Recollection Rejection Research Articles

Adult age differences in specific and gist associative episodic memory across short- and long-term retention intervals.

Age-related deficits in associative episodic memory have been widely reported, but recent research suggests that some of these deficits occur for highly specific but not gist representations. It remains undetermined whether older adults' deficits in specific associative episodic memory, observed in long-term memory, are also present in short-term memory. We used a continuous associative recognition task to address this question. Fifty young and 50 older adults studied face-scene pairs, with memory tests occurring in both short-term and long-term memory. Memory tests featured intact (old) pairs, related (similar) pairs, and unrelated (dissimilar) pairs. On short-term memory tests, older adults were less accurate in classifying related pairs, which was manifest by age-related reductions in the probability of retrieving specific memory to engage in recollection rejection. However, older adults were capable of remembering specific details in short-term memory for intact probes but were less likely to remember specific details in long-term memory. Finally, older adults were always as capable as younger adults of remembering gist details. Results suggest that older adults do at least partially encode specific representations in short-term memory, and their access to these specific representations is cue dependent-they can do so when there is a large correspondence between encoding and retrieval conditions but are less likely to engage in deeper elaboration at retrieval. This limits their ability to remember specific details of associations to suppress false recognitions in short-term memory and to engage in veridical recognition in long-term memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of feedback and recollection rejection instructions on the development of memory monitoring and accuracy

Recollection rejection (a form of memory monitoring) involves rejecting false details on the basis of remembering true details (recall to reject), thereby increasing memory accuracy. This study examined how recollection rejection instructions and feedback affect memory accuracy and false recognition in 5-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 8- and 9-year-olds, and adults. Participants (N = 336) completed three study–test phases. Instructions and item-level feedback were manipulated during the first two phases, with the third phase including a test containing no instructions or feedback to evaluate learning effects. As predicted, in the younger children, as compared with the older children and adults, we found reduced accuracy scores (hits to studied items minus false alarms to related lures), reduced recollection rejection to related lures, and increased false recognition scores. We also found that, in the third phase, prior feedback reduced false recognition scores, potentially by improving monitoring, and typical developmental differences in false recognition were eliminated. However, there were mixed findings of instructions and feedback, and in some conditions these interventions harmed memory. These findings provide initial evidence that combining instructions and feedback with repeated task practice may improve monitoring effectiveness, but additional work is needed on how these factors improve and sometimes harm performance in young children.

Norming retrieval processes

There is a long tradition of norming words and other materials for various descriptive properties (e.g., concreteness, emotional valence, imagery, meaningfulness), which allows those properties to be manipulated in memory experiments. We introduce a new approach to norming, in which measurement models are used to norm the underlying retrieval processes that memory items trigger. We report two worked examples of this approach, for the most commonly administered items in false memory experiments: DRM lists. In one project, 36 lists that had been previously normed for their levels of true and false memory were normed for their levels of 3 retrieval processes that control false memory (recollection rejection, phantom recollection, and semantic familiarity) and 3 parallel processes that control true memory (true recollection, erroneous recollection rejection, and semantic familiarity). In the other project, 72 new DRM lists, whose associative and semantic strengths had been systematically varied, were normed for the same retrieval processes. Together, these norms provide maximum likelihood estimates of all 6 retrieval processes for all 108 lists. Analyses of those estimates revealed that list differences in the three false memory processes are mutually dissociated, as are list differences in the three true memory processes. Thus, investigators can vary each retrieval process, without confounding it with other processes, by merely selecting appropriate groups of lists. That allows simple List × Treatment designs to be used to pinpoint the retrieval processes that are responsible for the effects of important memory manipulations (e.g., delay, divided attention, encoding instructions, repetition).

Verbatim editing: A general model of recollection rejection.

