Recall Conditions Research Articles

Personality Disorder Symptomatology and Neuropsychological Functioning in Closed Head Injury

Personality Disorder Symptomatology and Neuropsychological Functioning in Closed Head Injury

Does a structured free recall intervention reduce the effect of stereotypes on performance ratings and by what cognitive mechanism?

The purpose of this article was to extend previous work on the effect of racial biases on performance ratings. The 1st of 2 studies examined whether a structured free recall intervention decreased the influence of negative racial biases on the performance ratings of Black men. Results indicated that without the intervention, raters who endorsed a negative stereotype of Black men as managers evaluated Black men more negatively. However, the structured free recall intervention successfully reduced these effects. The second study examined in more detail the cognitive mechanisms underlying the success of the intervention. Results are consistent with the assumption that the reduction of the influence of racial biases under structured free recall conditions is a consequence of a modified strength threshold for retrieval of behaviors from memory.

Neuropsychological profiles of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: early onset versus late onset

In this study, we assess the neuropsychological profiles of both early and late symptom-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients. The early and late-onset OCD patients are compared to the control group with a series of neuropsychological measurements. The late-onset OCD patients exhibited impaired performance on the immediate and the delayed recall conditions of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (RCFT) and the letter and category fluency of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWA), compared to the normal controls and the early-onset OCD patients. The controls and early-onset OCD patients did not differ on any of the neuropsychological measurements taken in this study. These results suggest that different neurophysiological mechanisms are in play in early and late-onset OCD patients, and age of onset can serve as a potential marker for the subtyping of OCD.

Gist Distinctions in Healthy Cognitive Aging Versus Mild Alzheimer's Disease

AbstractThere is limited understanding of the effects of normal and abnormal aging on gist-based memory in relation to the massive evidence regarding detail-based memory. This void is striking given the widely accepted view that memory is rarely veridical, but most often abstracted. The present study examined the effects of healthy advanced aging and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) on three distinct forms of gist. Two of these gist forms involved a passage: transformed gist (global generalised meaning of a passage) and main-idea gist (main points of a passage). The third gist form involved a word list: categorical gist (clustering of words according to semantic categories during list recall). These gist forms were assessed in immediate and delayed recall conditions. A total of 36 participants were included: 12 cognitively healthy young seniors (65–79 years), 12 cognitively healthy old seniors (80–95 years), and 12 young seniors with mild AD (65–79 years). The findings revealed that age and dementia did not equally affect all three forms of gist. Specifically, transformed gist was relatively maintained in the cognitively healthy senior groups as compared to the other two gist forms (main-idea gist and categorical gist), whereas all three gist forms were impaired in individuals with AD. The present study suggests that transformed gist operates differently than detail-based memory in the cognitively healthy senior groups. These findings have important theoretical implications in terms of informing existing models on the interrelationship between gist and detail-based memory and clinical implications in diagnosis of AD.

Memories affect mood: Evidence from covert experimental assignment to positive, neutral, and negative memory recall

Memory recall has been proposed as a common and effective mood regulation strategy. Although several studies have presented results suggesting that recalling valenced memories affects subsequent mood, their designs allow for alternative interpretations of the observed effects. Two such alternatives include the reverse effect (mood effects on memory due to non-experimental assignment to memory recall condition) and demand characteristics of the experiment. We used covert experimental assignment to memory condition, asking subjects ( N = 314; 56% female) to recall memories that were primarily positive, neutral, or negative. Results showed the expected effect on mood ( p < .002), with reported mood worst in the negative memory condition, better in the neutral condition, and best in the positive condition. These results suggest that valenced memory recall does indeed exert an effect on mood, and may do so even without the individual’s awareness.

Learning in trance: Functional brain imaging studies and neuropsychology

This study examined the fundamental question, whether verbal memory processing in hypnosis and in the waking state is mediated by a common neural system or by distinct cortical areas. Seven right-handed volunteers (25.4 years, sd 3.1) with high-hypnotic susceptibility scores were PET-scanned while encoding/retrieving word associations either in hypnosis or in the waking state. Word-pairs were visually presented and highly imaginable, but not semantically related (e.g. monkey-street). The presentation of pseudo-words served as a reference condition. An emission scan was recorded after each intravenous administration of O-15 water. Encoding under hypnosis was associated with more pronounced bilateral activations in the occipital cortex and the prefrontal areas as compared to learning in the waking state. During memory retrieval of word-pairs which had been previously learned under hypnosis, activations were found in the occipital lobe and the cerebellum. Under both experimental conditions precuneus and prefrontal cortex showed a consistent bilateral activation which was most distinct when the learning had taken place under hypnosis. In order to further analyze the effect of hypnosis on imagery-mediated learning, we administered sets of high-imagery word-pairs and sets of abstract words. In the first experimental condition word-pair associations were presented visually. In the second condition it was found that highly hypnotisable persons recalled significantly more high-imagery words under hypnosis as compared to low-hypnotisables both in the visual and auditory modality. Furthermore, high-imagery words were also better recalled by the highly hypnotisable subjects during the non-hypnotic condition. The memory effect was consistently present under both, immediate and delayed recall conditions. Taken together, the findings advance our understanding of the neural representation that underlies hypnosis and the neuropsychological correlates of hypnotic susceptibility.

