DOCSLIB.ORG

The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony by Jennifer Wiseman A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Wilkes Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a Concentration in Psychology Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Jupiter, Florida May 2008 The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony by Jennifer Wiseman This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Dr. Julie L. Earles, and has been approved by the members of her/his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ____________________________ Dr. Julie L. Earles ____________________________ Dr. William O’Brien ______________________________ Dean, Wilkes Honors College ____________ Date ii ABSTRACT Author: Jennifer Wiseman Title: The bizarreness effect and memory: Implications for eyewitness testimony Institution: Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Julie L. Earles Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Concentration: Psychology Year: 2008 Mistakes in combining components of stimuli are called binding or memory conjunction errors. They occur when people mistakenly associate two previously seen stimulus features that were not previously seen together. It is hypothesized that bizarre items will be better remembered than common items. Participants saw 18 continuous events, each containing four actions performed by four different actors. One week later they returned for a recognition test and were shown more video clips. There were old, new action, and conjunction items. A conjunction item was composed of a familiar actor performing a familiar action that had previously been performed by someone else. For each clip, participants were asked if they saw this person perform this action before. Participants responded ―yes‖ to conjunction same context items more often than they did to conjunction different context items. iii To all of my friends, who helped me so much Table of Contents 1. List of Tables…………………………………………………………………….v 2. The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony………………………………………………………………………..1 a. Introduction………………………………………………………………1 b. Overview of Experiment………………………………………………17 3. Method………………………………………………………………………….18 a. Participants…………………………………………………………….18 b. Procedure……………………………………………………………...19 i. Stimuli generation and filming……………………………….19 ii. Encoding……………………………………………………….22 iii. Retrieval………………………………………………………..23 4. Results………………………………………………………………………….24 a. Yes responses…………………………………………………………24 i. Yes responses to non-bizarre items…………………………24 ii. Yes responses to bizarre items………………………………25 b. Confidence data…………………………………………………….....25 i. Non-bizarre items……………………………………………...26 ii. Bizarre items…………………………………………………...26 5. Discussion……………………………………………………………………...27 a. Yes responses…………………………………………………………27 i. Non-bizarre items………………………………………..........27 ii. Bizarre items…………………………………………………...29 b. Confidence data……………………………………………………….31 i. Non-bizarre items……………………………………………...31 ii. Bizarre items…………………………………………………...32 6. Conclusions……………………………………………………………............32 iv 7. Tables 1-5…………………………………………………………………..34-38 8. Figure captions…………………………………………………………………39 9. Figures 1-4…………………………………………………………………40-43 10. Appendices A-B…………………………………………………………...44-45 11. References……………………………………………………………………..46 v List of Tables 1. Participant Characteristics 2. Proportion Of Yes Responses By Item Type—Non-Bizarre Items 3. Proportion Of Yes Responses By Item Type—Bizarre Items 4. Average Confidence Ratings By Item Type—Non-Bizarre Items 5. Average Confidence Ratings By Item Type—Bizarre Items vi The Bizarreness Effect and Memory: Implications for Eyewitness Testimony Introduction Every day we make attributions and associations between features to produce whole objects. We see the color green and a tree full of leaves and later remember this as green leaves. This is an example of binding. This process, creating associations among different stimulus features to represent the relationship among them (Kersten, Earles, Curtayne, & Lane, in press), is generally thought to be automatic. For the most part, we tend to make the correct associations between features, but mistakes do occur. So what causes us to make these errors? To understand this, we first must define the errors themselves. A binding error, or memory conjunction error, is the result of a person misidentifying a stimulus as ―old‖ because he or she has seen the stimulus parts previously, but not in the current combination (Reinitz, Verfaellie, & Milberg, 1996). These two mistakenly associated features are then believed to belong together (Kersten et al., in press), and the person believes that he or she has seen the newly combined stimulus before (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001). In other words, the global structure of the stimulus parts is not remembered, either because of selectively forgetting or simply failing to encode it (Reinitz et al., 1996). By referring to the ―global structure‖ we mean the original combination of two stimulus parts, the ―whole‖. It is easy to see that correctly combining features 1 is important. You would not want to take a second dose of a medication because you did not remember that you had already taken it. So if this association is so very important, why do binding errors occur? Several authors have proposed that these binding errors occur as a result of miscombination of features during retrieval (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001). Others believe that there is a lack of explicit recollection in the face of familiarity (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001; Jones & Jacoby, 2001; Earles, Kersten, Curtayne, & Perle, submitted), divided, or lack of attention (Treisman & Schmidt, 1982; Jones & Jacoby, 2001 ; Prinzmetal, Presti, & Posner,1986; Reinitz, Morrissey, & Demb, 1994), unconscious transference (Read, Tollestrup, Hammersley, McFadzen, & Christensen,1990; Ross, Ceci, Dunning, & Toglia, 1994; Earles et al., submitted),or source monitoring (Henkel, Johnson, & De Leonardis,1998; Ross et al.,1994). One implication of the idea that features are miscombined is that the parts must be encoded or stored separately in order for any miscombination to occur. There are several studies that show evidence for this (Prinzmetal et al., 1986). These features can include