Recollection rejection is traditionally defined as using verbatim traces of old items' presentations to reject new similar test cues, in old/new recognition (e.g., rejecting that couch is old by retrieving verbatim traces of sofa's presentation). We broaden this conceptualization to include (a) old as well as new similar test cues, (b) using verbatim traces for acceptance as well as rejection, and (c) using illusory verbatim traces of unpresented items (phantom recollection) as well as actual verbatim traces (true recollection). The expanded model describes how true recollection and phantom recollection generate memory decisions by creating matches and mismatches between comparisons of test cues to the content of retrieved verbatim traces versus comparisons of test cues to the content of test questions. This model generates a series of predictions about verbatim editing. Some are intuitive, such as the prection that performance will be more accurate for old cues than for new similar ones. Others are counterintuitive and conflict with an alternative model, such as correct rejections are easier than hits and that correct rejection rates will be more stable over time than hit rates. Meta-analyses of a corpus of conjoint recognition data sets provided support for the model's predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

“I Will Never Disown You” (Mk. 14:31): A Psychological Perspective on Peter’s Denials

This article attempts to explore the effects of memory retention, phantom recollection, and recollection rejection on the quest for the Apostle Peter’s denials (Mt. 26:31–35, 69–75; Mk 14:27–31, 66–72; Lk. 22:31–34, 54–62; Jn. 13:37–38, 18:15–18, 25–27). Phantom recollection refers that sometimes gist-based false memories at high levels are strong enough to elicit falsely recalled experiences. While individuals retrieve true recognition of their instantiating studied scenarios rather than false-but-gist-consistent lures by detecting relevant signal via a memory-editing operation called recollection rejection. This article examines the extent to which Peter’s memory retention sustains and moreover presumes that phantom recollection leads Peter to override his own promise, but with the assistance of detecting the crucial signals (i.e., the rooster crows, Mt. 26:74b, Mk. 14:72a, Lk. 22:60b, Jn. 18:27b; Jesus straightforwardly looks at him, Lk. 22:61a) that evokes the recollection rejection process, he retrieves his true memories. For the first time, if any, the attempt to interpret the pericope of Peter’s denials through the lens of the false memory theory could elucidate our hermeneutical understandings from the nature of humankind perspective.

Modulation of target recollection and recollection rejection networks due to retrieval facilitation and interference.

To better understand neural recollection processing, we induced interference in target recollection by presenting related lures before their respective targets and facilitated recollection rejection of lures by presenting targets before their related lures. Target recollection following interference recruited visual and prefrontal cortices, showing that these regions support recollection when related information has disrupted target representations. Recollection rejection following target presentation recruited angular gyrus, indicating that this region supports recollection rejection when target representations are strong and highly accessible. Thus, recollection networks are sensitive to the accessibility of target representations that are affected by the presentation of related information during retrieval.

Rejecting Similar Stimuli is Different from Rejecting Nonsimilar Stimuli in Item Recognition: Event-Related Potential Evidence

Two crucial elements are necessary to recognize an object: familiarity and recollection (Yonelinas, 2002). Familiarity is generally defined as a fast memory process that supports recognition without detailed information. Recollection refers to an all-or-none, recall-like process that retrieves detailed memories about individual items or episodes. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have largely contributed to distinguish these two memory processes (Rugg & Curran, 2007). A mid-frontal effect, known as the FN400 effect, is generally associated to familiarity because it consistently differs when comparing new items with studied items correctly recognized and new familiar items (i.e., lures) falsely recognized (Curran, 2000; Curran & Cleary, 2003). In contrast, recollection occurs later over parietal regions, and is reflected by greater positive amplitude for recognized studied items than for new items correctly rejected and lures falsely recognized (Curran, 2000).While it is reasonable to argue that familiarity contributes to the false recognition of lures, it is still unclear whether recollection contributes to their correct rejection. In contrast to new items, lures tend to be confounded with other studied or known items. To avoid this confusion, notice the novelty of the lures, and achieve their correct rejection, one must search for differences between the lures and the other items (Gallo, Bell, Beier, & Schacter, 2006). Such search requires a comparison between the perceived lures and the recollected representations from memory of the confounding items. According to a few studies (Johnson et al., 1997; Herzmann, Jin, Cordes, & Curran, 2012) this recall-to-reject (Rotello, Macmillan, & Van Tassel, 2000) or recollection rejection (Matzen, Taylor, & Benjamin, 2011) process is different from recollection leading to recognition of old items, and occurs mainly in frontal regions (Lepage, Brodeur, & Bourgouin, 2003; Gallo, McDonough, & Scimeca, 2009; Slotnick, Moo, Segal, & Hart Jr, 2003).Current studyThe goal of this study was to examine whether rejecting items that are similar to the studied ones differs from the recollection of previously presented items, and whether it activates frontal regions instead of parietal regions. Participants completed two experiments, one where the new items were unrelated to the studied items, thus were neither familiar nor linked to specific memories (Experiment 1), and one where the new items were lures similar to studied items (Experiment 2). The parietal old/new effect was expected to be comparable across experiments and greater old/new effect was expected in the frontal region when new items were lures. The FN400 was also examined.METHODParticipantsSeventeen healthy volunteers (10 female), aged between 20 and 35 years (Mage = 24.3), were recruited by means of classified advertising (e.g., Craigslist). Participants were right-handed, reported no current or previous history of neurologic disease or head trauma causing loss of consciousness, and had no first- degree family member having a history of mental health problems. All participants passed the Pseudoisochromatic Plates Ishihara Compatible Test, meaning that they had intact color perception. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants after a complete description of the study. The ethic review board of the Douglas Mental Health McGill University Institute approved the protocol and the consent form.Stimuli and procedureAll participants participated in two episodic memory experiments (see Figure 1). Eight participants started with Experiment 1 and nine started with Experiment 2. Each experiment comprised of a study phase with 200 stimuli, immediately followed by a recognition phase including 100 old stimuli and 100 new stimuli. Old stimuli were photos of objects presented in the study phase, but depicted from a different angle of view. New stimuli in Experiment 1 represented objects that were seen for the first time and which were unrelated to objects presented at study. …