Spoken Sentence Processing in Young and Older Adults Modulated by Task Demands: Evidence From Self-Paced Listening

Young and older adult listeners paced themselves through recorded sentences, under instructions to recall the sentence verbatim or to respond to comprehension probes. Sentences varied in syntactic complexity and speech rate. Young and older adults paused longer after major syntactic boundaries, an effect that was constant across speech rates but became more pronounced with increasing syntactic complexity. These effects were moderated by listeners' expectations of what they were to do with the linguistic input and by their recent experience with particular tasks. Older adults tended to pause longer in the recall condition, especially when it preceded the comprehension condition. Young adults paused differentially longer at major syntactic boundaries in the comprehension condition, but only when the comprehension condition preceded the recall condition. These findings are discussed in the context of two competing theories of syntactic processing.

Role of Context in the Recall of Counterintuitive Concepts

Abstract Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted three experiments to study the effect of context on recall. Five types of items were used: intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, maximally counterintuitive, minimally counterintuitive with contradictory context, and intuitive with contradictory context. Items were presented with context or without context and participants were asked to recall them. Maximally counterintuitive concepts were found to have the poorest recall in both immediate and delayed recall conditions and regardless of the presence or absence of context. No significant differences were found in the recall rates of minimally counterintuitive concepts and intuitive concepts, although delayed recall affected minimally counterintuitive concepts less than intuitive concepts, suggesting the possibility of differential "fitness." Presence of contradictory context was found to be able to change minimally counterintuitive items into the functional equivalents of intuitive items (and vice versa). When relevant context was present, minimally counterintuitive concepts were recalled significantly better than intuitive concepts, which is consistent with the findings of Barrett &amp; Nyhof (2001). For items presented as lists, intuitive items were recalled better, consistent with the findings of Norenzayan &amp; Atran (2004b). Thus, context was the key element affecting recall and the discrepancy among prior studies (and the much earlier studies of Bartlett, 1932) was resolved. The results imply that no "item-centered" explanation of the formation and transmission of religious concepts can be adequate in itself. Instead, the nature of the surrounding context must be included in any such account.

Arousal and cortisol interact in modulating memory consolidation in healthy young men.

Animal studies indicate that adrenal glucocorticoids enhance memory consolidation while impairing memory retrieval. In humans, beneficial effects on consolidation have been observed infrequently. In the current double-blind study, subjects (N = 29) received placebo or cortisol (30 mg) 10 min before viewing emotionally arousing or neutral pictures. Cortisol treatment had no effects on immediate recall. In the 24-hr delayed recall condition, cortisol led to an enhanced emotional memory facilitation because of decreased neutral and increased emotional memory recall. No effects of cortisol treatment were observed for recognition memory or mood. Results support the notion that glucocorticoids specifically enhance the consolidation of emotional material.

Attention, reliability, and validity of perceptual asymmetries in the fused dichotic words test

The present experiment investigated the claim that the fused dichotic words test (FDWT) is affected minimally by attentional factors. A total of 40 right-handed undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either a free recall or exogenous cueing condition. In the free recall condition, participants circled on a response sheet the word corresponding to the percept they heard for each trial. In the exogenous cueing condition, a lateralised tone cue was presented with a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of either 150 or 450 ms. Participants responded by circling the word presented to the ear where the tone sounded. Results of the free recall condition showed the expected large right ear advantage (REA). In the exogenous cueing condition, the significant SOA by ear of presentation interaction predicted by an attentional explanation of perceptual asymmetries was obtained. Specifically, the REA obtained at the 150 ms SOA was reduced at the 450 ms SOA for both correct responses and intrusions. These findings suggest that, contrary to claims conveyed in the literature, the FDWT is subject to the influences of attention. This supports the claim that the large and reliable laterality effects obtained with the fused dichotic words test are due in part to a consistent attentional bias.

