Fuzzy-trace Theory Research Articles

Fuzzy-trace theory and eyewitness memory

Fuzzy-trace theory and eyewitness memory

Fuzzy-trace theory: Implications for research in learning disabilities

Fuzzy-trace theory: Implications for research in learning disabilities

Fuzzy-trace theory: Some foundational issues

We examine seven issues that are raised by the commentators: the relationship between memory and reasoning; constructivism; the nature of gist memories; rationality, consciousness, and transfer across tasks; basic and strategic processes in memory development; global versus local theories of development; and implications of fuzzy-trace theory for the study of individual differences.

Fuzzy-trace theory: A grand theory

Fuzzy-trace theory: A grand theory

Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis

We review the current status of fuzzy-trace theory. The presentation is organized around five topics. First, theoretical ideas that immediately preceded the development of fuzzy-trace theory are sketched. Second, experimental findings that challenged those ideas (e.g., memory-reasoning independence, the intuitive nature of mature reasoning) are summarized. Third, the core assumptions that comprised the initial version of fuzzy-trace theory are described. Fourth, some modifications to those assumptions are explored that were necessitated by subsequent experimental findings. Fifth, four areas of experimentation are considered in which research under the aegis of fuzzy-trace theory is in progress: (a) suggestibility and false memories; (b) judgment and decision making; (c) the development of forgetting; and (d) the development of retrieval.

Strolling fuzzy-trace theory through eyewitness testimony (or vice versa)

Strolling fuzzy-trace theory through eyewitness testimony (or vice versa)

An interim evaluation of fuzzy-trace theory: Cautiousness, confirmation, and consciousness

An interim evaluation of fuzzy-trace theory: Cautiousness, confirmation, and consciousness

Learning rate, learning opportunities, and the development of forgetting.

Reported developmental declines in forgetting rates may be artifacts of correlated individual differences in learning rates or in the number of learning opportunities that children receive. This possibility was investigated in 2 experiments by using causal models that implemented possible relationships among age, forgetting rates, learning rates, and learning opportunities. The artifact hypothesis was disconfirmed. Forgetting rates declined markedly between early and late childhood when individual differences in learning rates and learning opportunities were factored out. The results were interpreted in terms of fuzzy-trace theory's proposals about the development of verbatim and gist memory systems

Risk Communication: Absolute versus Relative Expressions of Low-Probability Risks

According to most prescriptive decision rules, formally equivalent methods of communicating risk information should have identical effects on risk-taking behavior, even if the pertinent displays are different. The present work takes two methods commonly employed in epidemiology, incidence rates and relative risks, and examines their comparative effects on risk-avoidant behavior. In Experiment 1, we presented 108 undergraduates with information about risks associated with different brands of tires and toothpaste and displayed that information either as incidence rates or as a relative risk ratio. For the tires product, subjects given the relative risk format were willing to pay more money for a safer product than were subjects given the incidence rate format. There were, however, no differences between the two conditions for the toothpaste product. Experiment 2 evaluated two potential explanations for the difference in findings between the two products. The majority of the data supported an "editing" hypothesis, which suggests that extreme low-probability risks, such as those associated with tire blowouts, are edited to "essentially nil risk," while more moderate risks, such as those associated with periodontal disease, are considered to be small but significant. These findings are discussed in the context of fuzzy trace theory and related models, which suggest that people reason on the basis of simplified representations rather than on the literal information available.

Extracting a Narrative′s Causal Gist: A Modeling Study Based on Fuzzy Trace Theory

A number of recent papers have advanced the theory of fuzzy traces and cognitive gist as an alternative to the Piagetian and information-processing approaches to cognitive development. Since the elaboration of this fuzzy trace theory has been primarily qualitative in nature, mathematical modeling may be useful in developing more precise formulations of fuzzy trace theory suited to quantitative testing. We have used the principles of fuzzy trace theory to model gist formation in spreading activation networks. With this method we create a gist operator that processes and extracts gist from a class of digraphic representations of a narrative story′s causal structure, as introduced by Trabasso and Sperry (1985). Since a culture′s system of understanding and interpreting the world is carried in large part by stories and texts, the ability to process narrative information is fundamental to understanding human psychological development. The gist arising from the causal structure of simple stories is studied in detail with our modeling method. We discuss general issues involved in creating gist operators, compare our results to those of Trabasso and van den Broek (1985), and comment on issues involved in the mathematical modeling of fuzzy trace theory processes.

A Dynamic Model of Reaction Time in a Short-Term Memory Task

In this article we hypothesized that the trial to trial variability in speed of access to recently presented information is deterministic in nature and that it reflects important properties of immediate memory. Application of analytic techniques emerging from the science of nonlinear dynamical systems to data obtained from the Steinberg (1966, 1970) short-term memory task corroborates the view. A simple nonlinear difference equation, consistent with fuzzy-trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 1992), was then proposed to describe the dynamics underlying reaction time (RT) on the Steinberg task. The model posits that RT is a function of the interaction of two control parameters: susceptibility to interference (SI) and episodic activation (EA). Evaluation of the model indicated an exceptionally good fit with the raw empirical observations. Age comparisons of the model parameters revealed that adults exhibited higher levels of SI and EA. Although the finding that adults exhibited higher levels of SI than children runs counter to theory and other empirical results, further analysis revealed that adults exhibited lower levels of SI relative to EA than children. Thus, children may exhibit slower disintegration of verbatim memory traces than adults due to interference; however, adults may be more efficient at redintegrating verbatim memory traces than children.