Children's Use of Memory Editing Strategies to Reject Source Misinformation.

This is the first reported study of children's use of two metacognitive strategies, recollection rejection and diagnostic monitoring, to reject misinformation. Recollection rejection involves the retrieval of details that disqualify an event, whereas diagnostic monitoring involves the failure to retrieve expected details. First (n=56, age 7years) and third graders (n=52, age 9years) witnessed a staged classroom interaction involving common and bizarre accidents, were presented with misinformation about the source of these events, and took a memory test. Both age groups used recollection rejection, but third graders were more effective. There was little evidence that diagnostic monitoring influenced responses for bizarre events, potentially because these events were not sufficiently bizarre in the context of the stereotype induction.

The Use of Recollection Rejection in the Misinformation Paradigm

SummaryThe purpose of this research was to determine the role of recollection rejection in the rejection of misinformation. In Experiment 1, we examined the use of recollection rejection to reject contradictory and additive misinformation. We measured recollection rejection by comparing misinformation acceptance rates, graphing confidence‐accuracy data using phantom receiver operating characteristic curves, examining high confidence rejections of misinformation, and examining self‐report responses. These measures converged on the finding that participants used recollection rejection to reject both types of misinformation but used recollection rejection more on contradictory misinformation. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the delay between the event and misinformation and between misinformation and test. The length of both of these delays affected misinformation acceptance. Participants were more likely to use recollection rejection to reject contradictory misinformation after a short delay before encountering misinformation. Overall these findings indicate that people can spontaneously induce recollection rejection to reject misinformation and prevent false memories. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Neural Basis of Recollection Rejection: Increases in Hippocampal-Prefrontal Connectivity in the Absence of a Shared Recall-to-Reject and Target Recollection Network.

Recollection rejection or "recall-to-reject" is a mechanism that has been posited to help maintain accurate memory by preventing the occurrence of false memories. Recollection rejection occurs when the presentation of a new item during recognition triggers recall of an associated target, a mismatch in features between the new and old items is registered, and the lure is correctly rejected. Critically, this characterization of recollection rejection involves a recall signal that is conceptually similar to recollection as elicited by a target. However, previous neuroimaging studies have not evaluated the extent to which recollection rejection and target recollection rely on a common neural signal but have instead focused on recollection rejection as a postretrieval monitoring process. This study utilized a false memory paradigm in conjunction with an adapted remember-know-new response paradigm that separated "new" responses based on recollection rejection from those that were based on a lack of familiarity with the item. This procedure allowed for parallel recollection rejection and target recollection contrasts to be computed. Results revealed that, contrary to predictions from theoretical and behavioral literature, there was virtually no evidence of a common retrieval mechanism supporting recollection rejection and target recollection. Instead of the typical target recollection network, recollection rejection recruited a network of lateral prefrontal and bilateral parietal regions that is consistent with the retrieval monitoring network identified in previous neuroimaging studies of recollection rejection. However, a functional connectivity analysis revealed a component of the frontoparietal rejection network that showed increased coupling with the right hippocampus during recollection rejection responses. As such, we demonstrate a possible link between PFC monitoring network and basic retrieval mechanisms within the hippocampus that was not revealed with univariate analyses alone.

