Source Memory Task Research Articles

Fragmentary Blackouts: Their Etiology and Effect on Alcohol Expectancies

Background: Fragmentary blackouts, or memory loss for intoxicated events that may be later recalled with the provision of cues, are common sequelae of heavy drinking, yet understanding of their characteristics, correlates, and consequences is limited. Consequently, this alcohol‐administration study addressed questions regarding the etiology of fragmentary blackouts and their effect on alcohol outcome expectancies.Methods: A placebo‐controlled design addressed the etiology of fragmentary blackouts through assessment of memory formation before and after alcohol consumption. The effect of fragmentary blackouts on prospective beliefs about alcohol was assessed by way of a self‐report outcome expectancy questionnaire and a measure of response latency for alcohol concepts presented after beverage consumption.Results: Although participants performed similarly on memory indices before consuming beverages, those who reported past fragmentary blackouts and consumed alcohol displayed marked difficulty with recall of a narrative when this was attempted both during intoxication and after detoxification, as well as with a source memory task presented during intoxication. Those reporting fragmentary blackouts also endorsed stronger outcome expectancies for a range of alcohol effects and exhibited greater accessibility for positive alcohol concepts presented after beverage administration. Further, source recall contributed significantly to the episodic recall both during intoxication and after detoxification, as well as to positive outcome expectancies of those receiving alcohol.Conclusions: Findings suggest that fragmentary blackouts result from poor retrieval and that individual differences in retrieval emerge after alcohol is consumed. Further, one's recall of source aspects of material—its time and social context—is an important determinant of recall of stimuli and events encountered during intoxication, as well as of prospective expectations for positive alcohol effects. The collective findings expand our understanding of this complex yet common neuropsychological consequence of heavy drinking.

Remembering the color of objects: an ERP investigation of source memory.

Subjects studied pictures of common objects outlined in either red or green and were asked to memorize the objects and their associated colors. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during subsequent inclusion (i.e. item) and exclusion (i.e. source) memory tasks. The main goal of the experiment was to determine if brain signatures for familiarity and recollection, two behavioral processes thought to account for episodic memory performance, would be observed in the pattern of ERP results. For correctly recognized items, early, posterior old/new effects were recorded (approximately 300--600 ms) that did not differ in magnitude or scalp distribution between item and source memory tasks. A subsequent long-duration occipitally focused negativity (approximately 800 ms peak) was evident in the source but not the item memory task. The ERPs associated with 'source errors' in the source memory task also showed robust early old/new effects. However, 'source error' ERPs lacked frontal scalp activity compared to those associated with correct source attribution. The data suggest that a recollective response may require frontal involvement whereas a decision based on familiarity may not.

Recognition and source memory for pictures in children and adults

The present experiment investigated the developmental aspects of source compared to item memory. College students and 7–8-year-old children viewed pictures drawn in red or green during a study phase, and were asked either to remember the pictures for a subsequent recognition test, or to remember both the pictures and their associated colors for a subsequent source memory test. In the test phase, new and old pictures were presented in black. In the recognition task, participants were asked to make binary old/new recognition judgments, while in the source task, they were asked to make trinary old-green/old-red/new source judgements. Performance on all tasks improved with increasing age, but the age difference for source was much larger than that for item memory. It has been suggested that the frontal lobes play a critical role in the retrieval of source information, and that this brain region relative to the medial temporal lobes continues to develop into late adolescence. Thus, it is possible that immaturity of the frontal lobes may be causally related to the children's lower performance on the source memory task.

Memory for drawings in locations: Spatial source memory and event‐related potentials

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during recognition tasks for line drawings (items) or for both drawings and their spatial locations (sources). Recognized drawings elicited more positive ERPs than new drawings. Independent of accuracy in the spatial judgment, the old/new effect in the source recognition task was larger over the prefrontal scalp, and of longer temporal duration than in the item recognition task, suggesting that the source memory task engaged a qualitatively distinct memory process. More posterior scalp sites were sensitive to the accuracy of the source judgment, but this effect was delayed relative to the difference between studied and unstudied drawings, suggesting that source memory processes are completed after item recognition. Similarities and differences between spatial source memory and memory for conjunctions of other stimulus attributes are discussed, together with the role of prefrontal cortex in memory.

Source memory for actions in alzheimer's disease

Abstract A source memory task, using everyday objects in actions performed by either the participant or the experimenter, was given to probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and elderly normal (EN) individuals. When the overall recognition performance of the two groups was made equivalent by increasing the test delay intervals for the control group, EN and AD participants showed similar patterns of correct and incorrect responses. Moreover, both groups showed evidence of a generation effect and of an advantage for items repeated at study. the findings of this study suggest that, for a given level of event memory, memory for the source of the events is comparable between EN and AD individuals.

Aging and the use of perceptual and temporal information in source memory tasks.

Aging and the use of perceptual and temporal information in source memory tasks.