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Fake news can impair memory leading to societal controversies such as COVID-19 vaccine efficacy. The pernicious influence of fake news is clear when ineffective corrections leave memories outdated. A key theoretical issue is whether people should recall fake news while reading corrections with contradictory details. The familiarity backfire view proposes that recalling fake news increases its familiarity, leading to interference. However, the integrative encoding view proposes that recalling fake news promotes co-activation and binding of contradictory details, leading to facilitation. Two experiments examined if one theory better accounts for memory updating after participants recalled actual fake news details when reading headlines that corrected misinformation. In Phase 1, participants read real and fake news headlines of unclear veracity taken from various internet sources. In Phase 2, participants read real news headlines that reaffirmed real news and corrected fake news from Phase 1. When they detected that Phase 2 real news corrected fake news, they attempted to recall Phase 1 fake news. In Phase 3, participants first recalled real news details. When they remembered that those details were corrections from Phase 2, they attempted to recall fake news from Phase 1. Recalling fake news when noticing corrections in Phase 2 led to better memory for real news in Phase 3 when fake news was recalled again and worse memory for real news in Phase 3 when fake news was not recalled again. Both views explain part of the memory differences associated with recalling fake news during corrections, but only when considering whether people recollected that fake news had been corrected.

Introduction: The Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST) is a widely used measure of individual tendency to discern small differences between remembered and presently presented stimuli. Significant work has established this measure as a reliable index of neurological and cognitive dysfunction and decline. However, questions remain about the neural and psychological mechanisms that support performance in the task. Methods: Here, we provide new insights into these questions by fitting seven previously-collected MST datasets (total N = 519), adapting a three-choice evidence accumulation model (the Linear Ballistic Accumulator). The model decomposes choices into automatic and deliberative components. Results: We show that these decomposed processes both contribute to the standard measure of behavior in this task, as well as capturing individual variation in this measure across the lifespan. We also exploit a delayed test/re-test manipulation in one of the experiments to show that model parameters exhibit improved stability, relative to the standard metric, across a 1 week delay. Finally, we apply the model to a resting-state fMRI dataset, finding that only the deliberative component corresponds to off-task co-activation in networks associated with long-term, episodic memory. Discussion: Taken together, these findings establish a novel mechanistic decomposition of MST behavior and help to constrain theories about the cognitive processes that support performance in the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current developmental psychopathology models indicate that schizophrenia can be understood as the most extreme expression of a multidimensional continuum of symptoms and impairment referred to as schizotypy. In nondisordered adults, schizotypy predicts risk for developing schizophrenia‐spectrum psychopathology. Schizophrenia is associated with disruptions in detecting subtle differences between objects, which is linked to hippocampal dysfunction. These disruptions have been shown in the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST) when patients are less likely to reject lures that are similar but not identical to studied objects, and instead mistake them for studied items. This pattern of errors may be a behavioral manifestation of impaired pattern separation, a key episodic memory ability associated with hippocampal integrity and overreliance on pattern completion. We examined whether multidimensional schizotypy is associated with such deficits in nondisordered young adults. Participants (n = 230) were assessed for positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy and completed the MST and a perceptual discrimination task. MST performance showed that a combination of elevated negative and disorganized schizotypy was associated with decreased rejections of similar lures because they were mistakenly identified as studied items. These deficits were not observed in traditional recognition measures within the same task, nor in perceptual discrimination, suggesting that mnemonic discrimination deficits assessed by MST were selective and did not reflect generalized deficits. These findings extend the results obtained in schizophrenia patients and support a multidimensional model of schizophrenia‐spectrum psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments contrasted recollection of change with differentiation as means of avoiding retroactive interference and proactive interference. We manipulated the extent to which participants looked back to notice change between pairs of cues and targets (A-B, A-D) and measured the effects on later cued recall of either the first or second response. Two lists of word pairs were presented. Some right-hand members of pairs were changed within List 2, whereas others were changed between lists. Participants in a Within-List Back condition were instructed to detect changes that occurred only during List 2, in an effort to reduce noticing changes in pairs between lists while simultaneously differentiating the 2 lists. In contrast, participants in an N-Back condition were instructed to detect both within-list and between-list changes. Recall of first list responses that changed between lists produced retroactive facilitation for the N-Back condition but not for the Within-List Back condition. Similarly, recall of second list responses that changed between lists produced proactive facilitation for the N-Back condition but not for the Within-List Back condition. The greater extent of looking back increased detection of change and later recollection of change, which produced facilitation. When change was not recollected, detected change produced proactive interference. The recursive reminding produced when change is noticed contrasts with the simple associations of classic interference theory, and memory performance when change is recollected contrasts with the predictions of interference theory.

Three experiments examined the role of study-phase retrieval (reminding) in the effects of spaced repetitions on cued recall. Remindings were brought under task control to evaluate their effects. Participants studied 2 lists of word pairs containing 3 item types: single items that appeared once in List 2, within-list repetitions that appeared twice in List 2, and between-list repetitions that appeared once in List 1 and once in List 2. Our primary interest was in performance on between-list repetitions. Detection of between-list repetitions was encouraged in an n-back condition by instructing participants to indicate when a presented item was a repetition of any preceding item, including items presented in List 1. In contrast, detection of between-list repetitions was discouraged in a within-list back condition by instructing participants only to indicate repetitions occurring in List 2. Cued recall of between-list repetitions was enhanced when instructions encouraged detection of List 1 presentations. These results accord with those from prior experiments showing a role of study-phase retrieval in effects of spacing repetitions. Past experiments have relied on conditionalized data to draw conclusions, producing the possibility that performance benefits merely reflected effects of item selection. By bringing effects under task control, we avoided that problem. Our results provide evidence that reminding resulting from retrieval of earlier presentations plays a role in the effects of spaced repetitions on cued recall. However, our results also reveal that such retrievals are not necessary to produce an effect of spacing repetitions.

Three experiments examined testing effects on learning of natural concepts and metacognitive assessments of such learning. Results revealed that testing enhanced recognition memory and classification accuracy for studied and novel exemplars of bird families on immediate and delayed tests. These effects depended on the balance of study and test trials during training. Metacognitive measures provided results suggesting that participants were aware of the beneficial effects of testing. A new measure of metacognition at the level of categories is introduced and shown to be potentially useful for theory and applied purposes. It is argued that focusing on optimizing the learning of natural concepts encourages the convergence of theorizing about memory, concept learning, and metacognition and holds promise for the development of applications to education. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure and 1 footnote.)

Age-related episodic memory deficits imply that older and younger adults differentially retrieve and monitor contextual features that indicate the source of studied information. Such differences have been shown in subjective reports during recognition and cued recall as well as process estimates derived from computational models of free recall organisation. The present study extends the subject report method to free recall to characterise age differences in context retrieval and monitoring, and to test assumptions from a context-based computational model. Older and younger adults studied two lists of semantically related words and then recalled from only the first or second list. After each recall, participants indicated their subjective context retrieval using remember/know judgments. Compared to younger adults, older adults showed lower recall accuracy and subjective reports of context retrieval (i.e., remember judgments) that were less specific to correct recalls. These differences appeared after first-recall attempts. Recall functions conditioned on serial positions were more continual across correct recalls from target lists and intrusions from non-target lists for older than younger adults. Together with other analyses of context retrieval and monitoring reported here, these findings suggest that older adults retrieved context less distinctively across the recall period, leading to greater perceived similarity for temporally contiguous lists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]