Justin Kantner

Exemplar Similarity, Study List Homogeneity, and Short-Term Perceptual Recognition

Kahana and Sekuler (2002) conducted short-term perceptual recognition experiments and modeled the data with a noisy exemplar similarity model. They found model-based evidence that list homogeneity (i.e., the degree to which exemplars on a study list are similar to one another) exerted a significant impact on recognition performance—a finding that is not predicted by standard global familiarity models. A potential limitation of their experiments is that they tested complex stimuli in which psychological similarities among exemplars may have been misspecified. Also, the relative importance of list homogeneity was not compared with that of alternative forms of parametric variation in the model. We conducted conceptual replications of their experiments, using a simpler set of stimuli in which interexemplar similarities could be more precisely measured. Extensive model-based comparisons reveal, in accord with the results of Kahana and Sekuler, strong evidence for a role of list homogeneity onold-new recognition performance. We suggest that subjects systematically adjust their response criteria on the basis of the homogeneity of the study list items.

Can corrective feedback improve recognition memory

An understanding of the effects of corrective feedback on recognition memory can inform both recognition theory and memory training programs, but few published studies have investigated the issue. Although the evidence to date suggests that feedback does not improve recognition accuracy, few studies have directly examined its effect on sensitivity, and fewer have created conditions that facilitate a feedback advantage by encouraging controlled processing at test. In Experiment 1, null effects of feedback were observed following both deep and shallow encoding of categorized study lists. In Experiment 2, feedback robustly influenced response bias by allowing participants to discern highly uneven base rates of old and new items, but sensitivity remained unaffected. In Experiment 3, a false-memory procedure, feedback failed to attenuate false recognition of critical lures. In Experiment 4, participants were unable to use feedback to learn a simple category rule separating old items from new items, despite the fact that feedback was of substantial benefit in a nearly identical categorization task. The recognition system, despite a documented ability to utilize controlled strategic or inferential decision-making processes, appears largely impenetrable to a benefit of corrective feedback.

Exploring the perceptual spaces of faces, cars and birds in children and adults.

While much developmental research has focused on the strategies that children employ to recognize faces, less is known about the principles governing the organization of face exemplars in perceptual memory. In this study, we tested a novel, child-friendly paradigm for investigating the organization of face, bird and car exemplars. Children ages 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12 and adults were presented with 50/50 morphs of typical and atypical face, bird and car parent images. Participants were asked to judge whether the 50/50 morph more strongly resembled the typical or the atypical parent image. Young and older children and adults showed a systematic bias to the atypical faces and birds, but no bias toward the atypical cars. Collectively, these findings argue that by the age of 3, children encode and organize faces, birds and cars in a perceptual space that is strikingly similar to that of adults. Category organization for both children and adults follows Krumhansls (1978) distance-density principle in which the similarity between two exemplars is jointly determined by their physical appearance and the density of neighboring exemplars in the perceptual space.

The Intention Interference Effect

Intentions have been shown to be more accessible (e.g., more quickly and accurately recalled) compared to other sorts of to-be-remembered information; a result termed an intention superiority effect (Goschke & Kuhl, 1993). In the current study, we demonstrate an intention interference effect (IIE) in which color-naming performance in a Stroop task was slower for words belonging to an intention that participants had to remember to carry out (Do-the-Task condition) versus an intention that did not have to be executed (Ignore-the-Task condition). In previous work (e.g., Cohen et al., 2005), having a prospective intention in mind was confounded with carrying a memory load. In Experiment 1, we added a digit-retention task to control for effects of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the memory confound in a new way, by comparing intention-related and control words within each trial. Results from both Experiments 1 and 2 revealed an IIE suggesting that interference is very specific to the intention, not just to a memory load.

Cross-situational consistency in recognition memory response bias

Individuals taking an old–new recognition memory test differ widely in their bias to respond “old,” ranging from strongly conservative to strongly liberal, even without any manipulation intended to affect bias. Kantner and Lindsay (2012) found stability of bias across study–test cycles, suggesting that bias is a cognitive trait. That consistency, however, could have arisen because participants perceived the two tests as being part of the same experiment in the same context. In the present study, we tested for stability across two recognition study–test procedures embedded in markedly different experiments, held weeks apart, that participants did not know were connected. Bias showed substantial cross-situational stability. Moreover, bias weakly predicted identifications on an eyewitness memory task and accuracy on a go–no-go task. Although we found little in the way of relationships between bias and five personality measures, these findings suggest that response bias is a stable and broadly influential characteristic of recognizers.

