic modulation was tested for correlations with task performance. We found higher gesture identification performance in more- compared to less-communicative gestures. However, early identification was only enhanced within a full visual context, while late identification occurred even when viewing isolated kinematics. Additionally, temporally segmented acts with more post-stroke holds were associated with higher accuracy. Our results demonstrate that communicative signaling, interacting with other visual cues, generally supports gesture identification, while kinematic modulation specifically enhances late identification in the absence of other cues. Results provide insights into mutual understanding processes as well as creating artificial communicative agents.

The attentional boost effect for words in young and older adults.

The attentional boost effect (ABE) refers to enhanced memory for information that is learned under conditions of divided attention in which participants encode stimuli while performing a second task involving target monitoring. The present investigation examined the ABE in young and young-old adults in forced-choice recognition (Experiment 1), and in young, young-old, and older-old adults in yes/no recognition that included manipulations of word frequency and study-to-test changes in modality (Experiments 2 and 3). Contrary to previous findings that showed an elimination of the ABE in young-old adults (Bechi Gabrelli, Spataro, Pezzuti, & Rossi-Arnaud, 2018), young-old adults exhibited an ABE whose magnitude did not differ from that of young adults. Older-old adults, however, displayed a reduced ABE compared with the young. The results may be understood by a framework in which age-related cognitive declines create vulnerable boosted memories in the ABE that are more easily disrupted over time than the boosted memories in young adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Directed forgetting for categorised pictures: recognition memory for perceptual details versus gist

ABSTRACTItem-based directed forgetting (DF) was tested using 2-alternative forced-choice recognition to examine the effects of forgetting instructions on memory for perceptual detail and gist of categorised pictures of scenes and objects in three experiments. When the distractor is from the same category as the target (exemplar test condition), discrimination must be based on memory for perceptual details, whereas recognition can be based on gist or general category information when the distractor is from a novel category (novel test condition). Recognition accuracy was greater for Remember-cued than Forget-cued pictures when discrimination must be based on perceptual details in the exemplar test condition but not when discrimination could be based on gist in the novel test condition. Accuracy in scene and object recognition is greater for gist than for perceptual details, and DF instructions serve to reduce recognition memory based on perceptual details.

Diagnostic precision of open- versus closed-set word recognition

The precision of forced-choice (closed-set) and open-ended (open-set) word recognition (WR) tasks for identifying a change in hearing was examined. WR performance for closed-set (4 and 6 choices) and open-set tasks was obtained from 70 listeners with normal hearing. Speech recognition was degraded by presenting words from the Modified Rhyme Test in speech-shaped noise (-8, -4, 0, and 4 signal-to-noise ratios) or by processing words using a sinewave vocoder (2, 4, 6, and 8 channels). The results for the two degraded listening conditions yielded similarly shaped, monotonically increasing psychometric functions. The closed-set tasks had shallower slopes and higher scores than the open-set task for the same condition. Fitted, average psychometric functions were the input to a computer simulation conducted to assess the ability of each task to identify a change in hearing. Individual data were also analyzed using 95% confidence intervals for significant changes in scores for words and phonemes. These analyses found the following for the most to least efficient condition: open-set (phoneme), open-set (word), 6-choice closed-set, and 4-choice closed-set. Greater than an order of magnitude more trials were needed for the 4-choice condition to equal the precision of the open-set word condition scored by the percentage of correct phonemes.