Scott D. Gronlund

Global matching models of recognition memory: How the models match the data.

We present a review of global matching models of recognition memory, describing their theoretical origins and fundamental assumptions, focusing on two defining properties: (1) recognition is based solely on familiarity due to a match of test items to memory at a global level, and (2) multiple cues are combined interactively. We evaluate the models against relevant data bearing on issues including the representation of associative information, differences in verbal and environmental context effects, list-length, list-strength, and global similarity effects, and ROC functions. Two main modifications to the models are discussed: one based on the representation of associative information, and the other based on the addition of recall-like retrieval mechanisms.

Task Interruption and its Effects on Memory

We investigated the recovery from memory of a primary task after an interruption. If the primary task lacked associative support among its task components, recovery was more difficult following an interruption that overlapped either completely or partially in the amount of information shared with the primary task (an interruption-similarity effect). In addition, memory for completed actions was superior to memory for impending unfinished actions. However, if the primary task had associative support among its task components, there was no adverse effect of interruption similarity, and completed and unfinished actions were recalled equally well. We explore possible explanations and implications of these results.

Robustness of the Sequential Lineup Advantage.

A growing movement in the United States and around the world involves promoting the advantages of conducting an eyewitness lineup in a sequential manner. We conducted a large study (N = 2,529) that included 24 comparisons of sequential versus simultaneous lineups. A liberal statistical criterion revealed only 2 significant sequential lineup advantages and 3 significant simultaneous advantages. Both sequential advantages occurred when the good photograph of the guilty suspect or either innocent suspect was in the fifth position in the sequential lineup; all 3 simultaneous advantages occurred when the poorer quality photograph of the guilty suspect or either innocent suspect was in the second position. Adjusting the statistical criterion to control for the multiple tests (.05/24) revealed no significant sequential advantages. Moreover, despite finding more conservative overall choosing for the sequential lineup, no support was found for the proposal that a sequential advantage was due to that conservative criterion shift. Unless lineups with particular characteristics predominate in the real world, there appears to be no strong preference for conducting lineups in either a sequential or a simultaneous manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Lineup Composition, Suspect Position, and the Sequential Lineup Advantage.

N. M. Steblay, J. Dysart, S. Fulero, and R. C. L. Lindsay (2001) argued that sequential lineups reduce the likelihood of mistaken eyewitness identification. Experiment 1 replicated the design of R. C. L. Lindsay and G. L. Wells (1985), the first study to show the sequential lineup advantage. However, the innocent suspect was chosen at a lower rate in the simultaneous lineup, and no sequential lineup advantage was found. This led the authors to hypothesize that protection from a sequential lineup might emerge only when an innocent suspect stands out from the other lineup members. In Experiment 2, participants viewed a simultaneous or sequential lineup with either the guilty suspect or 1 of 3 innocent suspects. Lineup fairness was varied to influence the degree to which a suspect stood out. A sequential lineup advantage was found only for the unfair lineups. Additional analyses of suspect position in the sequential lineups showed an increase in the diagnosticity of suspect identifications as the suspect was placed later in the sequential lineup. These results suggest that the sequential lineup advantage is dependent on lineup composition and suspect position.

Evaluating Eyewitness Identification Procedures Using Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis

Eyewitness identification is a pivotal issue in applied research because, in practice, a correct identification can help to remove a dangerous criminal from society, but a false identification can lead to the erroneous conviction of an innocent suspect. Consequently, psychologists have tried to ascertain the best procedures for collecting identification evidence, evaluating them using measures based on the ratio of correct to false identification rates. Unfortunately, ratio-based measures are ambiguous because they change systematically as a function of a witness’s willingness to choose. In other words, a measure thought to index discriminability is instead fully confounded with response bias. A better method involves constructing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Using ROC curves, researchers can trace out discriminability across levels of response bias for each procedure. We illustrate the shortcomings of ratio-based measures and demonstrate why ROC analysis is required. In recent studies, researchers comparing simultaneous and sequential lineup procedures using ROC analyses have provided no evidence for the sequential superiority effect and instead have shown that the simultaneous procedure may be diagnostically superior. It is not yet clear which lineup procedure will prove to be generally superior, but it is clear that ROC analysis is the only way to make that determination.

Top-down guidance in visual search for facial expressions.

