Does the speed of single-item recognition errors predict performance in subsequent two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials that include an item with a previous error response? Starns, Dubé, and Frelinger (2018) found effects of this kind in two experiments and accounted for them in terms of a continuous memory-strength signal guiding recognition decisions. However, the effects of error speed might just as well only reflect an artefact due to an error-correction strategy that uses response latency as a heuristic cue to guide 2AFC responses, elicited through confounding factors in their experimental design such as error-correction instructions as well as feedback. Using two conditions, a replication condition, replicating the procedure from Starns et al., and an extension condition (each n = 130), controlling for the named shortcomings, we replicated the error speed effect. In both conditions, speed of errors in a single-item recognition task were predictive of subsequent 2AFC performance including the respective error item. To be more precise, fast errors were associated with decreased 2AFC performance. As there was no interaction with the factor condition, the results support the idea that speed of single-item recognition responses reflects the amount of memory information underlying the respective response rather than being used for a simple error-correction strategy to improve 2AFC performance.
In everyday life, recognition decisions often have to be made for multiple objects simultaneously. In contrast, research on recognition memory has predominantly relied on single-item recognition paradigms. We present a first systematic investigation into the cognitive processes that differ between single-word and paired-word tests of recognition memory. In a single-word test, participants categorize previously presented words and new words as having been studied before (old) or not (new). In a paired-word test, however, the test words are randomly paired, and participants provide joint old–new categorizations of both words for each pair. Across two experiments (N = 170), we found better memory performance for words tested singly rather than in pairs and, more importantly, dependencies between the two single-word decisions implied by the paired-word test. We extended two popular model classes of single-item recognition to paired-word recognition, a discrete-state model and a continuous model. Both models attribute performance differences between single-word and paired-word recognition to differences in memory-evidence strength. Discrete-state models account for the dependencies in paired-word decisions in terms of dependencies in guessing. In contrast, continuous models map the dependencies on mnemonic (Experiment 1 & 2) as well as on decisional processes (Experiment 2). However, in both experiments, model comparison favored the discrete-state model, indicating that memory decisions for word pairs seem to be mediated by discrete states. Our work suggests that individuals tackle multiple-item recognition fundamentally differently from single-item recognition, and it provides both a behavioral and model-based paradigm for studying multiple-item recognition.
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