Top-down constraint on recognition memory

Can recognition memory be constrained “at the front end,” such that people are more likely to retrieve information about studying a recognition-test probe from a specified target source than they are to retrieve such information about a probe from a nontarget source? We adapted a procedure developed by Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, and Rhodes (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12:852–857, 2005) to address this question. Experiment 1 yielded evidence of source-constrained retrieval, but that pattern was not significant in Experiments 2, 3, and 4 (nor in several unpublished pilot experiments). In Experiment 5, in which items from the two studied sources were perceptibly different, a pattern consistent with front-end constraint of recognition emerged, but this constraint was likely exercised via visual attention rather than memory. Experiment 6 replicated both the absence of a significant constrained-retrieval pattern when the sources did not differ perceptibly (as in Exps. 2, 3 and 4) and the presence of that pattern when they did differ perceptibly (as in Exp. 5). Our results suggest that people can easily constrain recognition when items from the to-be-recognized source differ perceptibly from items from other sources (presumably via visual attention), but that it is difficult to constrain retrieval solely on the basis of source memory.

Target—distractor interference in the attentional blink implicates the locus coeruleus—norepinephrine system

We provide evidence that the locus coeruleus—norephinephrine (LC-NE) system is the neurophysiological basis of the attentional blink. The attentional blink refers to decreased accuracy for reporting the second of two targets in a rapid serial visual presentation of distractors. The LC-NE account of the attentional blink posits that targets elicit a facilitative LC-NE system response that is available for the first target but subsequently unavailable to the second, due to the autoinhibitory nature of the LC-NE system. We propose a modification of the LC-NE account, suggesting that the LC-NE system response is elicited by interference between mutually exclusive responses demanded by temporally proximal targets and distractors. We increased the interference between the first target and the following distractor by reducing the time between them. For identifying the second target this high-interference condition yielded a benefit up to 200 msec after onset of the first, followed by a decrease in accuracy. Consistent with our modification of the LC-NE account, this result suggests a temporarily enhanced LC-NE system response to increased target—distractor interference.

How category structure influences the perception of object similarity: the atypicality bias.

Why do some faces appear more similar than others? Beyond structural factors, we speculate that similarity is governed by the organization of faces located in a multi-dimensional face space. To test this hypothesis, we morphed a typical face with an atypical face. If similarity judgments are guided purely by their physical properties, the morph should be perceived to be equally similar to its typical parent as its atypical parent. However, contrary to the structural prediction, our results showed that the morph face was perceived to be more similar to the atypical face than the typical face. Our empirical studies show that the atypicality bias is not limited to faces, but extends to other object categories (birds) whose members share common shape properties. We also demonstrate atypicality bias is malleable and can change subject to category learning and experience. Collectively, the empirical evidence indicates that perceptions of face and object similarity are affected by the distribution of stimuli in a face or object space. In this framework, atypical stimuli are located in a sparser region of the space where there is less competition for recognition and therefore, these representations capture a broader range of inputs. In contrast, typical stimuli are located in a denser region of category space where there is increased competition for recognition and hence, these representation draw a more restricted range of face inputs. These results suggest that the perceived likeness of an object is influenced by the organization of surrounding exemplars in the category space.

A Search for Influences of Feedback on Recognition of Music, Poetry, and Art

The stream of consciousness has many tributaries. At any given moment some are dry beds, others gently burbling brooks, yet others gushing torrents. The main current is not always mindful of the sources of its flow, such that, for example, the waters of the wellspring of memory may mingle with the freshet of insight. But, to push the metaphor past the breaking point, we’d be at sea if we were completely unable to distinguish observation from expectation, reality from wish or fear, inherent ease from familiarity, etc. Thus the mind/brain needs mechanisms for monitoring (albeit imperfectly and at varying levels of specificity) the sources of influence on its own productions.

Category exemplars normed in Canada.

Normative data on category exemplar generation are widely used by psychologists but vary across cultures such that well-known norm sets developed in the United States might not be appropriate for use in Canada. To date, no published set of category exemplars has been normed with a Canadian undergraduate population. We describe the creation of such a set using the popular Battig and Montague (1969) categories and provide a link to the full set of norms.