several different things, such as simple and descriptive features like color, size, shape, texture, etc, or they can be more complex, such as actor and action. The systems that process these features are also thought to be independent of each other (Treisman & Schmidt, 1982) and are often described as separate feature maps that encode the separate features, meaning that one would need some sort of bridge between the maps to correctly 2 re-associate the features (Kersten et al., in press). This scenario implies that there is a deficit in memory when conjunction errors are made. It is also possible that, when encoding a stimulus, one simply fails to encode the association between features, or that the association between the features is forgotten more quickly than the features themselves. It is also possible that the separate features are bound together in the encoding process using an incorrect association and are then remembered in that form (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001). This process is seen when memory conjunction errors occur in recall, or when a person is asked to later recognize a stimulus as old or new (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001). In non-laboratory settings, an example of this occurs when a person ―mixes their metaphors‖. They express part of one metaphor and part of another as if they were part of the whole, and generally believe that association to be correct. These possibilities are supported by the proximity effects found by Reinitz and Hannigan (2001). When the distance between two stimuli is the basis for conjunction errors, this is called a proximity effect. In other words, the closer two stimuli are to one another in presentation, the more conjunction errors will be made concerning those two stimuli. When a stimulus was presented to a participant at the same time as at least one other stimulus, the number of conjunction errors increased. Basically, when presented with stimuli at the same time, it rendered the within-pair conjunction stimuli (a blending of the two faces 3 that had been presented together at encoding) much less discernable than other stimuli (Reinitz & Hannigan, 2001). Reinitz et al. (1992) propose that the information concerning the association between stimulus features are stored in episodic memory and the features themselves in another memory center, one that is separate and dissociable from the association itself. An extreme real-life example of binding errors is amnesia. It has been proposed that the basic deficit in amnesia is the formation of new associations between features or elements of memory that already exist in memory (Johnson et al., 1993). The binding in this case is believed to be a function of the hippocampal system (Reinitz et al., 1996). According to this belief, amnesiacs should not be able to discriminate between old and conjunction stimuli. To test this notion, Reinitz et al., (1996) tested amnesic and normal participants and found that amnesiacs had an impaired
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Enhancing the Production Effect in Memory: Singing, Underlying Mechanisms, and Applications
    ENHANCING THE PRODUCTION EFFECT IN MEMORY: SINGING, UNDERLYING MECHANISMS, AND APPLICATIONS by Chelsea Karmel Quinlan Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia December 2017 © Copyright by Chelsea Karmel Quinlan, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................... vi ABSTRACT ................................................................................ vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED .................................................. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................... 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 2 1.2 HISTORY OF THE PRODUCTION EFFECT ........................................................... 4 1.3 A REVIEW OF THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES .................................................. 11 1.4 MUSIC AND MEMORY ....................................................................................... 17 1.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY, RATIONALE, AND CURRENT EXPERIMENTS ................ 19 CHAPTER 2: EXTENDING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE PRODUCTION EFFECT .................................................................................... 24 2.1 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Elaborative Encoding, the Ancient Art of Memory, and the Hippocampus
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2013) 36, 589–659 provided by RERO DOC Digital Library doi:10.1017/S0140525X12003135 Such stuff as dreams are made on? Elaborative encoding, the ancient art of memory, and the hippocampus Sue Llewellyn Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester, Manchester M15 6PB, United Kingdom http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk [email protected] Abstract: This article argues that rapid eye movement (REM) dreaming is elaborative encoding for episodic memories. Elaborative encoding in REM can, at least partially, be understood through ancient art of memory (AAOM) principles: visualization, bizarre association, organization, narration, embodiment, and location. These principles render recent memories more distinctive through novel and meaningful association with emotionally salient, remote memories. The AAOM optimizes memory performance, suggesting that its principles may predict aspects of how episodic memory is configured in the brain. Integration and segregation are fundamental organizing principles in the cerebral cortex. Episodic memory networks interconnect profusely within the cortex, creating omnidirectional “landmark” junctions. Memories may be integrated at junctions but segregated along connecting network paths that meet at junctions. Episodic junctions may be instantiated during non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep after hippocampal associational function during REM dreams. Hippocampal association involves relating, binding, and integrating episodic memories into a mnemonic compositional whole. This often bizarre, composite image has not been present to the senses; it is not “real” because it hyperassociates several memories. During REM sleep, on the phenomenological level, this composite image is experienced as a dream scene.