Recall of Schematic and Non-Schematic Material Related to Threat in Blood Fearful and Nonfearful Individuals

The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that blood fearful and nonfearful individuals would be differentiated by their pattern of recall of schematic and non-schematic prose material. Blood fearful (n=36) and nonfearful (n=40) individuals were presented with five prose passages describing harm or injury. Nine sentences in each passage described events representative of the schema content of most individuals, whereas six sentences in each passage described events that are not representative of typical schema content. Participants read passages that either described themselves experiencing the situations or described themselves witnessing others in the situations and completed a free recall task in both immediate (i.e. 2 minutes) and delayed (i.e. one week) recall conditions. Results did not replicate studies from the cognitive psychology literature on which this study was based. Instead, participants who read passages describing themselves in these situations recalled the gist of the material more accurately than participants who read passages in which they witnessed another individual in the situation. Blood fearful participants recalled the affective tone of neutral passages less accurately than nonfearful participants. Results suggest that activation of schema content has little influence on memory performance, although assessing the affective tone of recalled material detected subtle differences in memory performance between fearful and nonfearful groups.

Prose memory deficits associated with schizophrenia

Memory of contextual information is essential to one's quality of living. This study investigated if the different components of prose memory, across three recall conditions: first learning trial immediate recall, fifth learning trial immediate recall, and 30-min delayed recall, are differentially impaired in people with schizophrenia, relative to healthy controls. A total of 39 patients with schizophrenia and 39 matched healthy controls were recruited. Their prose memory, in terms of recall accuracy, temporal sequence, recognition accuracy and false positives, commission of distortions, and rates of learning, forgetting, and retention were tested and compared. After controlling for the level of intelligence and depression, the patients with schizophrenia were found to commit more distortions. Furthermore, they performed poorer on recall accuracy and temporal sequence accuracy only during the first initial immediate recall. On the other hand, the rates of forgetting/retention and recognition accuracy were comparable between the two groups. These findings suggest that people with schizophrenia could be benefited by repeated exposure to the materials to be remembered. These results may have important implications for rehabilitation of verbal declarative memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Associative Gray Level Pattern Processing using Binary Decomposition and α β Memories

In this note we show how a binary memory can be used to recall gray-level patterns. We take as example the � β associative memories recently proposed in Yanez, Associative Memories based on order Relations and Binary Operators(In Spanish), PhD Thesis, Center for computing Research, February of 2002, only useful in the binary case. Basically, the idea consists on that given a set of gray-level patterns to be first memorized: (1) Decompose them into their corresponding binary patterns, and (2) Build the corresponding binary associative memory (one memory for each binary layer) with each training pattern set (by layers). A given pattern or a distorted version of it, it is recalled in three steps: (1) Decomposition of the pattern by layers into its binary patterns, (2) Recalling of each one of its binary components, layer by layer also, and (3) Reconstruction of the pattern from the binary patterns already recalled in step 2. The proposed methodology operates at two phases: training and recalling. Conditions for perfect recall of a pattern either from the fundamental set or from a distorted version of one them are also given. Experiments where the efficiency of the proposal is tested are also given.

Enactment enhances integration between verb and noun, but not relational processing, in episodic memory

Improved recall has consistently been demonstrated following motor activation at encoding (SPT), compared to traditional verbal learning (VT). Enhancements of item-specific processing and relational processing have been proposed as possible mechanisms to account for this SPT effect. There is ample evidence supporting the notion of enhanced item-specific processing, however it is still unclear whether enhancement of relational processing contributes to improved recall. In the present study, 2 experiments were designed to address this issue. In Experiment 1, memory under 2 encoding conditions (VT vs. SPT) and 3 recall conditions (free recall vs. category-cued recall vs. verb-cued recall) were studied in 3 large samples (N= 500-600). Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and controlled for the use of actual objects, short-term memory effects, and carryover effects, in Experiment 1. The results in both experiments showed an interaction between type of encoding and type of recall. Verb-cued recall was affected differently by SPT encoding, as compared to category-cued recall and free recall. The results indicate that enhanced integration between verb and noun is an effect of SPT encoding, whereas enhanced relational processing is not.

Early declarative memory and self-concept

Infantile amnesia is a major issue in memory development. For a growing body of researchers, self is probably a key-concept for this enigma. The role of the cognitive self in early declarative memory as a function of perceptual manipulation between study- and test-phase was investigated. Two recall conditions were compared: either the same color props as in the modeling phase or different color props. Twenty-four 20-month-old children were observed in a 10-min deferred imitation task with two enabling sequences. An additional control group ( N = 16) ensured that imitation scores did not rely on spontaneous production of the target behaviors at this age. Children in the experimental groups were classified as early or late recognizer depending on their success or failure to the mirror test. A significant interaction was observed between color props conditions and recognizer types: only late recognizers’ memory performance was affected by the perceptual manipulation. Results suggest that cognitive self could be one of the factors contributing to the differentiation between episodic and semantic subsystems in early declarative memory by the end of the second year.