Using a visual search paradigm, we investigated how a top-down goal modified attentional bias for threatening facial expressions. In two experiments, participants searched for a facial expression either based on stimulus characteristics or a top-down goal. In Experiment 1, participants searched for a discrepant facial expression in a homogenous crowd of faces. Consistent with previous research, we obtained a shallower response time (RT) slope when the target face was angry than when it was happy. In Experiment 2, participants searched for a specific type of facial expression (allowing a top-down goal). When the display included a target, we found a shallower RT slope for the angry than for the happy face search. However, when an angry or happy face was present in the display in opposition to the task goal, we obtained equivalent RT slopes, suggesting that the mere presence of an angry face in opposition to the task goal did not support the well-known angry face superiority effect. Furthermore, RT distribution analyses supported the special status of an angry face only when it was combined with the top-down goal. On the basis of these results, we suggest that a threatening facial expression may guide attention as a high-priority stimulus in the absence of a specific goal; however, in the presence of a specific goal, the efficiency of facial expression search is dependent on the combined influence of a top-down goal and the stimulus characteristics.

Comparison of the retrieval of item versus spatial position information

It has been argued that temporal and spatial position information are represented similarly, but prior research comparing their time course of retrieval with item information has not supported this conclusion. The time course of retrieval was compared for spatial position and item information in 3 response signal experiments, and differences were found in the time course of retrieval that paralleled those found previously for temporal position and item information (B.M. McElree & B.A. Dosher, 1993). The finding was unaffected by restrictions on the degree of relational support, postretrieval decision difficulty, and the elimination of a strategy favoring item recognition. The authors conclude by discussing whether the data indicate that a recall process was contributing to recognition performance.

Role of memory in air traffic control.

This study tests air traffic controllers currently serving as instructors and tries to manipulate their memory for various aircraft flight data. In Experiment 1, the amount of control exercised (the number of control actions or communications) had little effect on memory for flight data, although excellent memory for the position of aircraft on the radar display was shown. The authors argue that this was the basis for the mental representation of the aircraft in the sector and may serve as the foundation for situation awareness. In Experiment 2, neither the type of control exercised nor the importance of the aircraft in the scenario consistently affected memory. Several reasons are considered why memory for flight data could not be manipulated, including how important memory is to successful task performance and whether the relevant characteristics of the situation were tapped. Resolution of these issues will contribute to improved techniques that assess situation awareness from memory performance.

Initial eyewitness confidence reliably predicts eyewitness identification accuracy.

Eyewitness memory is widely believed to be unreliable because (a) high-confidence eyewitness misidentifications played a role in over 70% of the now more than 300 DNA exonerations of wrongfully convicted men and women, (b) forensically relevant laboratory studies have often reported a weak relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy, and (c) memory is sufficiently malleable that, not infrequently, people (including eyewitnesses) can be led to remember events differently from the way the events actually happened. In light of such evidence, many researchers agree that confidence statements made by eyewitnesses in a court of law (in particular, the high confidence they often express at trial) should be discounted, if not disregarded altogether. But what about confidence statements made by eyewitnesses at the time of the initial identification (e.g., from a lineup), before there is much opportunity for memory contamination to occur? A considerable body of recent empirical work suggests that confidence may be a highly reliable indicator of accuracy at that time, which fits with longstanding theoretical models of recognition memory. Counterintuitively, an appreciation of this fact could do more to protect innocent defendants from being wrongfully convicted than any other eyewitness identification reform that has been proposed to date.

Individuals lower in working memory capacity are particularly vulnerable to anxiety's disruptive effect on performance

Abstract Anxiety has a disruptive effect on performance in a number of domains. The purpose of this study was to determine whether individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity are related to an individuals susceptibility to anxietys detrimental effect on performance. Fifty undergraduate students (28 females) were administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983) to measure trait anxiety and the automated operation span task to measure WM capacity (Unsworth, Heitz, Schrock, & Engle, 2005). Then, they performed a highly demanding dual-task that consisted of a primary short-term memory task and a secondary tone-discrimination task that served as a measure of spare capacity. Anxiety and WM capacity interacted to affect performance on the auditory task so that those low in WM capacity were particularly vulnerable to anxietys disruptive effect, whereas those high in WM capacity were buffered against anxietys effect. These findings suggest that WM capacity may be an important factor in determining which individuals underperform on anxiety-provoking tests such as scholastic achievement tests.