Context-dependent recognition memory: The ICE theory.

Murnane, Kevin S.; Phelps, Matthew P.; Malmberg, Kenneth J.

doi:10.1037/0096-3445.128.4.403

Cited by 192 publications

(268 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Unlike other theories of episodic context (Estes, 1955;Mensink & Raaijmakers, 1988;Murnane et al, 1999), this conceptualization of the context used to perform episodic memory tasks assumes that item and context information are not independent; this proposal is consistent with the formal model described by Howard and Kahana (2002). According to our view, context is partly determined by the kind of words encountered in a situation, which in turn might lead to expectations for other words to occur in that context (see also Griffiths & Steyvers, in press); that is, context and item information are not independent sources of in- Figure 3.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Hintzman & Summers, 1973). Context has also been defined as the physical environment in which an item occurs (e.g., Godden & Baddeley, 1975;Murnane & Phelps, 1993, 1994, 1995Murnane, Phelps, & Malmberg, 1999;Smith, Glenberg, & Bjork, 1978). Howard and Kahana (2002) described the context associated with a given item as a composite representation of the semantic features of the items that preceded it on a list.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory.

Steyvers¹,

Malmberg²

2003

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

135

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According to some theories of recognition memory (e.g., S. Dennis & M. S. Humphreys, 2001), the number of different contexts in which words appear determines how memorable individual occurences of words will be: A word that occurs in a small number of different contexts should be better recognized than a word that appears in a larger number of different contexts. To empirically test this prediction, a normative measure is developed, referred to here as context variability, that estimates the number of different contexts in which words appear in everyday life. These findings confirm the prediction that words low in context variability are better recognized (on average) than words that are high in context variability.In a typical recognition memory experiment, a list of words is studied, and memory is tested subsequently by showing subjects both words that were studied (i.e., targets) and words that were not studied (i.e., foils). The subject's task is to discriminate the targets from the foils. Of course, subjects have encountered words a large number of times in many different contexts prior to the experiment. Hence, the subject's rather daunting task is to discriminate the most recent encounter with a word from all prior encounters.Theories of memory usually address this issue by making a distinction between item and context information (e.g., Anderson & Bower, 1972;Dennis & Humphreys, 2001;Humphreys, Bain, & Pike, 1989;Jacoby, 1991;Maddox & Estes, 1997;McGeoch, 1942;Mensink & Raaijmakers, 1988;Raaijmakers & Shiffrin, 1981;Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997): Item information represents a studied stimulus (e.g., a word), and context information represents the environment in which the stimulus was encountered. According to these theories, when an item is studied, both item and context information are stored in an episodic trace, and when recognition memory is tested, memory is probed with a retrieval cue consisting of both item and context information. The critical role context plays in the retrieval cue is to restrict the probe to the relevant subset of memory traces (as defined by the task). Those episodic traces that contain context information similar to the retrieval cue might become members of the "activated" subset of memory and contribute information to the recognition decision. Hence, the to-be-remembered encounter with a word can, in principle, be isolated from prior encounters according to the similarity between the context used in the retrieval cue and context information stored in memory.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory.

Steyvers¹,

Malmberg²

2003

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

135

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show abstract

“…The experiments described here demonstrate that reinstating the physical characteristics, or context, of a word at test will increase recognition accuracy. It should be noted that this effect of reinstating context is likely to occur only when the contextual information is integrated with the target information during encoding, as was encouraged in these experiments by the encoding task and the physical integration of the word and the font (Murnane, Phelps, & Malmberg, 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The list strength effect: A contextual competition account