Recollection rejection of new items in individuals with first-episode psychosis.

Many objects seen for the first time look familiar because they resemble known objects. To overcome this feeling of familiarity and detect novelty, memories of known objects must be recollected and compared to new objects. This experiment examines whether recollection performed when perceiving new items (i.e., recollection rejection) is abnormal in people who experienced a first episode of psychosis (FEP). Recollection of old items is impaired in this clinical population but it has not yet been demonstrated that this impairment influences the processing of new items. Eighteen FEP participants and 19 healthy controls completed an episodic memory task consisting of a study phase and a recognition phase. All the new objects looked familiar because they resembled the studied objects. Brain activity underlying false recognition and correct rejection of new objects was measured with functional resonance magnetic imaging and compared across groups. Behavioral responses to new items were not significantly different between the 2 groups. However, the between-groups analysis revealed significant differences in brain activity in the left middle frontal gyrus, the left inferior parietal lobule, the right superior parietal lobule, and the right temporal fusiform gyrus during the correct rejection of new items. This activity seems related to recollection rejection and suggests that FEP patients do not normally recollect information of past events when they process new items.

The two recollections.

Recollection is currently modeled as a univariate retrieval process in which memory probes provoke conscious awareness of contextual details of earlier target presentations. However, that conception cannot explain why some manipulations that increase recollection in recognition experiments suppress false memory in false memory experiments, whereas others increase false memory. Such contrasting effects can be explained if recollection is bivariate-if memory probes can provoke conscious awareness of target items per se, separately from awareness of contextual details, with false memory being suppressed by the former but increased by the latter. Interestingly, these 2 conceptions of recollection have coexisted for some time in different segments of the memory literature. Independent support for the dual-recollection hypothesis is provided by some surprising effects that it predicts, such as release from recollection rejection, false persistence, negative relations between false alarm rates and target remember/know judgments, and recollection without remembering. We implemented the hypothesis in 3 bivariate recollection models, which differ in the degree to which recollection is treated as a discrete or a graded process: a pure multinomial model, a pure signal detection model, and a mixed multinomial/signal detection model. The models were applied to a large corpus of conjoint recognition data, with fits being satisfactory when both recollection processes were present and unsatisfactory when either was deleted. Factor analyses of the models' parameter spaces showed that target and context recollection never loaded on a common factor, and the 3 models converged on the same process loci for the effects of important experimental manipulations. Thus, a variety of results were consistent with bivariate recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Need for Cognition Is Related to the Rejection (but Not the Acceptance) of False Memories

Need for cognition (NFC) and rates of false recognition were studied in the context of the memory conjunction paradigm. Past research has shown that NFC is related to false recognition and false recall (Graham, 2007; Leding, 2011) in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, with high-NFC people experiencing more false memories. The present study extended this research to determine whether the findings of high-NFC people experiencing higher levels of false memories could be extended to other false memory paradigms. The present study also examined rates of high-confidence rejections of lures and recollection rejection responses. It was found that there were no significant differences for high- and low-NFC people in false recognition but that high-NFC people were more likely to use high-confidence rejections and have recollection rejection responses when they did reject lures.

Contributions of familiarity and recollection rejection to recognition: Evidence from the time course of false recognition for semantic and conjunction lures

It has been suggested that both familiarity and recollection contribute to the recognition decision process. In this paper we leverage the form of false alarm rate functions—in which false alarm rates describe an inverted U-shaped function as the time between study and test increases—to assess how these processes support retention of semantic and surface form information from previously studied words. We directly compare the maxima of these functions for lures that are semantically related and lures that are related by surface form to previously studied material. This analysis reveals a more rapid loss of access to surface form than to semantic information. To separate the contributions of item familiarity and reminding-induced recollection rejection to this effect, we use a simple multinomial process model; this analysis reveals that this loss of access reflects both a more rapid loss of familiarity and lower rates of recollection for surface form information.

Aging and flexible remembering: Contributions of conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal functioning.

