Kathy Pezdek

Memory for Real-World Scenes: The Role of Consistency With Schema Expectation

This study tested the generalizability of the consistency effect to real-world settings. The consistency effect refers to the finding that items inconsistent with expectations are better recalled and recognized than items consistent with expectations. In two experiments, subjects walked into a graduate students office or a preschool classroom. Half of the items in each setting were consistent with expectations about that setting, and half were inconsistent. A recall and a samechanged recognition memory test followed immediately or 1 day later. In both experiments, the consistency effect was affirmed; items inconsistent with expectations were significantly better recalled and recognized than items consistent with expectations. This result is discussed in terms of differences in the encoding processes that operate on inconsistent and consistent items. The present study extends the generalizability of results from picture memory studies to real-world settings.

Children's face recognition memory: More evidence for the cross-race effect

It is well established that own-race faces are recognized more accurately than cross-race faces. However, there are mixed results regarding the developmental consistency of the cross-race effect White and Black kindergarten children, 3rd graders, and young adults viewed a Black and a White target individual. One day later, recognition memory for each target was tested with a 6-person lineup. The interaction of race of participant by race of target face on Ag scores was significant, demonstrating an overall cross-race effect. The 2nd-order interaction with age did not approach significance; for each age group, own-race identification was more accurate than cross-race identification. The age consistency of the cross-race effect in light of the significant main effect of age suggests quantitative but not qualitative differences in face memory processing at various ages. For children, as well as adults, own-race faces are recognized more accurately than cross-race faces.

Planting False Childhood Memories in Children: The Role of Event Plausibility

This experiment tested and supported the hypothesis that events will be suggestively planted in childrens memory to the degree that the suggested event is plausible and script-relevant knowledge exists in memory. Nineteen 5- to 7-year-old children and 20 9- to 12-year-old children were read descriptions of two true events and two false events, reported to have occurred when they were 4 years old. One false event described the child lost in a mall while shopping (the plausible false event); the other false event described the child receiving a rectal enema (the implausible false event). The majority of the 39 children (54%) did not remember either false event. However, whereas 14 children recalled the plausible but not the implausible false event, only one child recalled the implausible but not the plausible false event; this difference was statistically significant. Three additional children (all in the younger age group) recalled both false events. Although this pattern of results was consistent for both age groups, the differences were significant for the younger children only. A framework is outlined specifying the cognitive processes underlying suggestively planting false events in memory.

Memory suggestibility as an example of the sleeper effect

This study incorporates findings on both the sleeper effect and the suggestibility of memory and assesses the effect of source credibility and time delay on memory suggestibility. Subjects viewed a sequence of slides with four target items. A narrative followed, containing a misleading description of two target items; the other two items served as controls. The source of the narrative was attributed to either a 4-year-old boy (low-credibility source) or a memory psychologist (high-credibility source) who described the slides. A recognition memory test followed 10 min or 1 month later. The subjects in the low-credibility source condition falsely recognized significantly more misleading items in the delayed condition than in the immediate condition; in the high-credibility condition, the number of falsely recognized misleading items was high and did not differ between the delayed and the immediate conditions. This significant interaction between source credibility, time, and misled/control conditions on the rate of falsely recognizing misled items suggests that, with the passage of time, item and source information become less strongly associated in memory. The cognitive processes underlying the sleeper effect appear to be similar to those underlying memory suggestibility.

The Relationship Between Reading and Cognitive Processing of Television and Radio.

1984, 55, 2072-2082, This study compares the relationship between comprehension and memory for text and television, and comprehension and memory for text and radio, 2 stories were edited to create 3 matched versions of each—-(1) a storybook with pictures, (2) a radio version, and (3) a television version. Third and sixth graders read 1 story and were presented either the television or radio version ofthe other story, counterbalanced for story and order of presentation, A battery of memory and comprehension tests was administered following both the reading and the television or radio conditions. The principal result is that across a range of tasks, performance in the television and reading conditions was not significantly correlated; however, performance in the radio and reading conditions was positively correlated and generally significant. The second important finding is that the absolute levels of performance were similar in the television and reading conditions, and performance was better in both of these conditions than in the radio condition. Hypotheses are discussed to explain why performance in the television condition was not related to reading ability. This study compares comprehension and memory for infonnation presented in various forms of media. More specifically, this study compares the relationship between comprehension and memory for material read with comprehension and memory for material presented on television and on radio. Although there has been a great deal of interest in recent years in the effects of television and other forms of media on the viewer (see Murray, 1980, for a review of the television literature containing 2,886 citations, 60% of which were published after 1975), little of this work has examined the cognitive processes involved in media processing. The majority of the previous research on the relationship between reading and media processing has compared reading ability with the amount of time spent viewing television, (There is little previous research on radio processing.) These correlational studies have reported that the amount of television viewing is negatively correlated with both reading ability and more general school achievement

The suggestibility of children's memory for being touched: planting, erasing, and changing memories.