Diana

Reder

2005

Memory & Cognition

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Research on the list strength effect (LSE) has shown that learning some words on a list more strongly than others impairs memory for the weakly learned words when tested with a recall task. Norman (2002) demonstrated that the LSE also occurs within the recollection process of a recognition test. In this study, a mechanistic dual-process account of the LSE was tested that simultaneously makes predictions concerning additional sources of context in interference effects. In two experiments, we attempted to replicate Norman's (2002) findings and provide the basis for our modeling efforts. We found evidence for a recollection LSE in raw measures of responding, with memory performance also benefiting from reinstatement of perceptual characteristics at test. However, large differences in the hits between the lists were accompanied by small differences in false alarms, such that when d′ is calculated, differences between the lists are not significant. We propose an account of the LSE whereby the actual effect of competition between items on the list is small, although present, and difficult to distinguish from large effects of bias due to the strength manipulations. We argue that our findings provide support for a mechanistic explanation of LSE that is based on competition of source activation and changes in the thresholds for responses.

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“…Finding large directed forgetting costs in recognition would be problematic for the context change account because with words, context effects are typically small or nonexistent in recognition testing (cf. Smith & Vela, 2001; but see Murnane et al, 1999).…”

Section: Traditional Measures: Analyses Of Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of directed forgetting costs in recognition testing is not problematic for our two-factor model because we view the costs as a phenomenon arising from contextual change. Most context effects are not detected with recognition tests (Smith & Vela, 2001; but see Murnane, Phelps, & Malmberg, 1999). However, if participants tend to change to a better encoding strategy following a forget instruction, then the List 2 benefits of directed forgetting should be observed in recognition testing as well.…”

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confidence: 99%

Directed Forgetting in Incidental Learning and Recognition Testing: Support for a Two-Factor Account.

Sahakyan¹,

Delaney²

2005

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

125

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Abstract:Instructing people to forget a list of items often leads to better recall of subsequently studied lists (known as the benefits of directed forgetting). The authors have proposed that changes in study strategy are a central cause of the benefits (L. Sahakyan & P. F. Delaney, 2003). The authors address 2 results from the literature that are inconsistent with their strategy-based explanation: (a) the presence of benefits under incidental learning conditions and (b) the absence of benefits in recognition testing. Experiment 1 showed that incidental learning attenuated the benefits compared with intentional learning, as expected if a change of study strategy causes the benefits. Experiment 2 demonstrated benefits using recognition testing, albeit only when longer lists were used. Memory for source in directed forgetting was also explored using multinomial modeling. Results are discussed in terms of a 2-factor account of directed forgetting. Key words: directed forgetting, intentional forgetting, study strategies, multinomial modeling, inhibition Article:When people find out that they are talking to a memory specialist, they often ask about how to improve their memories and how to remember more effectively. The irony of this is that people should perhaps be interested in how to forget things better in order to improve memory, as it appears that forgetting often leads to better memory (R. A. Bjork, 1989).One way to study the linkage between forgetting and learning is to ask people to forget something they have just studied-a procedure known as directed forgetting. A forget instruction can be delivered either after each item (known as the item method) or after a block of items (known as the list method). These two methodologies were shown to have different underlying mechanisms, with the item method reflecting encoding phenomena (better encoding of forget vs. remember items), and the list method most likely reflecting retrieval phenomena (e.g., Basden, Basden, & Gargano, 1993;R. A. Bjork, 1989). The current article focuses on the list method of directed forgetting because the mechanism underlying this phenomenon has created a variety of theoretical viewpoints as opposed to the mechanism supporting the item method. (For a more complete review of directed forgetting and related procedures such as specific intentional forgetting, see H. Johnson, 1994, or MacLeod, 1998 A typical list method directed forgetting study presents participants with two word lists to study. Between administration of the two lists, the experimenter instructs half of the participants to forget the first list and the  We are grateful to Xiangen Hu and William Batchelder for their help with the GPT.EXE software and multinomial models in general. Thanks also go to Kathryn Hughes, Kristin Kukharenko, Ryan Lobo, and Isabel Manzano for their help in data collection and scoring.

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Context-dependent recognition memory: The ICE theory.

Cited by 192 publications

References 35 publications

The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory.

The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory.

The list strength effect: A contextual competition account

Directed Forgetting in Incidental Learning and Recognition Testing: Support for a Two-Factor Account.

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