Linda J. Anooshian

Emotionality in free recall: Language specificity in bilingual memory

Abstract Bilingual subjects (Spanish English) who had acquired fluency in their second language after 8 years of age rated 18 emotional and 18 neutral words for ease of pronunciation, implied activity, or emotionality; half of each type was presented in Spanish and half in English. During a subsequent, unexpected test of free recall subjects recalled more emotional than neutral words, but only for words that had been presented in the native language. This finding applied across native-language groups and suggests that emotion provides a basis for language specificity in bilingual memory.

Moral Judgment and Distributive Justice

This research focused on the modes of distributive justice employed by individuals differing in the maturity of their moral judgments. Based upon a social exchange model, theoretical distinctions were made among five modes of distribution response: self-interest, parity, equity, social responsibility, and individual responsibility. Each of 44 male subjects aged 13–18 was led to believe that he was a member of a group of four students who were to be rewarded for their work. After being induced to work for 1 h, the subject was asked to distribute

The accuracy of beliefs about retrieval cues

5.60 among the group members. The inputs of the other (fictitious) members were arranged such that distributions adhering to each of the posited modes could be distinguished. A discriminant analysis of distribution response groups revealed that a subject’s orientation in Kohlberg’s hierarchy of moral stages was a significant predictor of distribution response, while age of subject was not. Relationships between specific stages and distribution responses were discussed, as were the implications of these results for a general theory of distributive justice.

Self-esteem and beliefs about memory in environmentally stable and relocated students ☆

We investigated the accuracy of predictions about semantic, environmental, and phonological cues for remembering. Subjects rated the pleasantness of 10 words in each of four rooms, predicted the number of words that they would recall with and without one of the three types of cues, and then were tested for free or cued recall. Consistent with their predictions, subjects who received semantic cues recalled more words than did subjects in the free-recall group. The subjects in the other cuing conditions did not benefit from the cues; furthermore, they overestimated the value of phonological cues, and they believed that environmental cues were ineffective. Finally, confidence ratings for cued-recall predictions did not reflect the pattern of cued-recall performance. Subjects were least confident about their predictions for semantic cuing and most confident about their predictions for recall to be cued phonologically.

Effects of attentive encoding on analytic and nonanalytic processing in implicit and explicit retrieval tasks

Abstract This research examined beliefs about the utility of environmental, semantic, and phonological cues for remembering, as these beliefs are related to feelings of self-esteem, assertiveness, and locus of control. We proposed different types of relationships between self-esteem (and assertiveness) and metamemory for two group of college students, based on their differential experiences with distinctive memory failures. For students who were familiar with their current environment, self-esteem was positively related to confidence in having a good memory. It was only for newcomers—students who had recently moved to a new environment—that beliefs about the benefits of environmental cues were positively related to self-esteem and assertiveness. These results suggested that if newcomers were less aware of the utility of environmental cues, they were more likely to attribute their memory failures to their own inadequacies. We also obtained evidence that subjects with an internal locus of control were more knowledgeable regarding the utility of environmental cues than were externally oriented subjects.

Children's knowledge of directional relationships within their neighborhood

The least-frequent meanings of homophones were biased by two exposure conditions that varied in the extent to which the processing of biasing information was attentive and effortful. Memory was assessed with both explicit (recognition) and implicit tasks. For the implicit task, scores reflected the extent to which the biased meanings were apparent in subjects’ later spellings of or free associatons to old homophones. The results indicate that attentive processing during encoding is likely to invite analytic processing in both implicit and explicit tasks. Furthermore, unattended exposure may lead to nonanalytic processing across both tasks, with subjects relying on a fluency heuristic for the explicit task. Comparable results were obtained from the spelling and the free-association tasks.

Children's Spatial Knowledge of Their School Campus.

We assessed the accuracy of direction estimates made by 4th and 5th versus 7th and 8th graders within a self-enclosed neighborhood in which they had lived for at least 6 months. For the youngest age group, direction estimates requiring spatial inferences about an unknown route were less accurate than direction estimates along experienced routes of travel. Also, younger children were less accurate for direction estimates requiring the mental reversal of the direction of travel along a known route. For both age groups, direction estimates from unfamiliar reference sites were less accurate than from familiar reference sites. Further evidence for familiarity effects was obtained from a questionnaire designed to assess childrens navigational experiences within the neighborhood; correlational analyses confirmed that directional accuracy varied as a function of prior familiarity.