Free recall

We assessed 19 patients with Huntington's disease (HD) at early to moderately advanced stages of their disease using memory tests that investigated verbal and visual recall and recognition. In those tests where identical material was subject to recall and recognition the standardized results (z scores) were lower for recognition. Performance was better with pictorial than with verbal material. While recognition bias and savings scores did not differ significantly from controls, all other recognition parameters did so. This is in contrast to the claim that defective retrieval in HD is greatly enhanced by multiple choice recognition. One major reason for maintaining this assumption was apparently the disregard of false-positive responses. Our results indicate that verbal and visual recognition are impaired in HD, and the notion of a salient deficit of free recall is not supported.

Theories of short term memory often include a limited capacity ''buffer''. Such a buffer contains items which do not decay at all but are overwritten by new data. I show that one of the experiments that fueled the buffer concept, the free recall experiments by Murdock (J Exp Psychol 64(5):482-488, 1962), does not contain such a buffer.

The robust effects of knowledge on memory for domain-relevant information reported in previous research have largely been attributed to improved organizational processing. The present research proposes the distinctiveness theory of skilled memory, which states that knowledge improves memory not only through improved organizational processing but also through more effective processing of differences between items in the context of the similarity defined by organization. Individuals with either high or low knowledge about NFL football were presented with lists containing items from the target domain (NFL football) or a control domain (cooking). Individuals either performed a category sorting task, a pleasantness rating task, or both. Results on a surprise free recall test later showed knowledge effects on memory (high knowledge individuals had greater recall than low knowledge individuals for football items but not for cooking items). Secondary measures established that the knowledge effect on memory was due not only to better organizational processing but also to more effective item-specific processing.

Participation of two medial temporal lobe structures, the hippocampal region and the amygdala, in long-term declarative memory encoding was examined by using positron emission tomography of regional cerebral glucose. Positron emission tomography scanning was performed in eight healthy subjects listening passively to a repeated sequence of unrelated words. Memory for the words was assessed 24 hr later with an incidental free recall test. The percentage of words freely recalled then was correlated with glucose activity during encoding. The results revealed a striking correlation (r ‫؍‬ 0.91, P < 0.001) between activity of the left hippocampal region (centered on the dorsal parahippocampal gyrus) and word recall. No correlation was found between activity of either the left or right amygdala and recall. The findings provide evidence for hippocampal involvement in long-term declarative memory encoding and for the view that the amygdala is not involved with declarative memory formation for nonemotional material.

The purpose of this research was to extend previous work on gender bias in performance evaluation. Specifically, we examined whether a structured free recall intervention could decrease the influence of traditional gender-stereotypes on the performance evaluations of women. Two hundred and forty-seven college students provided performance ratings for vignettes that described the performance of male or female college professors. Results indicated that without the intervention, raters who have traditional stereotypes evaluated women less accurately and more negatively. Conversely, the structured free recall intervention successfully eliminated these effects. The usefulness of the structured free recall intervention as a tool for decreasing the influence of gender stereotypes on performance ratings is discussed.

Is consolidation needed to account for retroactive interference in free recall? Interfering mental activity during the retention interval of a memory task impairs performance, in particular if the interference occurs in temporal proximity to the encoding of the to-be-remembered (TBR) information. There are at least two rival theoretical accounts of this temporal gradient of retroactive interference. The cognitive neuroscience literature has suggested neural consolidation is a pivotal factor determining item recall. According to this account, interfering activity interrupts consolidation processes that would otherwise stabilize the memory representations of TBR items post-encoding. Temporal distinctiveness theory, by contrast, proposes that the retrievability of items depends on their isolation in psychological time. According to this theory, information processed after the encoding of TBR material will reduce the temporal distinctiveness of the TBR information. To test between these accounts, implementations of consolidation were added to the SIMPLE model of memory and learning. We report data from two experiments utilizing a two-list free recall paradigm. Modeling results imply that SIMPLE was able to model the data and did not benefit from the addition of consolidation. It is concluded that the temporal gradient of retroactive interference cannot be taken as evidence for memory consolidation.

