Incidental Learning Conditions Research Articles

Eyewitness identification accuracy, confidence, and decision times in simultaneous and sequential lineups.

Eyewitness identification accuracy was investigated in simultaneous and sequential lineups. Seventy-two subjects watched a film of a robbery in a public park under incidental learning conditions and returned to the laboratory the following day to answer questions about the film. Sequential lineup procedures led to significantly fewer false identifications than the simultaneous lineup mode, with comparable performance in detecting the perpetrator in target-present conditions. Alternative methods for analyzing confidence and decision times in sequential lineups are presented which allow for more fine-grained analyses of the relationships between accuracy, confidence, and decision times both between and within subjects

Differential effect of right and left hemispheric lesions on two memory tasks: Free recall of items and recall of spatial location

The effect of lateralized cerebral damage on free recall of items and recall of spatial location, under intentional and incidental learning conditions, was investigated. Eleven right brain-damaged (RBD) patients, 10 left brain-damaged (LDB) patients, 14 young and 11 elderly normal controls, participated in this study. The overall performance of the control groups was better than that of the patient groups. For all groups, free recall was better under intentional than under incidental learning condition. On recall of spatial location the learning condition had a differential effect on the groups. The RBD group performed better than the LBD group under intentional learning condition, while the reverse was found under incidental learning condition. The young-control group showed an advantage over the elderly-control group under intentional but not under incidental learning condition. The results are discussed in regard to different approaches to the distinction between automatic and effortful memory processes and their lateralization in the cerebral hemispheres.

Similarity and long-term memory for order

Four experiments examined long-term memory for serial order information under incidental learning conditions. In each experiment, subjects were asked to provide pleasantness ratings about words in short lists. After a period of distraction, a surprise reconstruction task was administered in which reordered list items were required to be placed in their original order of presentation. The results revealed substantial long-term memory for order, and the error patterns mimicked those typically obtained in immediate memory settings. However, unlike the patterns of immediate memory, serial order performance dramatically improved when list items were drawn from the same taxonomic category. An interpretation of the similarity advantage, based on the different retrieval requirements of short- and long-term memory tasks, is proposed and tested.

Event‐Related Potentials and Recognition Memory For Pictures and Words: The Effects of Intentional and Incidental Learning

Event-related potentials were recorded under conditions of intentional or incidental learning of pictures and words, and during the subsequent recognition memory test for these stimuli. Intentionally learned pictures were remembered better than incidentally learned pictures and intentionally learned words, which, in turn, were remembered better than incidentally learned words. In comparison to pictures that were ignored, the pictures that were attended were characterized by greater positive amplitude frontally at 250 ms and centro-parietally at 350 ms and by greater negativity at 450 ms at parietal and occipital sites. There were no effects of attention on the waveforms elicited by words. These results support the view that processing becomes automatic for words, whereas the processing of pictures involves additional effort or allocation of attentional resources. The N450 amplitude was greater for words than for pictures during both acquisition (intentional items) and recognition phases (hit and correct rejection categories for intentional items, hit category for incidental items). Because pictures are better remembered than words, the greater late positive wave (600 ms) elicited by the pictures than the words during the acquisition phase is also consistent with the association between P300 and better memory that has been reported.

The generation effect extended: memory enhancement for generation cues.

The generation effect is the greater memorability of a response that is actively produced (e.g., in answering a question from memory) than one that is more passively produced (as in reading the answer). The present three experiments addressed a question that is critical to the theoretical interpretation of the generation effect: Is memory enhanced for the cues that are used to elicit generated responses? Using incidental learning procedures, Experiments 1 and 2 gave an affirmative answer (although the effect was substantially weaker than the generation effect for responses). Enhancement of memory for generation cues was observed both in a within-subject/within-list design (reading and generation items within the same trial blocks; Experiment 1) and in a between-subjects design (reading and generation tasks for different groups of subjects; Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, memory enhancement for generation cues was used to produce a previously unobtained result--a generation effect for nonsense responses under incidental learning conditions. These findings provide critical evidence required by theories that interpret the generation effect in terms of enhanced processing of the cue-response item.

ERPs predictive of subsequent recall and recognition performance

By exploiting measures of information processing complementary to those obtained from behavioral studies, electrophysiological studies of human memory may provide insights into the cognitive processes associated with encoding. In the present experiment, subjects viewed words under incidental learning conditions in which each word required a two-choice decision based on semantic criteria ( interesting/uninteresting or edible/inedible). Memory for those words was subsequently assessed by a free recall test and then a recognition test. Event-related brain potentials elicited in response to the original presentation of each word were found to differ as a function of later memory performance. Over the 400–800 ms latency range, responses to remembered words were positive relative to responses to forgotten words, especially for recall. These electrophysiological differences are interpreted as reflections of processes that correlated with encoding.

Recall of spatial location by the amnesic patient H.M.