Accuracy of spine cumulative loading using self-reported duration and frequency information during non-occupational tasks

Cumulative spinal loads have been shown to be independent risk factors for LBP reporting in industry. However, collection and analysis of this type of data is expensive and time-consuming, particularly if non-repetitive tasks, such as those that are common in non-occupational activities in the home, are assessed. Cumulative load assessment costs may be reduced if self-report methods could be utilized, in lieu of traditional video-based approaches. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the accuracy of two types of self-report methods for estimating cumulative low back loads using frequency and duration information gathered during simulated non-occupational tasks. Eight male and 8 female subjects participated in this study in one of two reporting conditions (LOG: reporting done after each task; RECALL: reporting done after end of 2 h session). Mean relative errors between cumulative loads determined from subject reports of frequency and duration and from direct exposure measures from video were under 10% in general and were greater for the RECALL than the LOG condition for all cumulative loads. The difference in relative error between conditions was only significant for cumulative flexion/extension moment. Estimated and actual cumulative moments were highly correlated in the LOG condition ( r = 0.989 , p < 0.001 ), and only moderately so in the RECALL condition ( r = 0.403 , p < 0.001 ). The LOG approach showed promise as an inexpensive and accurate method for documenting frequency and duration information for the estimation of cumulative low back loads. Relevance to industry Cost effective documentation of cumulative loads in non-occupational tasks may help to explain why low back pain continues to persist in occupational settings despite the modification of peak work exposures that regularly occur in industry. Self-report methods may provide a less time and equipment intensive approach for documenting cumulative exposure and be useful for assessments of industrial tasks with varied time demands that pose significant challenges using traditional video-based approaches.

Age-dependent brain activation during forward and backward digit recall revealed by fMRI

In this study, brain activation associated with forward and backward digit recall was examined in healthy old and young adults using functional MRI. A number of areas were activated during the recall. In young adults, greater activation was found in the left prefrontal cortex (BA9) and the left occipital visual cortex during backward digit recall than forward digit recall. In contrast, the activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45) was more extensive in forward digit recall than in backward digit recall. In older adults, backward recall generated stronger activation than forward recall in most areas, including the frontal, the parietal, the occipital, and the temporal cortices. In the backward recall condition, the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA44/45) showed more activation in the old group than in the young group. These results suggest that different neural mechanisms may be involved in forward and backward digit recall and brain functions associated with these two types of recall are differentially affected by aging.

An item/order trade‐off explanation of word length and generation effects

The item‐order hypothesis suggests that under certain conditions increased item processing can lead to deficits in order processing, and that this produces a dissociation in performance between item and order tasks. The generation effect is one such example. The word length effect is seen as another instance where this trade‐off might be observed. The following experiments compare word length and generation effects under serial recall and single item recognition conditions. Short words are better recalled than long words on the serial recall task but long words were better recognised than short words. The results are consistent with the item‐order approach and support a novel explanation for the word length effect.

Does test delay eliminate collaborative inhibition?

Earlier research has demonstrated that collaborative groups recall more than individuals, but less than nominal groups (pooled performance of individuals), thus exhibiting collaborative inhibition. In two experiments, all participants were first asked to recall story material on their own. Some participants were then assigned to pairs and recalled the material collaboratively. On the other hand, the participants in the individual recall condition were asked to recall the material once again on their own. In Experiment 1, the collaborative pairs recalled less than the nominal pairs in accordance with previous studies. In Experiment 2, the timing of the initial individual recall was manipulated by inserting one week between the learning and the recall. The collaborative inhibition was eliminated in this situation. Sources of the collaborative inhibition in immediate recall and its disappearance in delayed recall are discussed in terms of the effect of cross cueing in collaborative remembering.

Digit span recall error analysis in pediatric cochlear implant users

The errors made by 37 pediatric cochlear implant users and age-matched normal-hearing children during forward and backward digit span recall were analyzed. All children were between 8 and 10 years old. The children who used implants had at least 4.5 years of experience with their device. Error classification was made using four categories: item, order, omission, or combination errors. Recall of digits not presented on a given trial was classified as item errors. The recall of all correct digits in an incorrect order was considered to be an order error. Results from a univariate ANOVA revealed main effects for error type, recall condition, and hearing ability. In addition, the error type by recall condition interaction revealed that order errors increased more in backward digit span recall than any other type of error for both normal-hearing children and children with cochlear implants. The present results are consistent with previous studies, suggesting that the shorter digit spans of children using cochlear implants are not primarily related to perceptual difficulties but appear to reflect memory processing problems related to slower subvocal verbal rehearsal and serial scanning of items in short-term memory.