Previous research on mood dependent memory (MDM) suggests that the more one must rely on internal resources, rather than on external aids, to generate both the target events and the cues required for their retrieval, the more likely is one&#39;s memory for these events to be mood dependent. To instantiate this &quot;do-it-yourself&quot; principle, three experiments were conducted in which Ss experiencing either a pleasant or an unpleasant mood generated autobiographical events in response to neutral nouns. Subsequently, Ss were tested for event free recall while in the same or the alternative mood state. All three studies showed MDM, such that the likelihood of recalling an event generated 2 or 3 days ago was higher when generation and recall moods matched than when they mismatched. Prospects for future research aimed at elucidating and extending these results are discussed.

Temporal distinctiveness models of memory retrieval claim that memories are organised partly in terms of their positions along a temporal dimension, and suggest that memory retrieval involves temporal discrimination. According to such models the retrievability of memories should be related to the discriminability of their temporal distances at the time of retrieval. This prediction is tested directly in three pairs of experiments that examine (a) memory retrieval and (b) identification of temporal durations that correspond to the temporal distances of the memories. Qualitative similarities between memory retrieval and temporal discrimination are found in probed serial recall (Experiments 1 and 2), immediate and delayed free recall (Experiments 3 and 4) and probed serial recall of grouped lists (Experiments 5 and 6). The results are interpreted as consistent with the suggestion that memory retrieval is indeed akin to temporal discrimination.

This study examines worry themes among 87 anxiety disorder patients divided into three groups: (a) 24 primary generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients, (b) 25 secondary GAD patients, and (c) 38 other anxiety disorder patients (primarily obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia and panic disorder with agoraphobia). Structured and free-recall measures were used to measure five worry themes: relationships, work, finances, physical threat, and the future. Both types of measures revealed that GAD patients worry more about the future than non-GAD patients. Further, post hoc analyses testing for linear relationships indicated that primary GAD patients worry more about the future than secondary GAD patients who in turn worry more about the future than other anxiety disorder patients. The results suggest that although worry about immediate problems may not differentiate GAD patients from other anxiety disorder patients, high levels of worry about future events may be a distinguishing feature of GAD.

An experiment was conducted with 311 undergraduates to examine potential impact of some novel factors on the serial position curve (SPC) in free recall of word lists.  The experiment differed from past SPC trials in several respects, including using semantically-related word lists and subjects who had recently studied memory strategies.  The resulting curves were unlike any found in the existing literature, lacking the characteristic “U”-shape in favour of “W”-shapes reflecting stronger recall for middle-list items.  Methodological details are compared closely with past research in an effort to explain the unexpected results. An explanatory interaction effect between semantically-related word lists and subject variables is ultimately proposed.  Further research is needed to evaluate this conjecture.

The spacing effect refers to the finding that memory for repeated items improves when the interrepetition interval increases. To explain the spacing effect in free-recall tasks, a two-factor model has been put forward that combines mechanisms of contextual variability and study-phase retrieval (e.g., ). An important, yet untested, implication of this model is that free recall of repetitions should follow an inverted u-shaped relationship with interrepetition spacing. To demonstrate the suggested relationship an experiment was conducted. Participants studied a word list, consisting of items repeated at different interrepetition intervals, either under incidental or under intentional learning instructions. Subsequently, participants received a free-recall test. The results revealed an inverted u-shaped relationship between free recall and interrepetition spacing in both the incidental-learning condition and the intentionallearning condition. Moreover, for intentionally learned repetitions, the maximum free-recall performance was located at a longer interrepetition interval than for incidentally learned repetitions. These findings are interpreted in terms of the twofactor model of spacing effects in free-recall tasks.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of physical activity on memory performance in preadolescents. Fifty-two students aged 11-12 years performed a test involving free-recall of items from a 20-item word list during three separate testing sessions at school. Two sessions directly followed physical education lessons (aerobic circuit training or team games) characterized by similar exercise intensities, but different cognitive and social interaction demands. A third, baseline session was not preceded by any lesson. For each session, the number of items recalled from the whole list and from its primacy and recency portions was recorded twice under conditions of immediate and delayed recall. Immediate recall scores in both primacy and recency portions were higher following the team games than in the baseline session, whereas delayed recall scores in the recency portion were higher after both team game and aerobic training. Results suggest that an acute bout of submaximal exercise, as performed by students during physical education class, may facilitate memory storage. The differential effects of qualitatively unique types of exercise on immediate and delayed recall suggest that memory storage processes may be facilitated not only by exercise-induced increases in physiological arousal, but also by the cognitive activation induced by cognitive exercise demands. Results are discussed highlighting the importance of relationships between acute exercise and memory storage for mental health promotion.

