Probability Of Recall Research Articles

The reliability of retro-cues determines the fate of noncued visual working memory representations.

Retrospectively cueing an item retained in visual working memory during maintenance is known to improve its retention. However, studies have provided conflicting results regarding the costs of such retro-cues for the noncued items, leading to different theories on the mechanisms behind visual working memory maintenance and retro-cueing. Here we tested an alternative explanation of the conflicting results regarding retro-cue costs-namely, that they are caused at least partly by differences in retro-cue reliability. We manipulated the ratio of valid-cue trials to invalid-cue trials within blocks. We used a continuous-report procedure that allowed fitting a model that provided recall probability and precision estimates for the memory representations. Reconciling previous contradictory findings, benefits for valid cues were observed in all conditions, but invalid cueing costs were found only when the retro-cue had a high reliability (i.e., was 80 % valid), but not when it had a lower reliability (i.e., 50 % valid). This was found for both the recall probability and the precision of visual working memory representations. Our results suggest that the cognitive mechanisms underlying retro-cue effects are strategically adjusted by participants, depending on the perceived retro-cue reliability.

Impact of Financial Leverage on the Incidence and Severity of Product Failures: Evidence from Product Recalls

We study the impact of financial leverage on a firm’s ability to produce safer products that result in fewer recalls. Using a variety of tests, including two quasi-natural experiments that result in exogenous negative cash flow shocks, we find that firms with higher financial leverage or distress likelihood have a greater probability of a product recall. These firms also experience more frequent and severe recalls. Further tests indicate that, more than debt overhang, financial constraints is the channel through which leverage affects product failures. Overall, we show that a firm’s financial condition has real effects that impact product safety.

A-79 * Primacy-Weighted Retrieval Differences in Healthy Older Adults with Pathological or Normal Cerebrospinal Fluid Markers of Alzheimer's Disease

Objective: The assessment of memory in healthy older adults requires novel approaches to show sensitivity to established biomarkers. We hypothesized that healthy adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) as indicated by abnormal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers would show reduced primacy effects during list learning. Method: Participants were age, gender, and education-matched healthy adults (N = 34) who were part of the control cohort evaluated at an Alzheimer's Disease Center. Half of the subjects, however, demonstrated at least one CSF biomarker consistent with AD. There were no differences in the number of ApoE ɛ4 carriers between groups. CSF total tau, phospho-tau, and Aβ42 were determined using x-MAP technology. Participants were administered the 10-item CERAD list learning (CWL) test. CWL data collected closest in time to CSF measurement (Range 0–14 months) were recoded to capture temporal retrieval information across 3 learning trials. We tested our hypothesis with a retention index that differentially weighted recall from primacy regions. Results: There was no main effect of biomarker group on total recall, nor was there an interaction between group and learning trial, (p > .10). For primacy weighted retrieval, however, we observed a trend level interaction between group and list recall, F(1, 32) = 3.05, p < .10, suggesting different retrieval patterns in the two groups. Paired t-tests revealed a shallower primacy-weighted learning curve across trials in the pathological CSF group (p < .05). Conclusion(s): This result extends our previous findings of an association of probability of first recall with risk of AD in cognitively normal older adults, adding to the growing literature suggesting detectable cognitive and structural brain changes in this population.3Open in new tabDownload slide

Direct suppression as a mechanism for controlling unpleasant memories in daily life.

Suppressing unwanted memories can impair their later recall. Recent work shows that this forgetting is achieved by at least two mechanisms supported by distinct neural systems: thought substitution and direct suppression (Benoit & Anderson, 2012). Here, we examined whether direct suppression, thought to be achieved by down-regulation of hippocampal activity, can disrupt memory of aversive scenes, and, if so, whether this disruption is linked to people’s perception of their ability to control intrusive thoughts. We presented participants with strong naturalistic reminders to aversive scenes and asked them to either covertly retrieve or directly suppress the associated scenes. Later, participants were cued with the reminders and asked to recall the scenes in detail. Direct suppression reduced recall probability of the scenes and also reduced the number of details recalled, even when scenes were remembered. Deficits in recall arose for minor details but also for details central to each scene’s gist. Participants with higher self-perceived control abilities over intrusive thoughts showed greater forgetting than did those reporting lower levels of control. These findings suggest that inhibitory processes underlying direct suppression can disrupt retention of aversive visual memories and link those processes to individual differences in control over intrusive thoughts in everyday life. These findings reinforce the possibility that inhibition may be less efficient in people likely to acquire posttraumatic stress disorder in the wake of a traumatic experience.

