Implicit Associative Responses Research Articles

Eliciting false memories on implicit and explicit memory tests after incidental learning

Abstract: In a false memory experiment, lists of semantic associates (e.g., newspaper, letter, book, etc.) were presented to three groups of participants to induce false memories for critical nonpresented (CN) words (e.g., read) in an incidental learning task. The control group simply estimated the frequency rate in everyday Japanese discourse of each word on a list. The imagery instruction group received an additional instruction to imagine a thematically related converging word from the target words on a list. Participants in the imagery plus writing group received the same instructions as those in the imagery instruction group, but were also required to write down the word they imagined for each list. The results from the implicit and explicit memory tests given after the incidental learning episode showed that the level of priming for CN words was equivalent to that for actually presented target words for all three groups on the implicit test, whereas explicit memory results showed that participants explicitly recognized more target words than CN words. The implications for implicit associative response and fuzzy‐trace theories of false memory, as well as implicit priming, are discussed.

False memory across languages: Implicit associative response vs fuzzy trace views

We investigated false recognition across languages using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. A group of English–French bilinguals studied lists of converging associates, some lists in English and some in French, and then performed a recognition test containing studied list items and nonstudied critical lures whose language matched or mismatched the language at study. Participants were instructed to answer old only if the test cue was in the same language as the studied word. The results yielded a robust false memory rate both within-language and across-languages. The effect of the study-test language shift was much larger for list items than for critical lures. This finding suggests that memory representations for critical lures contain primarily semantic gist traces and little surface information, and hence is more consistent with the fuzzy trace view than with the implicit associative response view. In sum, the study demonstrates the existence of false memory across languages, and provides information about the memory traces underlying veridical and illusory recognition.

Measuring the Activation Level of Critical Lures in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott Paradigm

In four experiments, the activation level in memory of critical lures was assessed after encoding Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists. The results demonstrated that studying longer, 14-item lists resulted in superadditive priming of the lures because they were more available in memory than truly studied items. Studying shorter DRM lists resulted in activation levels of the lures that was similar to studied items. Collectively, the results suggest that a first stage in creating false memories with the DRM paradigm is making the critical lures highly available in memory during list encoding. Moreover, the results suggest that false memories are likely to have occurred at the time a list is studied by a mechanism such as an implicit associative response, but a monitoring phase at retrieval is acknowledged that could be used to avoid them. Other theoretical accounts are also considered.

Experts sometimes show more false recall than novices: a cost of knowing too much

Students with or without expertise in the domain of investments were tested on recall of a list of words containing both investment terms and other terms not related to the domain of investment. Consistent with predictions derived from the expert memory literature, the memory illusion literature, and the ascribed characteristics of implicit associative responses, experts recalled more investment-related words and, paradoxically, also made more false recalls in that domain. This pattern of results paralleled the pattern of differences between another sample of experts and novices in strength of word associations in the two domains.

虚再認に及ぼす単語の状況頻度の効果

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of situational frequency of words on false recognitions. Two-stage recognition model (Hall & Kozloff, 1970) assumes that subjects discriminate the critical stimulus (CS) and its associate (E) in terms of their situational frequency and the failure to discriminate between the two leads to the false recognition of E. The situational frequency of E is a function of the number of implicit associative responses (IAR) elicited by CSs. In the first experiment, 60 college students studied a list of familiar words that involved CSs followed by a recognition test. False recognitions of Es elicited by two or three CSs were more frequent than those by a CS presented two or three times. In the second experiment, 50 college students were asked to write down the CS which came to mind in recognition test. The pattern of false recognition occurrence when CS came to mind was the same as the above, but the frequency of such false recognitions was low. The results support the two-stage recognition model. Individual difference in IARs and the possibility that subjects utilized graphemic features as discriminative cues were discussed.

Adult age differences in frequency judgments of categorical representations.

Adult age differences were examined for relative frequency judgments on a task in which categories had either zero, one, three, or five instances in a study list. Judgments required selecting from pairs of category names which member had the greater representation of instances in the prior list. Contrary to the results obtained in earlier studies using a task in which discrete events vary in frequency of occurrence, an age difference favoring young adults over elderly adults in accuracy of frequency judgments was found for categories. Neither instructional variation (incidental learning vs. intentional learning) nor variation in priming (cuing vs. noncuing with the list of categories prior to the study trial) yielded either main effects or interaction effects with age. The results were interpreted in terms of an age deficit in either the storage or the retrieval of memory traces of category names established by the automatic elicitation of implicit associative responses to instances of taxonomic categories.