The quantity and quality of research into autism and related conditions have increased dramatically in recent years. Consequently we selectively review key accomplishments and highlight directions for future research. More consistent approaches to diagnosis and more rigorous assessment methods have significantly advanced research, although the boundaries of the 'broader phenotype' remain to be defined and the validity of Asperger's disorder as a discrete syndrome remains controversial. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that Autism Spectrum Disorders are common, but there continues to be debate about the causes of the increase in the frequency with which autism is diagnosed. Psychological research has helped to develop new developmental models for the disorder and there have also been significant advances in the molecular genetics of autism and understanding of the underlying neurobiological processes. Areas important for future research include the study of autism as it first develops, i.e., in infants and very young children, and of specific processes (psychological and neurobiological) which underlie the disorder. Significant challenges lie ahead in evaluating the growing number of treatments for autism and in integrating the results of research into treatment and educational settings.

An experiment was conducted in a virtual town to investigate episodic memory and false memory assuming that an active condition would increase memory compared to a passive condition. Subjects were university undergraduate students; active participants drove a car through the city, and passive participants were only passengers. Subjects were instructed to behave as if they had just arrived in a new town, and had to pay attention to everything in the surroundings. Their episodic memory was tested with a subsequent free recall test of the diverse elements of the town, and spatial and temporal details, and with a recognition test. Preliminary results showed a positive effect (p=.05) of active condition on memory for the recall of the diverse elements of the town and for the spatial location of a specific event (a car accident). Inversely, participants on passive condition were better (p<.05) at localizing the town's elements and they had higher a global episodic score than active participants. Concerning correct and false recognitions, no difference was found. The difference between active and passive conditions is discussed in terms of divided attention in memory performance. Despite the presence of an attentional effect, our study showed that subjects memorize what is relevant to the task they were performing.

Emotionality is a key component of subjective experience that influences memory. We tested how the emotionality of words affects memory monitoring, specifically, judgments of learning, in both cued recall and free recall paradigms. In both tasks, people predicted that positive and negative emotional words would be recalled better than neutral words. That prediction was valid for free recall of positive, negative, and neutral words, but invalid for cued recall of negative word pairs compared to neutral and positive pairs; only positive emotional pairs showed enhanced recall relative to neutral pairs. Consequently, people exhibited extreme overconfidence for cued recall of negative word pairs on the first study-test trial. We demonstrate that emotionality does not globally enhance memory, but rather has specific effects depending on the valence and task. Results are discussed in terms of this complex relationship between emotionality and memory performance and the subsequent variations in diagnosticity of emotionality as a cue for memory monitoring.

Several authors have argued that because mindfulness training involves repeated practice of the selfregulation of attention, it should lead to measurable improvements in attentional skills and related memory processes. Although a few studies have shown relationships between mindfulness training and performance-based tests of attention and memory, findings are mixed. In the present study, a sample of 33 adults with a long-term mindfulness meditation practice (average duration of 6 years) was compared with a demographically matched sample of nonmeditators on several widely used tests of attention and memory functioning, including sustained attention, attention switching, inhibition of elaborative processing, working memory, and short-and long-term memory. Group differences were nonsignificant for all of the attentional tasks. The only significant group differences were in shortterm memory (both free and cued recall) and long-term memory (free recall only). Results suggest that the nature of the attentional and memory processing that is cultivated by mindfulness training requires clarification.