    [Show full text]
  • Ack Baraly Kylee Tamera 202
    EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC FACTORS INFLUENCING THE POSITIVE MEMORY BIAS IN AGING KYLEE TAMERA ACK BARALY A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Ottawa; Doctorate in Philosophy degree in Cognitive Sciences, Cognitive Psychology and Neurocognition at the Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes. School of Psychology Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition Faculty of Social Sciences École Doctorale Ingénierie pour la Santé, la Cognition et l’Environnement University of Ottawa Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes ©Kylee Tamera Ack Baraly, Ottawa, Canada, 2020 K. T. ACK BARALY PH.D. DISSERTATION ii Acknowledgements To Patrick and Pascal, thank you for being two of the most incredibly supportive and knowledgeable supervisors. You helped enlighten my scientific mind, pushing me to question better, reflect deeper, and learn more. You are both inspiring as researchers and as mentors. And I am forever grateful to have gone through this journey with you. I would also like to thank all of the members of the Neuropsychology Lab (Ottawa) and Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition (Chambéry and Grenoble). Thank you to all of the Master's students, honours thesis students, UROP students, lab volunteers, and research assistants who helped in more ways than I can count. Your enthusiasm and dedication to this work are truly appreciated. I am thankful for all the additional support provided by the INSPIRE Lab (Ottawa), which made collecting reliable data more efficient. A very special thank you to all of the research participants who so generously gave their time to this work. You are the pillar of scientific research and without you, none of this would have been possible.
    [Show full text]
  • Communication Science to the Public
    David M. Berube North Carolina State University ▪ HOW WE COMMUNICATE. In The Age of American Unreason, Jacoby posited that it trickled down from the top, fueled by faux-populist politicians striving to make themselves sound approachable rather than smart. (Jacoby, 2008). EX: The average length of a sound bite by a presidential candidate in 1968 was 42.3 seconds. Two decades later, it was 9.8 seconds. Today, it’s just a touch over seven seconds and well on its way to being supplanted by 140/280- character Twitter bursts. ▪ DATA FRAMING. ▪ When asked if they truly believe what scientists tell them, NEW ANTI- only 36 percent of respondents said yes. Just 12 percent expressed strong confidence in the press to accurately INTELLECTUALISM: report scientific findings. ▪ ROLE OF THE PUBLIC. A study by two Princeton University researchers, Martin TRENDS Gilens and Benjamin Page, released Fall 2014, tracked 1,800 U.S. policy changes between 1981 and 2002, and compared the outcome with the expressed preferences of median- income Americans, the affluent, business interests and powerful lobbies. They concluded that average citizens “have little or no independent influence” on policy in the U.S., while the rich and their hired mouthpieces routinely get their way. “The majority does not rule,” they wrote. ▪ Anti-intellectualism and suspicion (trends). ▪ Trump world – outsiders/insiders. ▪ Erasing/re-writing history – damnatio memoriae. ▪ False news. ▪ Infoxication (CC) and infobesity. ▪ Aggregators and managed reality. ▪ Affirmation and confirmation bias. ▪ Negotiating reality. ▪ New tribalism is mostly ideational not political. ▪ Unspoken – guns, birth control, sexual harassment, race… “The amount of technical information is doubling every two years.