Adult Recollections of Childhood Memories: What Details can be Recalled?

In a memory survey, adult respondents recalled, dated, and described two earliest positive and negative memories that they were highly confident were memories. They then answered a series of questions that focused on memory details such as clothing, duration, weather, and so on. Few differences were found between positive and negative memories, which on average had 4/5 details and dated to the age of 6/6.5 years. Memory for details about activity, location, and who was present was good; memory for all other details was poorer or at floor. Taken together, these findings indicate that (full) earliest memories may be considerably later than previously thought and that they rarely contain the sort of specific details targeted by professional investigators. The resulting normative profile of memory details reported here can be used to evaluate overly specific childhood autobiographical memories and to identify memory details with a low probability of recall.

The impact of televised tobacco control advertising content on campaign recall: evidence from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) United Kingdom Survey.

BackgroundAlthough there is some evidence to support an association between exposure to televised tobacco control campaigns and recall among youth, little research has been conducted among adults. In addition, no previous work has directly compared the impact of different types of emotive campaign content. The present study examined the impact of increased exposure to tobacco control advertising with different types of emotive content on rates and durations of self-reported recall.MethodsData on recall of televised campaigns from 1,968 adult smokers residing in England through four waves of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) United Kingdom Survey from 2005 to 2009 were merged with estimates of per capita exposure to government-run televised tobacco control advertising (measured in GRPs, or Gross Rating Points), which were categorised as either “positive” or “negative” according to their emotional content.ResultsIncreased overall campaign exposure was found to significantly increase probability of recall. For every additional 1,000 GRPs of per capita exposure to negative emotive campaigns in the six months prior to survey, there was a 41% increase in likelihood of recall (OR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.24–1.61), while positive campaigns had no significant effect. Increased exposure to negative campaigns in both the 1–3 months and 4–6 month periods before survey was positively associated with recall.ConclusionsIncreased per capita exposure to negative emotive campaigns had a greater effect on campaign recall than positive campaigns, and was positively associated with increased recall even when the exposure had occurred more than three months previously.

Correction: Cumulative Probability of False-Positive Recall or Biopsy Recommendation After 10 Years of Screening Mammography

Correction: Cumulative Probability of False-Positive Recall or Biopsy Recommendation After 10 Years of Screening Mammography

Financial Leverage, Product Quality Failures, and Product Market Effects: Evidence from Product Recalls

We study the impact of financial leverage on severe product quality failures that result in product recalls. Using a variety of tests, including two quasi-natural experiments that result in exogenous negative cash flow shocks to firms, we find that firms with higher financial leverage or likelihood of distress have a greater probability of a product recall. This is consistent with the view that these firms face investment distortions, either due to financial constraints or debt overhang, which adversely affect product quality. Further tests indicate that financial constraints, more so than debt overhang, have a greater economic impact in explaining the quality-leverage relation. Consistent with the view that taking on high debt relative to rivals makes the firm a weaker competitor, we find that recalling firms with high relative leverage experience more negative wealth effects to recalls while their industry rivals experience more positive wealth effects. These effects are, however, confined to the sub-sample of recalls in oligopolistic industries, where strategic interactions between firms are more likely. Key suppliers’ losses are exacerbated when they have more leverage or have committed larger relationship-specific investments. Overall, our paper highlights the effect of leverage not only on product quality at the firm level, but also on the broader product market effects of product quality failures.

