Search

Research is mixed as to whether self-generation improves memory for the source of information. We propose the hypothesis that positive generation effects (better source memory for self-generated information) occur in reality-monitoring paradigms, while negative generation effects (better source memory for externally presented information) tend to occur in external source-monitoring paradigms. This hypothesis was tested in an experiment in which participants read or generated words, followed by a memory test for the source of each word (read or generated) and the word's colour. Meiser and Broder's (2002) multinomial model for crossed source dimensions was used to analyse the data, showing that source memory for generation (reality monitoring) was superior for the generated words, while source memory for word colour (external source monitoring) was superior for the read words. The model also revealed the influence of strong response biases in the data, demonstrating the usefulness of formal modelling when examining generation effects in source monitoring.

An experiment is reported comparing the effectiveness of auditory and visual stimuli in eliciting the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. 30 participants were asked to name the tides of 27 television shows. Half of the participants were given segments of the theme song for each show (auditory cue), and half were shown the cast photographs for each show (visual cue). Participants were asked to report whenever they experienced the tip-of-the-tongue state. There were no significant differences between the auditory and visual stimuli in terms of the incidence rate for the tip-of-the-tongue state, the amount of partial information that participants provided in their responses, or the frequency of interlopers (alternative responses that persistently come to mind). These findings suggest that the characteristics of the tip-of-the-tongue state are determined more by the nature of the response set than by the type of stimuli used as cues. The results are inconsistent with inferential theories of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, such as the cue familiarity hypothesis and, instead, tend to support direct-access hypotheses.

An experiment was conducted to assess whether auditory stimuli could elicit the tip-of-the-tongue state. Subjects were presented segments of 50 television theme songs and asked to indicate the title of the corresponding show. Twenty-one percent of all retrieval attempts resulted in an experience of the tip-of-the-tongue state, with women reporting more such experiences than men. The majority of these experiences contained partial information about the target such as the show's characters, actors, or outline. Subjects in the tip-of-the-tongue state were also able to identify the genre and era of the target show with high accuracy and pick it out amongst distractors in a recognition test. Competing responses were relatively infrequent and were usually semantically related to the target show. The similarities and differences between auditory-induced tip-of-the-tongue states and those for other stimuli are discussed.

This article examines the role that response strategies play in a memory paradigm known as source monitoring. It is argued that several different response biases can interact to confound the interpretation of source-monitoring data. This problem is illustrated with 2 empirical examples, taken from the psychological literature, which examine the role of source monitoring in the generation effect and the picture superiority effect. To resolve this problem, a new multinomial model for source monitoring is presented that is capable of separately measuring memory factors from response-bias factors. The model, when applied to the results of 2 new experiments, results in a clearer picture of which source-monitoring variables are instrumental in the generation effect and picture superiority effect.

Kinchla criticizes Batchelder and Riefer's multinomial model for source monitoring, primarily its high-threshold assumptions, and he advocates an approach based on statistical decision theory (SDT). In this reply, the authors lay out some of the considerations that led to their model and then raise some specific concerns with Kinchla's critique. The authors point out that most of his criticisms are drawn from contrasting the high threshold and the Gaussian, equal-variance SDT models on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for yes-no recognition memory. They indicate how source monitoring is more complicated than yes-no recognition and question the validity of standard ROC analyses in source monitoring. The authors argue that their model is a good approximation for measuring differences between sources on old-new detection and that it has the ability to measure source discrimination as well as detection. The authors also explore a low-threshold multinomial model and discuss the application of SDT models to source monitoring.

An experiment is reported that tested the effectiveness of a common proofreading strategy known as team proofreading. Subjects in 32 pairs proofread a series of passages containing misspellings; one subject read out loud to a partner who followed along silently, both looking for errors. In a control condition both subjects read passages but did so separately. Analysis showed that two proofreaders working on the same passage detected significantly more errors than one proofreader working alone. However, team proofreading itself was not shown to be effective for detecting misspellings, because two readers detected just as many total errors when they read separately as they did working as a team. In addition, reading out loud was not shown to be a beneficial element of team proofreading. The results suggest that having multiple proofreaders is a beneficial strategy for detecting misspellings, but that it is not necessary for readers to work interactively as a team to accomplish this.

A series of experiments was conducted to explore the cognitive processes that mediate the bizarreness effect, that is, the finding that bizarre or unusual imagery is recalled better than common imagery. In all experiments, subjects were presented with noun pairs that were embedded within bizarre or common sentences in a mixed-list design. None of the experiments produced a bizarreness effect for cued recall; however, for two of the experiments, the bizarre noun pairs were remembered significantly better than the common pairs for free recall. To determine if these differences were due to the storage or retrieval of the items, a multinomial model for the analysis of imagery mediation in paired-associate learning was developed and applied to the data from the experiments. The model revealed that bizarre sentences benefited the retrieval of the noun pairs but not their storage within memory. The empirical and modeling results are discussed relative to previous findings and theories on the bizarreness effect.

A series of experiments is reported that examined the effectiveness of a proofreading technique occasionally used by students--reading backwards. Although many educators advocate this strategy, no controlled research has been conducted to evaluate its effectiveness. Exp. 1 showed that backwards reading was actually inferior to reading forwards in detecting contextual errors, with no benefit for detecting misspellings. However, subjects were given standard instructions to proofread quickly, which may have negated any possible benefits of proofreading backwards. Exp. 2, which was designed to eliminate some potential problems with the first experiment, showed that backwards reading can be a beneficial strategy when subjects are specifically instructed to slow down as they read backwards. Exp. 3 further indicated that reading speed is a crucial variable when comparing forwards vs backwards proofreading. The main conclusion from the experiments is that backwards proofreading is an effective strategy for detecting misspellings, provided that it is used to slow students down and help them to focus on each individual word.

This article evaluates the multinomial processing tree models in measuring cognitive deficits in clinical populations. The authors, testing the model in two experiments in which storage and retrieval processes in memory were measured, maintain results demonstrated that multinomial processing tree models are effective tools.