Participants viewed one of six video-recorded versions of a rape victim's testimony, role-played by a professional actress in one of six versions: Two versions of the testimony, representing a strong and a less strong rape scenario, were given in a free-recall manner with one of three kinds of emotions displayed, termed congruent, neutral and incongruent emotional expressions. Credibility judgements were strongly influenced by the emotions displayed, but not by the content of the story. When video watching was compared to reading a transcript of the testimony, results indicated that perceived credibility was reduced when the witness displayed neutral or incongruent emotions. Story content and displayed emotion contributed equally to estimates of the probability of a guilty verdict. We conclude that perception of credibility is strongly influenced by social stereotypes regarding appropriate emotional expression.

Incidental memory performance for pictures that varied along the affective dimensions of pleasantness and arousal was assessed. For both an immediate and delayed (1 year later) freerecall task, only the arousal dimension had a stable effect on memory performance: Pictures rated as highly arousing were remembered better than low-arousal stimuli. This effect was corroborated in a speeded recognition test, in which high-arousal materials encoded earlier in the experiment produced faster reaction times than their low-arousal counterparts. Pleasantness affected reaction time decisions only for pictures not encoded earlier. These results suggest that whereas both the dimensions of pleasantness and arousal are processed at initial encoding, longterm memory performance is mainly affected by arousal.

Sex differences in the latent general and broad cognitive abilities underlying the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities were investigated for children, youth, and adults ages 6 through 59. A developmental, multiple indicator–multiple cause, structural equation model was used to investigate sex differences in latent cognitive abilities as well as developmental changes in these differences across the 6 to 59 age span. Females showed a consistent advantage on the latent processing speed (Gs) factor, and males showed a small, consistent advantage on the latent comprehension–knowledge (Gc) factor. Males also showed an advantage on latent quantitative reasoning (RQ) and visual–spatial ability (Gv) factors at most ages, although the latter was statistically significant only for adults. No statistically significant sex differences were shown on latent auditory processing, short-term memory, long-term retrieval, or fluid reasoning factors. The higher-order, latent g factor showed inconsistent differences for children, small, non-significant differences favoring females for adolescents, and fairly consistent statistically significant differences favoring females in adulthood. Findings are inconsistent with developmental theory that suggests males should show an advantage on g in adulthood. Supplemental analyses suggested that methodological choices, including the use of latent variables versus composites and methods for dealing with missing data, can affect research findings.

The quantity and quality of research into autism and related conditions have increased dramatically in recent years. Consequently we selectively review key accomplishments and highlight directions for future research. More consistent approaches to diagnosis and more rigorous assessment methods have significantly advanced research, although the boundaries of the 'broader phenotype' remain to be defined and the validity of Asperger's disorder as a discrete syndrome remains controversial. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that Autism Spectrum Disorders are common, but there continues to be debate about the causes of the increase in the frequency with which autism is diagnosed. Psychological research has helped to develop new developmental models for the disorder and there have also been significant advances in the molecular genetics of autism and understanding of the underlying neurobiological processes. Areas important for future research include the study of autism as it first develops, i.e., in infants and very young children, and of specific processes (psychological and neurobiological) which underlie the disorder. Significant challenges lie ahead in evaluating the growing number of treatments for autism and in integrating the results of research into treatment and educational settings.

Whenever competing options are considered in sequence, their evaluations may be affected by order of appearance. Such serial position effects would threaten the fairness of competitions using jury evaluations. Randomization cannot reduce potential order effects, but it does give candidates an equal chance of being assigned to preferred serial positions. Whether, or what, serial position effects emerge may depend on the cognitive demands of the judgment task. In end-of-sequence procedures, final scores are not given until all candidates have performed, possibly burdening judgesÕ memory. If judgesÕ evaluations are based on how well they remember performances, serial position effects may resemble those found with free recall. Candidates may also be evaluated step-by-step, immediately after each performance. This procedure should not burden memory, though it may produce different serial position effects. Yet, this paper reports similar serial position effects with end-of-sequence and step-by-step procedures used for the Eurovision Song Contest: Ratings increased with serial position. The linear order effect was replicated in the step-by-step judgments of World and European Contests. It is proposed that, independent of the evaluation procedure, judgesÕ initial impressions of sequentially appearing candidates may be formed step-by-step, yielding serial position effects.

