A naturalistic study of the word frequency effect in episodic recognition

Chalmers, Kerry A.; Humphreys, Michael S.; Dennis, Simon

doi:10.3758/bf03211321

Cited by 22 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…The same pattern of results was obtained with corrected hits (hits false alarms) as the measure of accuracy. Thus the present study replicates prior research with respect to item recognition; recognition accuracy was an inverted Ushaped function of word frequency, with highest accuracy for words of relatively low frequency and lower accuracy for words of high and very low frequency (e.g., Chalmers et al, 1997;Mandler et al, 1982;Rao & Proctor, 1984;Schulman, 1976;Wixted, 1992;Zechmeister, Curt, & Sebastian, 1978). 3 Figure 2 presents the results of the order reconstruction test.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 60%

“…The present experiment was designed to determine whether very low-frequency words, which do not enhance item encoding, would disrupt encoding of absolute order. Over a wide range of word frequency, the relationship between frequency and accuracy in recognition memory is an inverted U-shaped function; low-frequency words produce the highest recognition accuracy, and highand very low-frequency words produce lower accuracy (e.g., Chalmers, Humphreys, & Dennis, 1997;Mandler, Goodman, & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1982;Rao & Proctor, 1984;Schulman, 1976;Wixted, 1992). Thus, very low-frequency words do not typically enhance item memory relative to high-frequency items.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Word frequency and memory: Effects on absolute versus relative order memory and on item memory versus order memory

Mulligan

2001

Memory & Cognition

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A primary reason that memory researchers are interested in word frequency is that it produces opposite effects on recognition and recall. Low-frequency words produce better recognition memory, whereas high-frequency words produce superior recall (at least in pure-list designs, as discussed below) (see, e.g., Shepard, 1967; and see Gregg, 1976, for an early review). These results have informed debates about the relationship between recall and recognition, and they are traditionally interpreted as strong evidence against single-process models of recognition and recall (e.g., Crowder, 1976;Murdock, 1974). Word frequency effects are also important to theoretical models of recognition memory, such as dual-process models (e.g., Chalmers & Humphreys, 1998;Gardiner & Java, 1990;Guttentag & Carroll, 1997;Jacoby & Dallas, 1981;Mandler, 1980), as well as to attempts to delineate empirical regularities in recognition memory, such as the mirror effect (e.g., Glanzer, Adams, Iverson, & Kim, 1993;Greene, 1996;Maddox & Estes, 1997;Wixted, 1992).A traditional account of the word frequency effect in recall is that high-frequency words lend themselves to more organizationaland interitem associative processing (Gregg, 1976;Schulman, 1976;Zechmeister & Nyberg, 1982), types of encoding that are especially useful in recall but that have little impact on recognition (e.g., Hunt & McDaniel, 1993;Kintsch, 1977). Several results are consistent with this view. First, in comparison with low-frequency words, high-frequency words produce more category clustering in recall protocols (e.g., Bousfield & Cohen, 1955), a standard index of organizational processing at encoding (e.g., Hunt & Einstein, 1981). Second, meaning-based associations are more easily produced in lists of high-frequency items (e.g., Sumby, 1963;Tulving & Patkau, 1962), enhancing later recall. Third, the index of interitem associative strengths, which is predictive of recall, is greater with high-than with low-frequency lists (Deese, 1960) (see Gregg, 1976, for additional evidence for the importance of organizational and associative bases of the word frequency effect in recall). Finally, and most important for the present purposes, high-frequency words produce greater order memory, as measured by the order reconstruction task (DeLosh & McDaniel, 1996). Under the standard assumption that this and other tests of absolute order are based on interitem associations (Greene, Thapar, & Westerman, 1998; Hunt & McDaniel,1993;McDaniel, DeLosh, & Merritt, 2000; see also Li & Lewandowsky, 1993), these results imply that high-frequency words lead to more interitem associative encoding than do low-frequency words.This traditional view is expanded in the order-encoding hypothesis proposed by DeLosh and McDaniel (1996). This hypothesis proposes that word frequency produces an encoding tradeoff between information about the item itself and information about the order in which items occur. According to this view, the unusual nature of low-frequency words focuses processing resources on item ch...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Word frequency and memory: Effects on absolute versus relative order memory and on item memory versus order memory

