Decisions following reading and bias in recall

Abstract

The role of decision making in biasing recall of prose was examined. Both making a decision subsequent to reading and encountering an experimenter-provided decision resulted in recall biased in the direction of the decision. Conditions in which subjects made their own decisions, however, resulted in greater levels of decision-congruent recall than did conditions in which the experimenters furnished decisions to subjects. In addition, the level of recall of incongruent information in the subject-made decisions conditions was as high as the level of congruent information observed in the experimenter-provided decisions conditions. A memory-restructuring model, suggested by Dellarosa and Bourne (1984), accounts for the results if it is true that greater elaboration of both decision-congruent and decision-incongruent information during subject-made decisions occurs.Recently, Dellarosa and Bourne (1984) observed that the provision of additional information subsequent to reading had essentially the same effect on bias in recall as did decision making. They argued that the decision-making process itself had little impact on how information about the passage was stored. They suggested that the decision served the same function as a statement given readers subsequent to reading; that is, either the decision itself or the statement was stored as afocal point for the information retained in memory related to the passage.Although it seems clear from Dellarosa and Bourne's (1984) work that both decisions and statements given after reading bias recall, it is unclear whether the processes involved in obtaining these biases are the same. Several studies have shown that decision making increases the amount of text material recalled relative to other procedures that do not involve decision making on the part of readers (e.g., Benton, Glover, & Bruning, 1983; Benton, Glover, Monkowski, & Shaughnessy, 1983;Glover, Bruning, & Plake, 1982). It may very well be that statements provided after reading bias recall by reducing the potential that decision-incongruent information will be available at the time of recall. In terms of decisions, however, it seems that an alternative explanation is possible; that is, biases may result not from the attenuated availability of decision-incongruent information at the time of recall, but rather through an increase in the amount of decision-congruent information available.The current study examined the effects of decision making and the provision of statements subsequent to reading on biases in readers' recall. Five conditions were included: subject-made positive decisions (SP), subjectmade negative decisions (SN), experimenter-provided positive intervening information (EP), experimenterprovided negative intervening information (EN), and conRequests for reprints should be sent to John A. Glover, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0440. Copies of the stimulus materials are available on request. 77 trol. Both positive and negative options were included becaus...

Evidence, memory, and causal order in a complex audit decision task.

“…The results were robust in a variety of conditions introduced to undermine biased memory, including varying delay time and imposing a decision on the participants. Similar findings were reported by Timme, Corkill, and Glover (1987) in a short study about memory after reading. This leads to Hypothesis 1: Seniors are more likely to correctly recognize target sentences that are consistent with their prior decisions than sentences that are inconsistent with their prior decisions.…”

Stereotypic biases in social decision making and memory: Testing process models of stereotype use.

“…This pattern does not reflect a general tendency to recall decision-consistent information. Second, Dellarosa and Bourne's findings have been called into question by Timme, Corkill, and Glover (1987). In their replication of the study by Dellarosa and Bourne, they found that recall of decision-inconsistent material (as well as consistent material) was facilitated by making a decision about previously read material.…”