Aging attenuates the capacity to adaptively and flexibly use episodic memory at different levels of specificity. Older and younger adults were tested on a picture recognition task that required them to make episodic memory decisions at an item-specific (verbatim) versus category-based (gist-based) level on randomly intermixed trials. Specificity modulation was assessed using a measure of the likelihood that participants retrieved verbatim information in order to reject test items that were categorically related to studied items under item-specific recognition instructions (recollection rejection). We found that this measure positively correlated with conceptual span (an index of short-term semantic memory) and with level of fluid intelligence in older and younger adults. However, when we simultaneously considered each of four possible contributors (age, conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal function), the only significant predictor of recollection rejection was the composite fluid intelligence measure (assessed by the Culture Fair Intelligence Test [Cattell & Cattell, 1960] and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised Block Design subtest [Wechsler, 1981]). These findings suggest that interventions that facilitate adaptive specificity modulation in episodic memory may enhance the flexibility of thinking, and vice versa, in both older and younger adults.

The role of metacognitive knowledge in recollection rejection

Recollection rejection is a memory editing mechanism in which related lures are rejected because of the recollection of the lure's instantiating target (e.g., "I know it wasn't pretty because it was beautiful"). According to one view, recollection rejection requires an assumption on the part of the participant that both a word and its related lure could not have been studied. We examined this view by manipulating the instructions that were given to participants (Experiment 1) and the nature of the study list (Experiment 2). Estimates of recollection rejection derived from the phantom receive operating characteristic model found evidence for the role of metacognitive assumptions, but only when metacognitive knowledge was manipulated by varying the nature of the study list.

Process demands of rejection mechanisms of recognition memory.

A surge of research has been conducted to examine memory editing mechanisms that help distinguish accurate from inaccurate memories. In the present experiment, the authors examined the ability of participants to use novelty detection, recollection rejection, and plausibility judgments to reject lures presented on a recognition memory test. Participants studied a list of word pairs that were arranged in a category relationship (both words from the same category) or an unrelated relationship (both words from different categories) under full or divided attention. At test, participants were given a yes/no recognition test in which they were to respond after seeing the test items for 400 ms or 2,800 ms. Some of the test items were rearranged word pairs that were consistent with the study relationship, whereas others were inconsistent with the study relationship. The results demonstrate that the participants required full attention at study to use novelty detection, recollection rejection, and plausibility judgments to reject lures. Moreover, the results indicate that a long response deadline at test was needed for participants to use both recollection rejection and plausibility judgments to reject lures.

A simplified conjoint recognition paradigm for the measurement of gist and verbatim memory.

The distinction between verbatim and gist memory traces has furthered the understanding of numerous phenomena in various fields, such as false memory research, research on reasoning and decision making, and cognitive development. To measure verbatim and gist memory empirically, an experimental paradigm and multinomial measurement model has been proposed but rarely applied. In the present article, a simplified conjoint recognition paradigm and multinomial model is introduced and validated as a measurement tool for the separate assessment of verbatim and gist memory processes. A Bayesian metacognitive framework is applied to validate guessing processes. Extensions of the model toward incorporating the processes of phantom recollection and erroneous recollection rejection are discussed.

Recollection rejection of false narrative statements

Our research was focused on a false-memory editing operation that is posited in fuzzy-trace theory—recollection rejection. The main objectives were (a) to extend model-based measurement of this operation to a narrative task that ought to ensure high levels of recollection rejection and (b) to study five manipulations that ought to influence recollection rejection by affecting the accessibility of verbatim traces of narrative statements: recency of narrative presentation, narrative repetition, type of false-memory item, testing delay, and repeated testing. The results showed that the narrative task did indeed yield high levels of recollection, with an estimated 49% of gist-consistent distractors being rejected in this way on initial memory tests. Consistent with current theoretical conceptions of false-memory editing, the results also showed that recollection rejection increased as a function of manipulations that should enhance the accessibility of verbatim traces of narrative statements, with repeated testing delivering especially large increases in verbatim accessibility.

Phantom ROC: Recollection rejection in a hybrid conjoint recognition signal detection model

The present experiments test predictions of dual process models with regards to recollection rejection using a model called phantom ROC. Participants studied pictures and then took a recognition test in which they were presented with targets (i.e., the exact picture presented), related lures (i.e., the same object but from a different angle), and unrelated lures (i.e., objects that had not been shown). For each item, participants answered both standard recognition and meaning recognition questions. In Experiment 1 participants studied pictures under either full attention or divided attention. In Experiment 2 some participants were told that no object was shown twice (i.e., mutual exclusivity instructions), while others were told that both camera angles might have been shown for some objects (no mutual exclusivity instructions). The present experiments provide three converging measures, all of which are consistent with dual process models that propose a recollection rejection mechanism.