Investigates recent claims that it is relatively easy to suggestively plant false memories in children, by comparing the relative vulnerability to suggestibility of changed, planted, and erased memories. 80 4-year-olds and 80 10-year-olds either were touched in a specific way or were not touched at all, and it was later suggested that a different touch, a completely new touch, or no touch at all had occurred. The suggestibility effect occurred only in the changed memory condition; the difference between the experimental changed condition and the corresponding control condition was significant. In the planted and erased memory conditions no suggestibility effect occurred; there was no significant reduction in the experimental groups relative to the corresponding control conditions. Thus, although it is relatively easy to suggest to a child a change in an event that was experienced, it is less likely that an event can be planted in or erased from memory. It is thus inappropriate to provide courtroom testimony regarding the probability of suggestively planting false memories based on the classic suggestibility research, which has largely been restricted to the study of suggestively changing memories.

Cognitive Maps and Urban Form

Abstract This article presents research confirming the generalizability of previous research on urban form and memory for buildings. Additional structural characteristics, including landscaping and unique architectual style, enhance memory for buildings above and beyond the original features developed by Appleyard. It is also shown that elderly residents use some of the same physical features as younger adults to remember buildings but rely more heavily on historical cues and ease of pedestrian access as salient building characteristics. Finally, memory for the location of structures as a function of physical and sociocultural features is examined for the first time in the literature. Different structural features influence location memory than influence verbal memory for buildings.

Imagination and memory : Does imagining implausible events lead to false autobiographical memories?

Previous studies have reported that imagination can induce false autobiographical memories. This finding has been used to suggest that psychotherapists who have clients imagine suspected repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse may, in fact, be inducing false memories for the imagined events. In this study, at Time 1 and then, 2 weeks later, at Time 2, 145 subjects rated each of 20 events on the Life Events Inventory as to whether each had occurred to them in childhood. One week after Time 1, the subjects were told that 2 target events were plausible and 2 were implausible. They were then asked to imagine 1 plausible and 1 implausible target event. Plausibility and imagining interacted to affect occurrence ratings; whereas imagining plausible events increased the change in occurrence ratings, imagining implausible events had no effect on occurrence ratings.

Motivated Forgetting and Misremembering: Perspectives from Betrayal Trauma Theory

Individuals are sometimes exposed to information that may endanger their well-being. In such cases, forgetting or misremembering may be adaptive. Childhood abuse perpetrated by a caregiver is an example. Betrayal trauma theory (BTT) proposes that the way in which events are processed and remembered will be related to the degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted, needed other. Full awareness of such abuse may only increase the victims risk by motivating withdrawal or confrontation with the perpetrator, thus risking a relationship vital to the victims survival. In such situations, minimizing awareness of the betrayal trauma may be adaptive. BTT has implications for the larger memory and trauma field, particularly with regard to forgetting and misremembering events. This chapter reviews conceptual and empirical issues central to the literature on memory for trauma and BTT as well as identifies future research directions derived from BTT.

Detecting deception in children: event familiarity affects criterion-based content analysis ratings.

Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) is a comprehensive credibility assessment system, with the Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) as a core component. Worldwide, the CBCA is reported to be the most widely used veracity assessment instrument. We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that CBCA scores are affected by event familiarity; descriptions of familiar events are more likely to be judged true than are descriptions of unfamiliar events. CBCA scores were applied to transcripts of 114 children who recalled a routine medical procedure (control) or a traumatic medical procedure that they had experienced one time (relatively unfamiliar) or multiple times (relatively familiar). CBCA scores were higher for children in the relatively familiar than the relatively unfamiliar condition, and CBCA scores were significantly correlated with age. Results raise serious questions regarding the forensic suitability of the CBCA for assessing the veracity of childrens accounts.