    [Show full text]
  • Ilidigital Master Anton 2.Indd
    services are developed to be used by humans. Thus, understanding humans understanding Thus, humans. by used be to developed are services obvious than others but certainly not less complex. Most products bioengineering, and as shown in this magazine. Psychology mightbusiness world. beBe it more the comparison to relationships, game elements, or There are many non-business flieds which can betransfered to the COGNTIVE COGNTIVE is key to a succesfully develop a product orservice. is keytoasuccesfullydevelopproduct BIASES by ANTON KOGER The Power of Power The //PsychologistatILI.DIGITAL WE EDIT AND REINFORCE SOME WE DISCARD SPECIFICS TO WE REDUCE EVENTS AND LISTS WE STORE MEMORY DIFFERENTLY BASED WE NOTICE THINGS ALREADY PRIMED BIZARRE, FUNNY, OR VISUALLY WE NOTICE WHEN WE ARE DRAWN TO DETAILS THAT WE NOTICE FLAWS IN OTHERS WE FAVOR SIMPLE-LOOKING OPTIONS MEMORIES AFTER THE FACT FORM GENERALITIES TO THEIR KEY ELEMENTS ON HOW THEY WERE EXPERIENCED IN MEMORY OR REPEATED OFTEN STRIKING THINGS STICK OUT MORE SOMETHING HAS CHANGED CONFIRM OUR OWN EXISTING BELIEFS MORE EASILY THAN IN OURSELVES AND COMPLETE INFORMATION way we see situations but also the way we situationsbutalsotheway wesee way the biasesnotonlychange Furthermore, overload. cognitive avoid attention, ore situations, guide help todesign massively can This in. take people information of kind explainhowandwhat ofperception egory First,biasesinthecat andappraisal. ory, self,mem perception, into fourcategories: roughly bedivided Cognitive biasescan within thesesituations. forusers interaction andeasy in anatural situationswhichresults sible toimprove itpos and adaptingtothesebiasesmakes ingiven situations.Reacting ways certain act sively helpstounderstandwhypeople mas into consideration biases ing cognitive Tak humanbehavior. topredict likely less or andmore relevant illusionsare cognitive In each situation different every havior day.
    [Show full text]
  • Infographic I.10
    The Digital Health Revolution: Leaving No One Behind The global AI in healthcare market is growing fast, with an expected increase from $4.9 billion in 2020 to $45.2 billion by 2026. There are new solutions introduced every day that address all areas: from clinical care and diagnosis, to remote patient monitoring to EHR support, and beyond. But, AI is still relatively new to the industry, and it can be difficult to determine which solutions can actually make a difference in care delivery and business operations. 59 Jan 2021 % of Americans believe returning Jan-June 2019 to pre-coronavirus life poses a risk to health and well being. 11 41 % % ...expect it will take at least 6 The pandemic has greatly increased the 65 months before things get number of US adults reporting depression % back to normal (updated April and/or anxiety.5 2021).4 Up to of consumers now interested in telehealth going forward. $250B 76 57% of providers view telehealth more of current US healthcare spend % favorably than they did before COVID-19.7 could potentially be virtualized.6 The dramatic increase in of Medicare primary care visits the conducted through 90% $3.5T telehealth has shown longevity, with rates in annual U.S. health expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. since April 2020 0.1 43.5 leveling off % % Most of these can be prevented by simple around 30%.8 lifestyle changes and regular health screenings9 Feb. 2020 Apr. 2020 OCCAM’S RAZOR • CONJUNCTION FALLACY • DELMORE EFFECT • LAW OF TRIVIALITY • COGNITIVE FLUENCY • BELIEF BIAS • INFORMATION BIAS Digital health ecosystems are transforming• AMBIGUITY BIAS • STATUS medicineQUO BIAS • SOCIAL COMPARISONfrom BIASa rea• DECOYctive EFFECT • REACTANCEdiscipline, • REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY • SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION • BACKFIRE EFFECT • ENDOWMENT EFFECT • PROCESSING DIFFICULTY EFFECT • PSEUDOCERTAINTY EFFECT • DISPOSITION becoming precise, preventive,EFFECT • ZERO-RISK personalized, BIAS • UNIT BIAS • IKEA EFFECT and • LOSS AVERSION participatory.