Fuzzy-Trace Theory and Framing Effects in Children's Risky Decision Making

Traditional theories of cognitive development predict that children progress from intuitive to computational thinking, whereas fuzzy-trace theory makes the opposite prediction To evaluate these alternatives, framing problems were administered to preschoolers, second graders, and fifth graders Consistent with fuzzy-trace theory, results indicated (a) that younger children focused on quantitative differences between outcomes and did not exhibit framing effects (risk avoidance for gains, risk seeking for losses) and (b) that older children assimilated these quantitative differences and displayed framing effects

Development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instructions, and retention interval.

Fuzzy-trace theory is used to explore children's memory and comprehension of sentences describing spatial or linear relationships. Recognition tests were given immediately and after a week's delay, and test sentences'truth, wording (original or novel), and premise-inference status were varied. When children were instructed to recognize only verbatim sentences (Experiment 1), premise recognition (memory) was independent of systematic misrecognition of true inferences (reasoning), and experimental manipulations (delay; spatial vs. linear stimuli) drove memory and reasoning in opposite directions. Therefore, verbatim memories were not semantically integrated with gist, such as inferences. When children were specifically instructed to process gist (Experiment 2), however, memory and reasoning were positively dependent

Optimization versus Effortful Processing in Children′s Cognitive Triage: Criticisms, Reanalyses, and New Data

Cognitive triage refers to the surprising fact that easy-to-retrieve memories do not come to mind before hard-to-retrieve memories during unconstrained recall. In a previous article in this journal, we evaluated two competing explanations of this phenomenon: fuzzy-trace theory′s optimization model of recall and an effortful-processing model. Although our data favored the optimization model, the key results (quadratic relationships between the order in which children initially access stored information and the rate at which they subsequently forget it) are subject to three objections: potential third-variable artifacts, potential impermanence of effortful-processing effects, and indirectness. We report some follow-up analyses that address these objections. We also report a new experiment in which children′s cognitive triage was studied under conditions of enforced effortful processing. The results continued to favor the optimization model.

Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development.

Recent experiments have established the surprising fact that age improvements in reasoning are often dissociated from improvements in memory for determinative informational inputs. Fuzzy-trace theory explains this memory-independence effect on the grounds that reasoning operations do not directly access verbatim traces of critical background information but, rather, process gist that was retrieved and edited in parallel with the encoding of such information. This explanation also envisions 2 ways in which children's memory and reasoning might be mutually interfering: (a) memory-to-reasoning interference, a tendency to process verbatim traces of background inputs on both memory probes and reasoning problems that simultaneously improves memory performance and impairs reasoning, and (b) reasoning-to-memory interference, a tendency for reasoning activities that produce problem solutions to erase or reduce the distinctiveness of verbatim traces of background inputs. Both forms of interference were detected in studies of children's story inferences.

Explaining “Memory Free” Reasoning

Cognitive theorists generally assume that reasoning depends on memory; accurate reasoning requires access to critical informational inputs. Although memory dependency seems self-evidently true, it has been disconfirmed in recent studies of children's logical, mathematical, and pragmatic inferences. These studies have led to a new account of cognitive development, fuzzy-trace theory, that stresses the unfolding of gist-driven intuitive reasoning processes, and that reformulates traditional conceptions of the relationship between verbatim and gist memories. Fuzzy-trace theory also identifies circumstances in which reasoning accuracy depends on memory accuracy.

Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other cognitive illusions

Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other phenomena are presented to illustrate cognitive illusions, that reasoning can be misdirected so that errors of judgment violate known principles. Errors in class inclusion are traced to accessing and implementing logical knowledge, rather than logical deficits, memory overload, or misleading questions. It is argued that superordinate-set cuing does not afford subset comparisons, but, rather, facilitates implementation of logical knowledge. According to fuzzy-trace theory, successful performance involves applying the cardinality principle, but also suppressing solutions based on judgments of relative numerosity, in which horizontal relationships between classes are apt to usurp the role of vertical ones.

Gist another panacea? Or just the illusion of inclusion

In this article, we call for a formal approach to modeling the development of reasoning. We discuss the need to operationalize the nature of encoding and processing. These problems are reviewed in the context of fuzzy-trace theory with particular emphasis on class-inclusion reasoning experiments. We argue that salience manipulations (perceptual or linguistic) give the illusion of inclusion by promoting subclass-subclass comparisons. We present an alternate, mathematical model of class-inclusion reasoning in which memory and reasoning parameters are estimated and integrated in a skills analysis of performance. We conclude that without similar formal modeling efforts, the nature of children's reasoning will remain elusive.

Fuzzy-trace theory and cognitive triage in memory development.

When children and adults retrieve words during unconstrained recall, it is commonly supposed that words will present themselves to consciousness in decreasing order of memory strength, which means that their order of readout should be stronger --~ weaker. In contrast, fuzzy-trace theory proposes a counterintuitive nonmonotonic relationship between order of readout and memory strength. This relationship, which we call cognitive triage, arises from the theory's interpretation of recall as a dynamic system in which the influences of three variables (memory strength, episodic activation, and output interference) must be balanced to maximize recall. Because fuzzy-trace theory anticipates ontogenetic variations in cognitive triage, we studied it developmentally. A series of nine experiments produced several findings that were consistent with the theory's assumptions: Children never recalled stronger words before weaker words, doing the reverse instead; the priority of weaker words over stronger words in output queues was observed in the earliest phases of learning in both younger and older children; as learning progressed and children secured more reliable information about the relative memory strengths of words, a weaker--~ stronger --~ weaker ordering emerged, and it emerged more rapidly in older children; at criterion, when all items were recallable, the weaker ~ stronger --~ weaker ordering was present at all age levels, although it was more pronounced in older children. We show how the theory's assumptions also explain some classic findings about the development of recall, especially subjective organization and serial-position effects.

Fuzzy-trace theory and cognitive triage in memory development.

Fuzzy-trace theory and cognitive triage in memory development.