False recognition as a function of lag and distinctiveness

The false recognition effect in continuous recognition memory was examined as a function of lag, orthographic distinctiveness of early critical stimulus (CS) words and (presumably semantic) distinctiveness (D) of experimental (E) words. False recognition was not affected by orthographic distinctiveness, although both D level and lag had some effects. The results provided little support for a features encoding hypothesis (cf. MacLeod & Nelson, 1976) or for a strict implicit associative response interpretation. Possible explanations in terms of E word D level were discussed.

A Nonmonotonic Lag Function for False Alarms to Associates

In a continuous-recognition paradigm, undergraduates were asked whether they had already heard in the series each of the 300 words. The rate of false alarms to semantic associates of prior words depended strongly on the lag between the word and its associate: at no lag, there was absolutely no increase over the general rate; at a greater lag, the false alarms to associates increased; at still greater lags, they returned toward the general rate. This nonmonotonic lag function disconfirms all one-step notions of generalization, including those based on implicit associative responses or on feature overlap, whether activated during study or test, and it suggests several two-step models of forgetting during the lag.

Mixed-list manipulations of implicit associative responses in verbal discrimination learning: II. Strategies and interactions with rate of presentation

Implicit associative responses were manipulated in a verbal discrimination task involving a mixed list of intrapair, interpair, interitem-AR, and control conditions in combination with three rates of presentation (1:1, 2:2, and 4:4 sec). The intrapair condition was significantly superior to the control at all three presentation rates. The interpair condition was inferior to the control at the 1:1 sec rate, equal to the control at the 2:2 rate, and superior at the 4:4 rate. The interitem—AR condition was equal to the control at the 1:1 sec rate, but superior at the 2:2 and 4:4 rates. The results were interpreted as consistent with the hypothesis that multiple higher order strategies may be invoked in such a mixed list design and that these strategies differ in levels of complexity, resulting in a complex interaction with rate of presentation.

Recognition and recall by children and adults as a function of variations in memory encoding instructions

In four experiments Ss were instructed to learn a set of 40 words by producing implicit associative responses to each item (association instructions), by repeating items over and over (repetition instruction), or by using their own devices (neutral instructions). Experiment I showed that recognition memory (RM) accuracy was greatest under association instructions for adults and children and least under repetition instructions for children. The implications of these results for a frequency theory analysis for RM were discussed. Experiments II, III, and IV examined free recall (FR) as a function of encoding instructions at short (1 min) and long (either 90 min or 24 h) retention intervals. FR was worst under repetition instructions, with little overall difference between the association and neutral conditions. However, in Experiments III and IV, using school children, the neutral condition exceeded the others in FR after 90 min but not after 1 min.

Mixed- list manipulations of implicit associative responses in verbal discrimination learning

Implicit associative responses were manipulated in a verbal discrimination task involving mixed-list of (a) pairs containing associatively related wrong (W) and right (R) items (intrapair condition), (b) associatively related W and R items in different pairs (interpair condition), (c) associatively related R items (interitem-AR condition), and (d) pairs involving no associative relationships (control condition). In agreement with frequency theory, the interitem-AR condition resulted in pronounced facilitation in acquisition relative to the control and interpair conditions, a result not consistently found with unmixed lists. Consistent with the “tagging” model but contrary to frequency theory, the intrapair condition was also significantly superior to the control and interpair conditions. The control and interpair conditions did not differ, suggesting that the interference usually found in the interpair condition in unmixed lists may be largely inhibited under the present mixed-list conditions.

Noun Imagery in Verbal-Discrimination Learning and Recall

This study assessed the effects of high versus low noun imagery in verbal-discrimination learning and recall. The results showed that high-imagery right terms, wrong terms, or pairs led to faster acquisition than did low-imagery pairs. Measures of free recall after learning indicated that recall of low-imagery items from pairs heterogeneous in imagery was masked by recall of high-imagery items. This experiment was designed to further investigate how noun imagery as a task variable may supplement the operation of an experimental-frequency mechanism (Ekstrand, Wallace, and Underwood, 1966) in verbaldiscrimination learning. The frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning proposed by Ekstrand et al. postulates that intrapair discriminations between 'wrong' and 'right' terms are based on cues provided by differential frequencies of responding to the two items. The primary sources of differential frequencyunit accrual are assumed to be representational responses, pronunciation responses, rehearsal of correct responses, and implicit associative responses. In a typical situation where both members of a pair start with equal frequency and no associates are present, representational responses and pronunciation responses should be equally divided between wrong and right members of a pair. As practice progresses, however, rehearsal of correct responses enables the total response frequency to the right terms to exceed the total response frequency to the wrong terms. Ekstrand et al. referred to the selection of the more frequent or familiar of the two alternatives as Rule 1. They also suggested that under special circumstances where the wrong term has a higher initial frequency, subjects might be able to use another rule, Rule 2 ('Always choose the less frequent or familiar item'), to learn the list.

