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Recognition tests are perhaps the most studied procedure in experimental research on memory processes. A typical procedure might begin with participants studying too items (e.g., words, pictures, or faces) and [...], Three experiments examined the issue of whether faces could be better recognized in a simultaneous test format (2-alternative forced choice [2AFC]) or a sequential test format (yes-no). All experiments showed that when target faces were present in the test, the simultaneous procedure led to superior performance (area under the ROC curve), whether lures were high or low in similarity to the targets. However, when a target-absent condition was used in which no lures resembled the targets but the lures were similar to each other, the simultaneous procedure yielded higher false alarm rates (Experiments 2 and 3) and worse overall performance (Experiment 3). This pattern persisted even when we excluded responses that participants opted to withhold rather than volunteer. We conclude that for the basic recognition procedures used in these experiments, simultaneous presentation of alternatives (2AFC) generally leads to better discriminability than does sequential presentation (yes-no) when a target is among the alternatives. However, our results also show that the opposite can occur when there is no target among the alternatives. An important future step is to see whether these patterns extend to more realistic eyewitness lineup procedures. The pictures used in the experiment are available online at http://www.press.uillinois.edu/ journals/ajp/media/testing_recognition/.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02410.x Byline: Andrew C. Butler (1), Franklin M. Zaromb (1), Keith B. Lyle (2), Henry L. Roediger, III (1) Abstract: ABSTRACT Popular history films sometimes contain major historical inaccuracies. Two experiments investigated how watching such films influences people's ability to remember associated texts. Subjects watched film clips and studied texts about various historical topics. Whereas the texts contained only correct information, the film clips contained both correct information (consistent with the text) and misinformation (contradicted by the text). Before watching each clip, subjects received a specific warning, a general warning, or no warning about the misinformation. One week later, they returned for a cued-recall test about the texts. Watching a film clip increased correct recall of consistent information relative to recall of the same information when subjects did not see the clip. However, when the information in the film contradicted the text, subjects often (falsely) recalled misinformation from the film. The specific warning substantially reduced this misinformation effect. Teachers should use popular history films with caution and should warn students about major inaccuracies in the films. Author Affiliation: (1)Washington University in St. Louis (2)University of Louisville Article History: (R eceived 12/7/08; R evision accepted 1/31/09) Article note: Address correspondence to Andrew C. Butler, Washington University, Department of Psychology, Campus Box 1125, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, e-mail: butler@wustl.edu.

Origin stories are particularly influential collective memories, establishing a society in the minds of its members. National collective memories are frequently conceived as being shared by all members of the country, but subnational groups may differ in their images of the group's past. Surveying 2000 Americans, we examined political and religious differences in foundational events selected for America's origins. While there was considerable agreement across religious and political affiliations for the most important events, there were also critical differences. While all participants demonstrated a marked positivity bias in their origin stories, conservative participants more frequently omitted foundational atrocities from America's origin story, and thus had the most positive stories. Secular participants were most likely to begin America with the independent state, whereas religious participants frequently began America with earlier colonization events. Origin stories accord with varying images of America and American identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe three areas of inquiry that we foresee as being important in future studies of collective memory, mind, and media. The first is the power of narratives, usually provided by collectives, which can be explicit and conscious or implicit and unconscious. A second important theme during this period of populism and nationalism is the study of the self-centredness (or egocentricity) of groups, especially nations believing their past is special. Such egocentricity can feed conflict among nations as well as groups within nations. The third important direction for research is future thinking, or studies of how people anticipate events they expect to unroll in their future and whether these events are mostly positive or negative. A puzzle of future thinking relative to collective memory is why people readily argue about and even fight over events from the past, but find it much more difficult to mobilise groups about life-threatening future events such as global warming or nuclear war. We look forward to studies in these crucial topics and others as they appear in Memory, Mind & Media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective memory refers to the memories that individuals have as members of the groups to which they belong, whether small (family, school) or large (political party, nation). Membership in some groups can form a strong part of a person's individual identity. Collective memory is history as people remember it; it is not formal history, because