The amnesic patient H.M. was tested for immediate recall of the location of objects in an array. Three array-sizes were used: 16, 7, or 4 objects. With 16 objects, H.M.'s performance was at chance level; with the smaller arrays, his performance was above chance, but still well below the levels achieved by agematched control subjects. The ability to recall location by H.M. did not differ under incidental and intentional learning conditions, thus failing to support the notion that automatic encoding skills may be selectively disrupted in amnesia.

Whenis category learning holistic?

Ward and Scott (1987) recently provided evidence consistent with the idea that category learning can occur analytically whether that learning takes place under intentional or incidental conditions and whether the learner is an adult or a young child. Kemler Nelson (1988) raised concerns about Ward and Scott's conclusions as well as about the logic of some of their arguments. Kemler Nelson also attempted to strengthen the argument that incidental learning conditions induce a less strategic approach to tasks, which necessarily results in a holistic mode of processing. The present paper answers Kemler Nelson's concerns. It also presents arguments in favor of the idea that incidental learning is neither necessarily holistic nor necessarily analytic. It is argued that tasks, whether intentional or incidental, encourage the participant to process particular types of information. If the task encourages or demands the processing of separate features, then that type of information will be stored whether or not the participant was explicitly asked to learn the category membership of presented items. There are varieties of both intentional and incidental category learning, and what the learner does with the presented material is more important than his/her intent to learn. Furthermore, it is argued that the apparently discrepant results discussed by Kemler Nelson and Ward and Scott are all interpretable as specific cases within a more general episodic trace model of processing.

Analytic and holistic modes of learning family-resemblance concepts.

Three studies examined how individuals learn concepts structured according to family-resemblance principles. The materials were cartoon faces varying in the attributes of hair, mustache, ears, and nose. In contrast to previous studies purporting to show holistic modes of learning family-resemblance concepts, the present studies indicate that many individuals learn such concepts by an analytic, attribute-plus-exception rule. The attribute-plus-exception rule characterized the learning shown by adults under both intentional (Studies 1 and 2) and incidental (Study 3) learning conditions and by children under intentional learning conditions (Study 2). There was no evidence to indicate that a holistic mode is a more primitive one, since it did not occur more frequently among children or adults under incidental learning conditions. It is suggested that the extent to which holistic or analytic modes of learning are observed will be found to depend on an interaction among stimulus, task, and observer factors.

Cognitive processing differences between obese and nonobese subjects

Research in the area of human obesity has investigated a variety of factors believed to affect food intake. The present study measured free recall of food and nonfood words to explore the cognitive processing of food and nonfood stimuli by 60 obese and nonobese female subjects. Intentional learning conditions were employed to test the obesity compliancy effect, and incidental learning conditions were employed to control for the obesity compliancy effect while assessing recall. No significant memory differences were found. The findings imply that the obese and nonobese do not differ in their cognitive processing of food stimuli as measured by memory. More importantly, the study failed to demonstrate an obesity compliancy effect for memory. The obese and nonobese subjects did differ significantly in their weight fluctuation rating, and this finding was compared to Herman's restrained eating theory. Implications for future research and therapy in the area of human obesity are discussed.

Dynamic Facial Recognition: Examination of a Natural Phenomenon

Drawing on anecdotal experiences in which former acquaintances meet and recognize each other after years of separation and physiognomic change, six studies sought to determine if dynamic facial recognition was a reliable natural phenomenon. Experiments 1 and 2 found evidence for an ability to recognize age-regressed faces of university faculty and staff. Familiarity, whether real-life or experimentally induced, enhanced recognition of constant and age-regressed pictures. Experiments 3 and 4 found evidence for an ability to recognize age-progressed faces, implying that dynamic facial recognition is a bidirectional cognitive ability found under conditions of intentional and incidental learning. Experiments 5 and 6 used picture-sorting and picture-matching tasks and found that performance was inversely related to the age span and to the amount of facial change between standard and comparison pictures. It was concluded that dynamic facial recognition is a reliable natural phenomenon that can be facilitated by familiarity. Notes on the source of the familiarity effect and the basis for dynamic recognition are provided.

THE EFFECTS OF SEMANTIC PROCESSING ON MEMORY OF SUBJECTS DIFFERING IN AGE

This study contrasted the recall and recognition performance of young (19‐year‐old) and old (74‐year‐old) adults following intentional and incidental learning. The incidental learning condition involved the reading of a story. The large age deficit found in intentional recall was virtually eliminated in incidental recognition. Reading evidently induces a sufficient depth of processing to overcome memory loss.

A Developmental Study of Memory for Presentation Modality

Summary Second- and sixth-grade children and college students (16 males and 16 females at each grade level) learned a mixed-modality list of words under either incidental or intentional learning conditions and were then asked to recall the words, to recall the presentation modality of each word, and to indicate with a rating scale how confident they were that their modality identification was correct. Retention of modality information was well above chance at all age levels and did not depend on instructions to attend to input mode. Although children could assess how well they were retrieving information about modality, there was no evidence that they organized their recall according to input mode. Results suggest that active processing is not required for modality information to be encoded into long-term memory and raise questions about the use of modality as a retrieval cue.