    [Show full text]
  • John Collins, President, Forensic Foundations Group
    On Bias in Forensic Science National Commission on Forensic Science – May 12, 2014 56-year-old Vatsala Thakkar was a doctor in India but took a job as a convenience store cashier to help pay family expenses. She was stabbed to death outside her store trying to thwart a theft in November 2008. Bloody Footwear Impression Bloody Tire Impression What was the threat? 1. We failed to ask ourselves if this was a footwear impression. 2. The appearance of the impression combined with the investigator’s interpretation created prejudice. The accuracy of our analysis became threatened by our prejudice. Types of Cognitive Bias Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases | Accessed on April 14, 2014 Anchoring or focalism Hindsight bias Pseudocertainty effect Illusory superiority Levels-of-processing effect Attentional bias Hostile media effect Reactance Ingroup bias List-length effect Availability heuristic Hot-hand fallacy Reactive devaluation Just-world phenomenon Misinformation effect Availability cascade Hyperbolic discounting Recency illusion Moral luck Modality effect Backfire effect Identifiable victim effect Restraint bias Naive cynicism Mood-congruent memory bias Bandwagon effect Illusion of control Rhyme as reason effect Naïve realism Next-in-line effect Base rate fallacy or base rate neglect Illusion of validity Risk compensation / Peltzman effect Outgroup homogeneity bias Part-list cueing effect Belief bias Illusory correlation Selective perception Projection bias Peak-end rule Bias blind spot Impact bias Semmelweis
    [Show full text]
  • The Imagery Bizarreness Effect As a Function of Sentence Complexity and Presentation Time
    Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 1991. 29 (1). 25-27 The imagery bizarreness effect as a function of sentence complexity and presentation time SHERYL KLINE and LOWELL D. GRONINGER University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland Two experiments were carried out to examine the relationship between the bizarreness effect (more words recalled from bizarre images than from common images), sentence complexity, and presentation time. Experiment 1 showed that the bizarreness effect was not influenced by processing time when simple sentences were used. However, for complex sentences, an inter­ action occurred such that nouns from common sentences were recalled better with an ll-sec presen­ tation rate, and nouns from bizarre sentences were recalled better with a I5-sec presentation rate. This interaction was replicated in Experiment 2. These results show that the bizarreness effect does occur for complex sentences, provided that enough processing time is given. The results also suggest that reviews of the bizarreness literature need to consider processing time as a poten­ tially important variable. In 1972, Wollen, Weber, and Lowry showed that cued sitive to different presentation times. If common images recall for pictures of words (e.g., piano-cigar) was no can be formed more quickly than bizarre images, then better when the words were shown in a bizarre as opposed there should exist a presentation time such that a com­ to a common relationship. Research done since this time mon image relationship within a sentence could be has also shown that the formation of bizarre images of formed, but a bizarre image relationship could not be words produces no better recall of those words when formed.