the "memories" of a group are often contradicted by historical fact. Although collective memory is held within individuals, it has rarely been studied by psychologists, because they have concentrated on studying the learning of individual events (such as word lists) in the laboratory or retrieving events of one's life (autobiographical memory). Three facets of collective memory are the focus of this article. First, collective memory can be a body of knowledge about a topic. However, this knowledge base may change over generations of a people. Second, collective memory often portrays an image of a people, and often this image arises from the group's origin story or charter. Third, collective memory is a process; collective remembering can reveal disputes and contestations about how the past should be remembered. One useful purpose of collective memory studies is to capture how different groups and societies remember their history and to discern their shared perspective on the world and how such perspectives differ among groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the standard levels-of-processing (LOP) paradigm, subjects are presented with a question directing them to attend to surface features (case), phonetic features (rhyme), or semantic features (category) of an upcoming word. Answering the question greatly affects recall and recognition for the word, and this outcome is attributed to differing LOP of the word. Craik (1977) reasoned that if the words appeared before the questions (i.e., the word-first paradigm) under intentional learning instructions, the LOP effect would disappear. However, when he conducted experiments using the word-first paradigm, the effect remained. We conducted 2 experiments to try to explain this puzzle. In the first experiment, we replicated Craik's findings in one condition, and in other conditions we asked subjects to make judgments of learning (JOLs) in an attempt to eliminate the LOP effect because JOLs seem to promote deep processing. However, the LOP effect still occurred, albeit in attenuated form. In Experiment 2, we tested 2 new conditions to overcome and explain the LOP effect in the word-first paradigm. In one case, subjects were instructed to use idiosyncratic study strategies to memorize the word; the second condition required subjects to perform pleasantness judgments on the words. The pleasantness rating condition eliminated the LOP effect, but the first did not. We conclude that in the word-first paradigm, subjects typically keep the word in mind without semantic processing using rote rehearsal, despite intentional learning instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory may play a critical role in the ability to imagine events in the future. While most work on this relation has concerned episodic memory and simulated episodic events in the future, the current study examines how collective memories relate to imagination for the collective future. Two thousand American participants provided events for (1) America's origins, (2) normative events that all Americans should remember, and (3) events in America's future. Each event was rated for emotional valence. Whereas collective memories – particularly origin events – showed pronounced positivity biases, there was a negativity bias in collective future thought, indicating an implicit trajectory of decline in Americans' representations of their nation across time. Imagination for the social future may not be simulated based on the template of collective memories, but may rather relate to the past in a way that is mediated by cultural narrative schemata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective memories are memories or historical knowledge shared by individual group members, which shape their collective identity. Ingroup inflation, which has previously also been referred to as national narcissism or state narcissism, is the finding that group members judge their own group to have been significantly more historically influential than do people from outside the group. We examined the role of moral motivations in this biased remembering. A sample of 2118 participants, on average 42 from each state of the United States, rated their home state's contribution to U.S. history, as well as that of ten other states randomly selected. We demonstrated an ingroup inflation effect in estimates of the group's historical influence. Participants' endorsement of binding values – loyalty, authority, and sanctity, but particularly loyalty – positively predicted the size of this effect. Endorsement of individuating values – care and fairness – did not predict collective narcissism. Moral motives may shape biases in collective remembering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed the knowledge of 1,338 people from 11 countries (8 former Allied and 3 former Axis) about World War II. When asked what percentage their country contributed to the war effort, across Allied countries, estimates totaled 309%, and Axis nations’ estimates came to 140%. People in 4 nations claimed more than 50% responsibility for their country (Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). The overclaiming of responsibility reflected in these percentages was moderated when subjects were asked to consider the contributions of other countries; however, Russians continued to claim great responsibility, the only country that remained well over 50% in its claim of responsibility for the Allied victory. If deaths in the war are considered a proxy of a nation’s contributions, the Soviet Union did carry much of the burden. This study points to sharp differences in national memory even across nations who fought on the same side in the war. Differing national perspectives shape diverse memories of the same complex event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]