Perceived frequency of implicit associative responses as a function of frequency of occurrence of list items.

Perceived frequency of implicit associative responses as a function of frequency of occurrence of list items.

The Strength of Implicit Associative Responses in Verbal-Discrimination Learning

The strength of implicit associative responses was manipulated in the right and wrong terms of verbal-discrimination lists. The frequency-theory predictions for these manipulations were not supported, despite the presence of false recognitions in a subsequent recognition test. In view of these and earlier equivocal results, it is suggested that implicit associative responses contribute to situational experience less than other frequency units. The procedure for verbal-discrimination learning typically involves the presentation of a set of paired items, with the subject's task being to learn to recognize which member of each pair has been arbitrarily specified as correct by the experimenter. A recent theory (Ekstrand, Wallace, and Underwood, 1966) has assumed that the underlying mechanism is a judgment of the difference in the subjective frequency of laboratory experience for each of the members in a given pair. Frequency theory assumes that the rehearsal of the right member in each pair during feedback periods eventually provides the subject with a consistent cue to distinguish right terms from wrong terms across pairs, so that he need only choose the 'most familiar' word in each pair. The present research concerns a special type of frequency unit, the implicit associative response (Bousfield, Whitmarsh, and Danick, 1958). When an item with an associate is presented, it may be the case that the associate occurs implicitly as well (e.g., 'queen' occurs when 'king' is presented). Frequency theory assumes that an implicit associative response reflects a change in the subjective frequency of experience, as do rehearsal and pronouncing responses, although it remains to be proven that all types of events contribute equally to subjective frequency. For example, if the associates served as right terms in different pairs, the rehearsal of 'king' as a right term might involve the covert experience of 'queen' as an implicit associative response, so that when the pair containing 'queen' appears, the subject will already have a frequency cue to

Conceptual Associations and Verbal-Discrimination Learning

Tests were made of the effects of conceptual associations among words, a type of associative relationship not previously manipulated, on verbal-discrimination learning. The associations had no appreciable affect on performance, and it is concluded that implicit associative responses, even if they occur, are a minor source of frequency accrual compared with the input from the perception and rehearsal of the correct word in a pair. The frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning, as originally formulated (Ekstrand, Wallace, and Underwood, 1966), identified two different sources of frequency. One was the direct frequency resulting from the perception of an item, from its pronunciation, and from its rehearsal. The other was indirect, resulting from preexperimental associative relationships among the words. If two words in a list were associatively related (e.g., 'table'-'chair'), it was assumed that when 'table' was presented, 'chair' occurred implicitly, and that this implicit occurrence must be considered to have been an increment in frequency for 'chair.' From this assumption follow certain predictions about difficulties in learning. For example, if 'table' were a correct word in a pair, and 'chair' were an incorrect word in a different pair, learning should be more difficult than in the case of a list where no such associative relationships existed, for the implicit frequencies accruing to 'chair' should make the discrimination between 'chair' and the correct word in its pair more difficult than if 'chair' had not received implicit frequencies. Although the experiment that accompanied the original publication of the theory gave some support to the role of implicit associates in estab

Associative relatedness vs synonymity in the false-recognition effect

The false-recognition effect was demonstrated for test words that were associatively related to prior stimulus words. The extent of the effect was seemingly independent of the presence/absence of a semantic relationship between test and stimulus words. In addition, the extent of the effect covaried positively with the degree of associative relatedness between experimental test words and prior stimulus words when false recognition was measured by a relative score derived from confidence ratings. The results favored the implicit associative response hypothesis.

Effects of taxonomic instances as implicit associative responses on verbal discrimination learning.

Effects of taxonomic instances as implicit associative responses on verbal discrimination learning.

Experimentally acquired associations in memory encoding by preschoolers

Three- and 4-year-old children were given extensive paired-associate (PA) training in which response terms were highly familiar words and stimulus terms were words semantically related to response terms but relatively unfamiliar to the Ss. Subsequent recognition memory (RM) performance indicated, by an analysis of false recognitions, that the newly acquired associations functioned during the encoding of the RM items, i.e., the PA response terms occurred as implicit associative responses to the PA stimulus terms presented for learning. The feasibility of using an entirely verbal PA task with children as young as 3 years also was demonstrated.

Percentage of occurrence of correct response and implicit associative responses in verbal discrimination learning.

Percentage of occurrence of correct response and implicit associative responses in verbal discrimination learning.

Transfer of implicit associative responses between free-recall learning and verbal discrimination learning tasks.

Transfer of implicit associative responses between free-recall learning and verbal discrimination learning tasks.