The Rey-Osterrieth Complex (RCFT) is a widely-used measure of visuospatial construction and nonverbal memory. One of the critical aspects of this test is that organizing the figure into meaningful perceptual units during copy enhances its subsequent free recall from memory. This study examined the psychometric properties of a new system for quantifying the organizational approach to the RCFT figure and compared it to another compatible scoring system. We investigated interrater reliability of both systems and explored the influences of copy organization and copy accuracy on immediate recall. Seventy-one participants meeting DSM-IV criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder and 55 healthy control participants completed the copy and immediate free recall condition of the RCFT. Interrater reliability was evaluated by Kappa coefficients and Pearson correlations. The effects of copy organization and copy accuracy on immediate recall were evaluated using multiple regression analyses. Results indicated that the organizational approach could be assessed with high reliability using both scoring systems. Organization during copy was a strong predictor for subsequent free recall from memory using both approaches. Multiple regression analysis indicated that all organizational elements were not equally predictive of memory performance. This new system represents a very simple and reliable approach to scoring organization on the RCFT, since it requires the identification of only 5 figure components. These characteristics should contribute to its clinical utility.

The temporal relations among word-list items exert a powerful influence on episodic memory retrieval. Two experiments were conducted with younger and older adults in which the age-related recall deficit was examined by using a decomposition method to the serial position curve, partitioning performance into (a) the probability of first recall, illustrating the recency effect, and (b) the conditional response probability, illustrating the lag recency effect (M. W. Howard & M. J. . Although the older adults initiated recall in the same manner in both immediate and delayed free recall, temporal proximity of study items (contiguity) exerted a much weaker influence on recall transitions in older adults. This finding suggests that an associative deficit may be an important contributor to older adults' well-known impairment in free recall.

This paper will review research on working memory and short-term memory abilities of deaf individuals delineating strengths and weaknesses. The areas of memory reviewed include weaknesses such as sequential recall, processing speed, attention, and memory load. Strengths include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery and dual encoding. Phonological encoding, and rehearsal appear to be strengths when these strategies are employed. The implications of the strengths and weaknesses for language learning and educational achievement are discussed.

We report a semantic effect in immediate free recall, which is localized at recency and is preserved under articulatory suppression but is highly reduced when recall is delayed after an intervening distractor task. These results are explained by a neurocomputational model based on a limited-capacity short-term memory (STM) store, consisting of activated long-term memory representations. The model makes additional predictions about serial position functions in semantically cued recall, indicating capacity limitations caused by a displacement type mechanism, which are confirmed in a second experiment. This suggests that in addition to the phonological component in verbal STM, there is an activation/ item-limited component with semantically sensitive representations.

Word problems are notoriously difficult to solve. We suggest that much of the difliculty children experience with word problems can be attributed to difficulty in comprehending abstract or ambiguous language. We tested this hypothesis by (1) requiring children to recall problems either before or after solving them, (2) requiring them to generate final questions to incomplete word problems, and (3) modeling performance patterns using a computer simulation. Solution performance was found to be systematically related to recall and question generation performance. Correct solutions were associated with accurate recall of the problem structure and with appropriate question generation. Solution "errors" were found to be correct solutions to miscomprehended problems. Word problems that contained abstract or ambiguous language tended to be miscomprehended more often than those using simpler language, and there was a great deal of systematicity in the way these problems were miscomprehended. Solution error patterns were successfully simulated by manipulating a computer model's language comprehension strategies, as opposed to its knowledge of logical set relations. o 1st~ Academic Press, Inc.