    [Show full text]
  • Running Head: VALIDATING PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS 1
    Running Head: VALIDATING PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS 1 Validating Phenomenological Aspects of the Mental Imagery Experience through Meta- Analysis: Beyond Global Assessment of Imagery Ability Matthew S. Runge Carleton University 2012/2013 A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSCIENCE IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE M.Sc. DEGREE VALIDATING PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS 2 Abstract The phenomenological experience of mental imagery vividness is of increasing interest within the field of mental health science, yet commentators refute its empirical validity as an independent scientific construct. Two assessments of mental imagery vividness were compared through meta-analysis, the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), and trial-by-trial ratings of vividness. Each vividness assessment was further divided into behavioural/cognitive or neuroscientific measures. A corpus of 965 peer-reviewed journal articles were retrieved from four major databases and relevant statistical outcomes from each paper were recorded. Effect size estimates were computed for 3579 statistical outcomes, which were categorized as into one of four comparison groups (Vividness and Behavioural/Cognitive, VVIQ and Behavioural/Cognitive, Vividness and Neuroscientific, and VVIQ and Neuroscientific). It was found that the average effect size magnitude for trial-by-trial vividness exceeded that of the VVIQ for behavioural/cognitive, but not neuroscientific measures. However, the average effect sizes magnitude for neuroscientific measures was generally greater than behavioural/cognitive ones. Additionally, the average effect sizes magnitude for trial-by-trial vividness ratings was generally greater than the VVIQ. It is suggested that trial-by-trial ratings, in conjunction with neuroscientific measurement, may provide a more precise and reliable measure of mental imagery vividness.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Biases in Fitness to Practise Decision-Making
    ADVICE ON BIASES IN FITNESS TO PRACTISE DECISION-MAKING IN ACCEPTED OUTCOME VERSUS PANEL MODELS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS AUTHORITY Prepared by: LESLIE CUTHBERT Date: 31 March 2021 Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................................. 2 Background .................................................................................................. 2 Purpose of the advice.................................................................................... 3 Summary of conclusions ................................................................................ 4 Documents considered .................................................................................. 4 Technical terms and explanations ................................................................... 5 Disclaimer .................................................................................................... 5 II. How biases might affect the quality of decision-making in the AO model, as compared to the panel model .............................................................................. 6 Understanding cognitive biases in fitness to practise decision-making ............... 6 Individual Decision Maker (e.g. a Case Examiner) in AO model ......................... 8 Multiple Case Examiners .............................................................................. 17 Group Decision Maker in a Panel model of 3 or more members ....................... 22 III. Assessment of the impact of these biases,
    [Show full text]
  • Enactment and Retrieval
    Memory & Cognition 2010, 38 (2), 233-243 doi:10.3758/MC.38.2.233 Enactment and retrieval DANIEL J. PETERSON AND NEIL W. M ULLIGAN University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina The enactment effect is one of a number of effects (e.g., bizarreness, generation, perceptual interference) that have been treated in common theoretical frameworks, most of them focusing on encoding processes. Recent results from McDaniel, Dornburg, and Guynn (2005) call into question whether bizarreness and, by associa- tion, related phenomena such as enactment are better conceptualized as arising due to retrieval processes. Four experiments investigated the degree to which retrieval processes are responsible for enhanced memory for enacted phrases. Participants were presented with two pure study lists and later recalled the lists separately (inducing pure retrieval sets) or recalled the lists together in a single test (inducing a combined or mixed re- trieval set). Across all four experiments, the combined recall condition consistently failed to enhance the size of the enactment effect. The results provide no support for the retrieval account but are generally consistent with encoding accounts. Although much of the research on human memory has (see also Mulligan & Hornstein, 2003). This reenactment focused on verbal materials, a significant portion of what effect was interpreted in terms of the encoding specificity people actually remember relates to what they have done. principle (e.g., Tulving & Thomson, 1973) and was taken Research on enactment, or action memory, is concerned as evidence that motor information was a critical part of with understanding how people recall both simple and the original memory trace for SPTs.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effect of Increased Immersion and Its Relationship with Presence on Episodic Memory Performance Within Virtual Reality Environments
    THE EFFECT OF INCREASED IMMERSION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESENCE ON EPISODIC MEMORY PERFORMANCE WITHIN VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS S. Adam Smith A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience (Cognitive Psychology). Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Neil Mulligan Kelly Giovanello Joe Hopfinger Mark Hollins Jennifer Arnold © 2019 S. Adam Smith ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT S. Adam Smith: The Effect of Increased Immersion and its Relationship with Presence on Episodic Memory Performance within Virtual Reality Environments (Under the direction of Neil Mulligan) Although virtual reality (VR) represents a promising tool for psychological research, much remains unknown about how different properties of VR environments may affect episodic memory performance. Two closely related characteristics of VR are immersion (i.e., the objective degree to which VR naturalistically portrays a facsimile of an analogous real-world environment) and presence (i.e., the subjective sense of being “mentally transported” to the virtual world). While some research has demonstrated a benefit of increased immersion on VR- based learning, it is uncertain how broadly and consistently this benefit might extend to individual components of immersion in isolation. Additionally, it is unclear whether immersion itself is what influences memory performance in these instances, or if presence is a mediating factor which explains the relationship between immersion and memory. To address these issues, the current study assessed how presence and memory were affected by three individual manipulations of immersion: field of view, unimodal (visual only) vs.
    [Show full text]