Recall and Unemployment

We document in the Survey of Income and Program Participation covering the period 1990–2013 that a surprisingly large share of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell, and experience very different unemployment and employment outcomes than job switchers. The probability of recall is much less procyclical and volatile than the probability of finding a new employer. We add to a quantitative, and otherwise canonical, search-and-matching model of the labor market a recall option, which can be activated freely following aggregate and job-specific productivity shocks. Recall and search effort significantly amplify the cyclical volatility of new job-finding and separation probabilities. (JEL E24, E32, J63, J64)

Impact of mammography screening interval on breast cancer diagnosis by menopausal status and BMI.

Controversy remains regarding the frequency of screening mammography. Women with different risks for developing breast cancer because of body mass index (BMI) may benefit from tailored recommendations. To determine the impact of mammography screening interval for women who are normal weight (BMI < 25), overweight (BMI 25-29.9), or obese (BMI ≥ 30), stratified by menopausal status. Two cohorts selected from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium. Patient and mammography data were linked to pathology databases and tumor registries. The cohort included 4,432 women aged 40-74 with breast cancer; the false-positive analysis included a cohort of 553,343 women aged 40-74 without breast cancer. Stage, tumor size and lymph node status by BMI and screening interval (biennial vs. annual). Cumulative probability of false-positive recall or biopsy by BMI and screening interval. Analyses were stratified by menopausal status. Premenopausal obese women undergoing biennial screening had a non-significantly increased odds of a tumor size > 20 mm relative to annual screeners (odds ratio [OR] = 2.07; 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.997 to 4.30). Across all BMI categories from normal to obese, postmenopausal women with breast cancer did not present with higher stage, larger tumor size or node positive tumors if they received biennial rather than annual screening. False-positive recall and biopsy recommendations were more common among annually screened women. The only negative outcome identified for biennial vs. annual screening was a larger tumor size (> 20 mm) among obese premenopausal women. Since annual mammography does not improve stage at diagnosis compared to biennial screening and false-positive recall/biopsy rates are higher with annual screening, women and their primary care providers should weigh the harms and benefits when deciding on annual versus biennial screening.

Author name disambiguation in scientific collaboration and mobility cases

Scientists generally do scientific collaborations with one another and sometimes change their affiliations, which leads to scientific mobility. This paper proposes a recursive reinforced name disambiguation method that integrates both coauthorship and affiliation information, especially in cases of scientific collaboration and mobility. The proposed method is evaluated using the dataset from the Thomson Reuters Scientific "Web of Science". The probability of recall and precision of the algorithm are then analyzed. To understand the effect of the name ambiguation on the h-index and g-index before and after the name disambiguation, calculations of their distribution are also presented. Evaluation experiments show that using only the affiliation information in the name disambiguation achieves better performance than that using only the coauthorship information; however, our proposed method that integrates both the coauthorship and affiliation information can control the bias in the name ambiguation to a higher extent.

A Novelty-Induced Change in Episodic (NICE) Context Account of Primacy Effects in Free Recall

Formal cognitive models of episodic memory assume that during encoding list items become associated with a changing context representation. However, this representation is recency-biased and thus can not account for primacy effects under conditions that prevent rehearsal. In this paper, it is hypothesized that one source underlying primacy effects is the detection of novelty. In three experiments, it is shown how novelty at the perceptual and semantic level can explain the full serial position function of first recall probabilities, including primacy effects. It is proposed that an item becomes distinctive due to increase in the change within a distributed episodic context representation, induced by novelty detection. The theory makes three assumptions. First, items become associated with a distributed context representation. Second, the context representation changes with item presentation. Third, the rate of contextual change is related to the perceptual and conceptual difference computed between the presented item and the previous item (or items in the buffer). This theory captures primacy effects in first recall probabilities without recourse to a rehearsal process and provides a mechanistic account of distinctiveness.

A buffer model of memory encoding and temporal correlations in retrieval.

Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) dual-store model of memory includes structural aspects of memory along with control processes. The rehearsal buffer is a process by which items are kept in mind and long-term episodic traces are formed. The model has been both influential and controversial. Here, we describe a novel variant of Atkinson and Shiffrin's buffer model within the framework of the retrieving effectively from memory theory (REM; Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997) that accounts for findings previously thought to be difficult for such models to explain. This model assumes a limited-capacity buffer where information is stored about items, along with information about associations between items and between items and the context in which they are studied. The strength of association between items and context is limited by the number of items simultaneously occupying the buffer (Lehman & Malmberg, 2009). The contents of the buffer are managed by complementary processes of rehearsal and compartmentalization (Lehman & Malmberg, 2011). New findings that directly test a priori predictions of the model are reported, including serial position effects and conditional and first recall probabilities in immediate and delayed free recall, in a continuous distractor paradigm, and in experiments using list-length manipulations of single-item and paired-item study lists.

Parametric effects of word frequency in memory for mixed frequency lists.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 39(6) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (see record 2013-27860-001). In the article there were omissions in Figure 1. All versions of this article have been corrected.] The word frequency paradox refers to the finding that low frequency words are better recognized than high frequency words yet high frequency words are better recalled than low frequency words. Rather than comparing separate groups of low and high frequency words, we sought to quantify the functional relation between word frequency and memory performance across the broad range of frequencies typically used in episodic memory experiments. Here we report that both low frequency and high frequency words are better recalled than midfrequency words. In contrast, we only observe a low frequency advantage when participants were given a subsequent item recognition test. The U-shaped relation between word frequency and recall probability may help to explain inconsistent results in studies using mixed lists with separate groups of high and low frequency words.

Focusing the search: Proactive and retroactive interference and the dynamics of free recall.

Targeting information in long-term memory is an important cognitive ability, but one that is not well understood. In this study, 4 experiments were conducted to examine the influence of proactive and retroactive interference on memory targeting. Participants were given either 1 or 2 lists and asked to recall List 1, List 2, or in some cases both lists. Multiple dependent measures were explored including the proportion of items recalled, number of intrusions output, and recall latency to arbitrate between 4 extant accounts of memory targeting. In general, recalling either List 1 or List 2 resulted in lower probability of recall, recall of more intrusions, and longer recall latencies compared to when recalling a list alone, suggesting both proactive and retroactive interference. These results suggest that long-term memory targeting is guided by noisy temporal-contextual cues (unless other salient cues are present) that activate both relevant and irrelevant memoranda that are then subjected to a postretrieval monitoring process.

Modeling and solving term mismatch for full-text retrieval

Even though modern retrieval systems typically use a multitude of features to rank documents, the backbone for search ranking is usually the standard tf.idf retrieval models. This thesis addresses a limitation of the fundamental retrieval models, the term mismatch problem, which happens when query terms fail to appear in the documents that are relevant to the query. The term mismatch problem is a long standing problem in information retrieval. However, it was not well understood how often term mismatch happens in retrieval, how important it is for retrieval, or how it affects retrieval performance. This thesis answers the above questions, and proposes principled solutions to address this limitation. The new understandings of the retrieval models will benefit its users, as well as inform the development of software applications built on top of them. This new direction of research is enabled by the formal definition of the probability of term mismatch, and quantitative data analyses around it. In this thesis, term mismatch is defined as the probability of a term not appearing in a document that is relevant to the query. The complement of term mismatch is the term recall, the probability of a term appearing in relevant documents. Even though the term recall probability is known to be a fundamental quantity in the theory of probabilistic information retrieval, prior research in ad hoc retrieval provided few clues about how to estimate term recall reliably. This dissertation research designs two term mismatch prediction methods. With exploratory data analyses, this research first identifies common reasons that user-specified query terms fail to appear in documents relevant to the query, develops features correlated with each reason, and integrates them into a predictive model that can be trained from data. This prediction model uses training queries with relevance judgments to predict term mismatch for test queries without known relevance, and can be viewed as a type of transfer learning where training queries represent related ranking tasks that are used by the learning algorithm to facilitate the ranking for new test tasks. Further data analyses focus on the variation of the term mismatch probability for the same term across different queries, and demonstrate that query dependent features are needed for effective term mismatch prediction. At the same time, because the cross-query variation of term mismatch is small for most of the repeating term occurrences, a second mismatch prediction method is designed to use historic occurrences of the same term to predict the mismatch probability for its test occurrences. This provides an alternative and more efficient procedure to predict term mismatch. Effective term mismatch predictions can be used in several different ways to improve retrieval. The probabilistic retrieval theory suggests to use the term recall probabilities as term weights in the retrieval models. Experiments on 6 different TREC Ad hoc track and Web track datasets show that this automatic intervention improves both retrieval recall and precision substantially for long queries. Even though term weighting does not substantially improve retrieval accuracy for short queries which typically have a higher baseline performance, much larger gains are possible by solving mismatch using user expanded Conjunctive Normal Form queries. These queries try to fix the mismatch problem by expanding every query term individually. Our method uses the automatic term mismatch predictions as a diagnostic tool to guide interactive interventions, so that the users can expand the query terms that need expansion most. Simulated expansion interactions based on real user-expanded queries on TREC Ad hoc and Legal track datasets show that expanding the terms that have the highest predicted mismatch probabilities effectively improves retrieval performance. The resulting Boolean Conjunctive Normal Form expansion queries are both compact and effective, substantially outperforming the short keyword queries as well as the traditional bag of