Mulligan

2001

Memory & Cognition

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“…In Experiment 1, although we attempted to create low GSM by including non-words at study and test (e.g., Chalmers & Humphreys, 1998;Chalmers, Humphreys & Dennis, 1997;Whittlesea & Williams, 1998;Wixted, 1992) there is actually some evidence that by only including a small proportion of such items, they became distinctive, thus potentially increasing, rather than decreasing, the GSM of the list. For example, the nonword FAR (0.171) was the same as the FAR for weak words (0.174), whereas the (once-presented) nonword HR (0.723) exceeded the HR for the (once-presented) weak words (0.658).…”

Section: The Global Subjective Memorability Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Global subjective memorability and the strength-based mirror effect in recognition memory

2009

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The mirror effect and subjective memorability (C481) 2 Abstract Between-list manipulations of memory strength through repetition commonly generate a mirror effect, with more hits, and fewer false alarms for strengthened items. However, this pattern is rarely seen with withinlist manipulations of strength. Three experiments investigated the conditions under which a within-list mirror effect of strength (items presented once or thrice) is observed. In Experiments 1 and 2, we indirectly manipulated the overall subjective memorability of the studied lists by varying the proportion of non-words. A within-list mirror effect was observed only in Experiment 2, where a higher proportion of non-words was presented in the study list. In Experiment 3, the presentation duration for each item (0.5 s versus 3 s) was manipulated between groups with the purpose of affecting subjective memorability: A within-list mirror effect was observed only for the short-presentation durations. Thus, across three experiments, we found the within-list mirror effect only under conditions of poor overall subjective memorability. We propose that when the overall subjective memorability is low, people switch their response strategy on an item-by-item basis, and that this generates the observed mirror effect.The mirror effect and subjective memorability (C481) 3 Global Subjective Memorability and the Strength-Based Mirror Effect in Recognition MemoryIn recognition memory experiments, participants first study a list of items and then later, in a recognition memory test, they attempt to discriminate previously presented items (targets) from novel ones (distractors). A commonly used conceptual tool for understanding recognition memory performance is signal detection theory (SDT). According to SDT, targets and distractors on the recognition memory test are each distributed over a psychological strength-of-evidence dimension, with targets having higher mean strength than distractors (Figure 1). To make a recognition decision, participants are assumed to adopt a response criterion (c in Figure 1) somewhere along the strength-of-evidence dimension. If a test item has strength equal to or above the criterion, it is judged "old", otherwise, it is judged "new". The proportion of targets and distractors that are called "old" are dubbed the hit rate (HR) and false alarm rate (FAR), respectively.The mirror effect is a phenomenon of recognition memory in which better old/new discrimination in one condition versus another is manifested as both a higher HR and a lower FAR (e.g., Glanzer & Adams, 1985;Glanzer, Adams, Iverson & Kim, 1993). The consistency with which the mirror effect has been observed with different recognition tasks and with different experimental manipulations, led Glanzer et al. to describe it as a "regularity" (p. 546) of recognition memory. Stretch and Wixted (1998) investigated the causes of the word frequency and the repetitionbased mirror effects, and concluded that the latter is a consequence of a shift in the placement of the SDT response ...

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“…In an early study (Allen & Garton, 1968), physics students recognised physics words from a list better than did arts students, but both groups of students recognised physics words better than common words. Similarly, in a more recent study (Chalmers, Humphreys, & Dennis, 1997), computer science students showed better episodic recognition of rare computer science terms than psychology students, although both groups showed an advantage for low-frequency over high-frequency words. The finding that relatively rare words are better recognised than relatively common words is a consistent and widely reproduced finding (reviewed by Chalmers & Humphreys, 1998;Reder et al, 2000), but it flies in the face of the generalisation that frequent prior experience enhances memory.…”

Section: The Memorability Of Names and The Divergent Effects Of Priormentioning

confidence: 99%

The memorability of names and the divergent effects of prior experience

Stenberg

Hellman

Johansson

2008

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology

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A naturalistic study of the word frequency effect in episodic recognition

Cited by 22 publications

References 9 publications

Word frequency and memory: Effects on absolute versus relative order memory and on item memory versus order memory

Word frequency and memory: Effects on absolute versus relative order memory and on item memory versus order memory

Global subjective memorability and the strength-based mirror effect in recognition memory

The memorability of names and the divergent effects of prior experience

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