Effets du contexte et du délai sur la probabilité de stockage des inférences pragmatiques

Summary Certain aspects of the meaning of a sentence may elicit pragmatic ingerences which, contrary to logical inferences, are not necessarily true in every context. In an incidental learning condition, in 50 % of the cases, subjects believed they had already heard a pragmatic inference which was only suggested by a sentence inserted in an adequate context. The same information was judged as new in about 80 % of the responses when the inductive sentence was inserted in a context leading to a different pragmatic inference. The notion of strength of inference, operationally defined in terms of probability of production after contextless sentences is no longer relevant when inferences can be derived from an adequate context, since in this case they elicit the same rate of errors, be they strongly or slightly induced by an isolated sentence. In short, memory for pragmatic inferences seems to work in the same way as memory for directly asserted information, which appears to support the argument in favor of the construction-in-storage hypothesis.

Adult Age Differences in Memory for Sex of Voice

Young and older adults (elderly in Experiment 1 and middle-aged in Experiment 2) received successive sentence recall tasks for which one-half of the sentences were read in a male voice and one-half in a female voice. With regard to the sex of voice component, the first task was administered under incidental learning conditions and the second under intentional learning conditions. With regard to sentence content, both tasks were administered under intentional learning conditions. The results indicated that encoding voice information is a cognitively effortful, age sensitive process. For older adults, both elderly and middle-aged, enhanced voice encoding under the intentional condition, relative to the incidental condition, was accompanied by a significant decrement in sentence recall. For young adults, the trade off effect was not large enough to reach statistical significance. The age difference apparently reflects the diminished processing capacity of older adults relative to young adults, with the decrease in capacity having its onset by middle age.

Conceptual Encoding of Pictures and Sentences

Summary Male and female undergraduates (N = 48) viewed pictures and sentences which were thematically related or unrelated under incidental learning conditions. Thematically related items differed in the degree to which they completely represented a theme. It was anticipated that the presence of a thematic context would lead to conceptual encoding for pictures as well as sentences. As predicted, the confidence in “old” judgments to thematically related distractor items increased with the degree to which they completely represented the theme. This effect held for pictures and sentences alike. Recognition of thematically related targets was accurate, as was recognition of new or old thematically unrelated items. The relatively accurate recognition of thematically unrelated slides suggests that recognition is based on a structural analysis of a slide's physical features when there is no common thematic content. Given a thematic context, conceptual as well as structural encoding occurs for pictures and senten...

Through the looking glass: Sex differences in memory for self-facial poses

This study investigated recognition memory of photographs of the subject's own face. Male and female subjects were photographed as they projected sociable faces, trustworthy faces, and intelligent faces. After deciding which face of 10 best represented each characteristic, and judging which photograph best represented their “real self,” a recognition memory test of poses was given. Half of each sex were tested under intentional learning conditions and the remainder were tested under incidental learning conditions. Females demonstrated superior recognition memory of their own facial projections and, in particular, recalled photographs of their “real self” and “most sociable” self most easily. No differences were found between the two learning conditions. Subjects' recognition performance was not related to their confidence of judgments. The results were discussed in terms of sex differences and the role of self in memory.

Performing versus Observing "Right" and "Wrong" Responses in Incidental and Intentional Learning

After listening to right and wrong responses given by an experimenter in a two-response alternative task, observers were found choosing the correct responses in a subsequent trial by remembering the correct responses. On the other hand, performers were responding by recalling separately their preceding responses and the corresponding outcomes right and wrong. The present experiment investigates whether the difference in memory involvement of past response-outcome contingencies is due to the observers' deliberate use of a more proficient learning strategy: Retaining the correct responses only, instead of separately retaining responses and outcomes. The hypothesis is rejected because observers in incidental and intentional learning conditions respond in the same way. The difference between performers and observers disappears with female subjects. The covert activities of male and female performers and observers are described to explain the results.

Recognition memory for typical and unusual faces.

In four studies, recognition memory for faces rated as similar to a prototype was found to be inferior to memory for faces rated as unusual in appearance. This result was obtained under both incidental and intentional learning conditions, at presentation rates ranging from 3 to 15 sec, and with retention intervals from 3 to 24 hr. A fifth experiment established interitem similarity as the structural basis of this typicality effect in recognition memory. Difficulties in interpreting the findings in terms of some current models for classification learning, depth of processing models, or present models of the word frequency effect are discussed.

Relationship of posthypnotic amnesia to waking memory performance.

Abstract It has been suggested that the occurrence of amnesia after hypnosis is related to a predisposition toward forgetfulness manifested by Ss in ordinary waking life. On the basis of standardized scale performance, 20 hypnotizable Ss were classified as amnesic or nonamnesic, according to a strict criterion for suggested, temporary posthypnotic amnesia. These Ss received a battery of memory tests administered in the normal waking state. Measures of visual and auditory short-term memory, and long-term memory assessed under conditions of incidental learning, revealed no differences between amnesic and nonamnesic Ss. Measures of long-term memory collected under intentional learning conditions, however, showed superior retention by the amnesic Ss. A poor waking memory does not appear to be involved in the development of posthypnotic amnesia.