In two experiments with categorized lists, we asked whether the testing effect in free recall is related to enhancements in organizational processing. During a first phase in Experiment 1, subjects studied one list over eight consecutive trials, they studied another list six times while taking two interspersed recall tests, and they learned a third list in four alternating study and test trials. On a test 2 days later, recall was directly related to the number of tests and inversely related to the number of study trials. In addition, increased testing enhanced both the number of categories accessed and the number of items recalled from within those categories. One measure of organization also increased with the number of tests. In a second experiment, different groups of subjects studied a list either once or twice before a final criterial test, or they studied the list once and took an initial recall test before the final test. Prior testing again enhanced recall, relative to studying on the final test a day later, and also improved category clustering. The results suggest that the benefit of testing in free recall learning arises because testing creates retrieval schemas that guide recall.

This paper reports the results of two studies which investigated whether aging is associated with a differential deficit in executive function, compared with deficits in general cognitive ability (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised performance). Further, the studies investigated the specificity of the executive decline hypothesis of memory and aging by examining whether declines in executive function mediate agerelated memory decline over and above the variance in memory accounted for by general cognitive ability. The results of Study 1 showed no consistent evidence of a differential decline in executive function among a sample of participants aged between 18 and 75 years. The results of Study 2 indicated a differential decline in one indicator of executive function, the Modified Card Sorting Test, among an older sample aged between 60 and 89 years. Both studies demonstrated that measures of executive function accounted for age-related variance in free recall, recognition, and serial recall, even after controlling for general cognitive ability. However, in Study 1, once variance attributed to speed of processing was taken into account, executive function did not contribute further to the age-related variance.

Motor planning has generally been studied in situations where participants carry out physical actions without a particular purpose. Yet in everyday life physical actions are usually carried out for higher-order goals. We asked whether two previously discovered motor planning phenomena -the end-state comfort effect and motor hysteresis -would hold up if the actions were carried out in the service of higher-order goals. The higher-order goal we chose to study was memorization. By focusing on memorization, we asked not only how and whether motor planning is affected by the need to memorize, but also how memory performance might depend on the cognitive demands of motor planning. We asked university-student participants to retrieve cups from a column of drawers and memorize as many letters as possible from the inside of the cups. The drawers were opened either in a random order (Experiment 1) or in a regular order . The end-state comfort effect and motor hysteresis were replicated in these conditions, indicating that the effects hold up when physical actions are carried out for the sake of a higher-order goal. Surprisingly, one of the most reliable effects in memory research was eliminated, namely, the tendency of recent items to be recalled better than earlier items -the recency effect. This outcome was not an artifact of memory being uniformly poor, because the tendency of initial items to be recalled better than later items -the primacy effect -was obtained. Elimination of the recency effect was not due to the requirement that participants recall items in their correct order, for the recency effect was also eliminated when the items could be recalled in any order (Experiment 3). These and other aspects of the results support recent claims for tighter links between perceptual-motor control and intellectual (symbolic) processing than have been assumed in the past.

When people are asked to perform actions, they remember those actions better than if they are asked to talk about the same actions. But when people talk, they often gesture with their hands, thus adding an action component to talking. The question we asked in this study was whether producing gesture along with speech makes the information encoded in that speech more memorable than it would have been without gesture. We found that gesturing during encoding led to better recall, even when the amount of speech produced during encoding was controlled. Gesturing during encoding improved recall whether the speaker chose to gesture spontaneously or was instructed to gesture. Thus, gesturing during encoding seems to function like action in facilitating memory.

Instruction in narrative text structure on first graders' listening and reading comprehension was examined with a view to documenting strategy instruction and transfer of learning in beginning readers. Of interest was whether or not first-grade students (n=35) would, following instruction within the context of listening to stories, gain in listening comprehension and transfer this knowledge to support reading comprehension. A comparison group (n=31) received basal activities including listening to and reading stories. Results support teaching text structure concepts to beginning readers. At post-test, the intervention group demonstrated significantly higher listening comprehension, but not free recall, than the comparison group. Persistent group differences were found for reading comprehension. Intervention group students demonstrated superior comprehension in relation to all story elements and more frequently displayed metalinguistic awareness of text structure by labeling and giving examples of story structure concepts.

How readers consume and recall news presented in online and print versions of two newspapers in the Netherlands are investigated in this experimental study. Few differences are found between the online and print versions in terms of news supply. Reader attention to ...