Cumulative Probability of False-Positive Recall or Biopsy Recommendation After 10 Years of Screening Mammography

Background False-positive mammography results are common. Biennial screening may decrease the cumulative probability of false-positive results across many years of repeated screening but could also delay cancer diagnosis. Objective To compare the cumulative probability of false-positive results and the stage distribution of incident breast cancer after 10 years of annual or biennial screening mammography. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting 7 mammography registries in the National Cancer Institute-funded Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium. Participants 169,456 women who underwent first screening mammography at age 40 to 59 years between 1994 and 2006 and 4492 women with incident invasive breast cancer diagnosed between 1996 and 2006. Measurements False-positive recalls and biopsy recommendations stage distribution of incident breast cancer. Results False-positive recall probability was 16.3% at first and 9.6% at subsequent mammography. Probability of false-positive biopsy recommendation was 2.5% at first and 1.0% at subsequent examinations. Availability of comparison mammograms halved the odds of a false-positive recall (adjusted odds ratio, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.45 to 0.56]). When screening began at age 40 years, the cumulative probability of a woman receiving at least 1 false-positive recall after 10 years was 61.3% (CI, 59.4% to 63.1%) with annual and 41.6% (CI, 40.6% to 42.5%) with biennial screening. Cumulative probability of false-positive biopsy recommendation was 7.0% (CI, 6.1% to 7.8%) with annual and 4.8% (CI, 4.4% to 5.2%) with biennial screening. Estimates were similar when screening began at age 50 years. A non-statistically significant increase in the proportion of late-stage cancers was observed with biennial compared with annual screening (absolute increases, 3.3 percentage points [CI, -1.1 to 7.8 percentage points] for women age 40 to 49 years and 2.3 percentage points [CI, -1.0 to 5.7 percentage points] for women age 50 to 59 years) among women with incident breast cancer. Limitations Few women underwent screening over the entire 10-year period. Radiologist characteristics influence recall rates and were unavailable. Most mammograms were film rather than digital. Incident cancer was analyzed in a small sample of women who developed cancer. Conclusion After 10 years of annual screening, more than half of women will receive at least 1 false-positive recall, and 7% to 9% will receive a false-positive biopsy recommendation. Biennial screening appears to reduce the cumulative probability of false-positive results after 10 years but may be associated with a small absolute increase in the probability of late-stage cancer diagnosis. Primary funding source National Cancer Institute.

The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Affective Memory Recall Dynamics in Depression: A Mechanistic Model of Rumination

Objectives: converging research suggests that mindfulness training exerts its therapeutic effects on depression by reducing rumination. Theoretically, rumination is a multifaceted construct that aggregates multiple neurocognitive aspects of depression, including poor executive control, negative and overgeneral memory bias, and persistence or stickiness of negative mind states. Current measures of rumination, most-often self-reports, do not capture these different aspects of ruminative tendencies, and therefore are limited in providing detailed information about the mechanisms of mindfulness. Methods: we developed new insight into the potential mechanisms of rumination, based on three model-based metrics of free recall dynamics. These three measures reflect the patterns of memory retrieval of valenced information: the probability of first recall (Pstart) which represents initial affective bias, the probability of staying with the same valence category rather than switching, which indicates strength of positive or negative association networks (Pstay), and probability of stopping (Pstop) or ending recall within a given valence, which indicates persistence or stickiness of a mind state. We investigated the effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; N = 29) vs. wait-list control (N = 23) on these recall dynamics in a randomized controlled trial in individuals with recurrent depression. Participants completed a standard laboratory stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test, to induce negative mood and activate ruminative tendencies. Following that, participants completed a free recall task consisting of three word lists. This assessment was conducted both before and after treatment or wait-list. Results: while MBCT participant’s Pstart remained relatively stable, controls showed multiple indications of depression-related deterioration toward more negative and less positive bias. Following the intervention, MBCT participants decreased in their tendency to sustain trains of negative words and increased their tendency to sustain trains of positive words. Conversely, controls showed the opposite tendency: controls stayed in trains of negative words for longer, and stayed in trains of positive words for less time relative to pre-intervention scores. MBCT participants tended to stop recall less often with negative words, which indicates less persistence or stickiness of negatively valenced mental context. Conclusion: MBCT participants showed a decrease in patterns that may perpetuate rumination on all three types of recall dynamics (Pstart, Pstay, and Pstop), compared to controls. MBCT may weaken the strength of self-perpetuating negative associations networks that are responsible for the persistent and “sticky” negative mind states observed in depression, and increase the positive associations that are lacking in depression. This study also offers a novel, objective method of measuring several indices of ruminative tendencies indicative of the underlying mechanisms of rumination.

South Korean alcohol free associations: Negative expectancy not predicting drinks per occasion

Cultural and biological particulars existing in East Asian countries are likely to mediate differences in the alcohol consumption experience. Despite this no research to date has directly explored the alcohol free association or expectancy of any East Asian nations. The current research aims to provide a set of South Korean alcohol expectancies. Two hundred and thirty-seven South Koreans participated in an alcohol free association test and completed a demographic survey. The results both confirmed and contradicted areas of past alcohol expectancy research. There appears to be differences in associates with high probability of recall and alcohol expectancy, where negative, negative sedating and sedating expectancy categories were not found to be predictors of South Korean drinker level. The results suggest that South Koreans have a more even level of negative expectancy across all drinker categories, possibly due to a combination of linguistic, cultural and biological difference found among this population. The results provide a list of South Korean alcohol free association norms for future alcohol research in the region, with the results also underlining the need for alcohol free association tests among East Asian nations.

Immediate List Recall as a Measure of Short-Term Episodic Memory: Insights from the Serial Position Effect and Item Response Theory

The serial position effect shows that two interrelated cognitive processes underlie immediate recall of a supraspan word list. The current study used item response theory (IRT) methods to determine whether the serial position effect poses a threat to the construct validity of immediate list recall as a measure of verbal episodic memory. Archival data were obtained from a national sample of 4,212 volunteers aged 28-84 in the Midlife Development in the United States study. Telephone assessment yielded item-level data for a single immediate recall trial of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). Two parameter logistic IRT procedures were used to estimate item parameters and the Q(1) statistic was used to evaluate item fit. A two-dimensional model better fit the data than a unidimensional model, supporting the notion that list recall is influenced by two underlying cognitive processes. IRT analyses revealed that 4 of the 15 RAVLT items (1, 12, 14, and 15) were misfit (p < .05). Item characteristic curves for items 14 and 15 decreased monotonically, implying an inverse relationship between the ability level and the probability of recall. Elimination of the four misfit items provided better fit to the data and met necessary IRT assumptions. Performance on a supraspan list learning test is influenced by multiple cognitive abilities; failure to account for the serial position of words decreases the construct validity of the test as a measure of episodic memory and may provide misleading results. IRT methods can ameliorate these problems and improve construct validity.