Cue quality and criterion setting in recognition memory

Abstract

Previous studies on how people set and modify decision criteria in old-new recognition tasks (in which they have to decide whether or not a stimulus was seen in a study phase) have almost exclusively focused on properties of the study items, such as presentation frequency or study list length. In contrast, in the three studies reported here, we manipulated the quality of the test cues in a scene-recognition task, either by degrading through Gaussian blurring (Experiment 1) or by limiting presentation duration (Experiment 2 and 3). In Experiments 1 and 2, degradation of the test cue led to worse old-new discrimination. Most importantly, however, participants were more liberal in their responses to degraded cues (i.e., more likely to call the cue "old"), demonstrating strong within-list, item-by-item, criterion shifts. This liberal response bias toward degraded stimuli came at the cost of increasing the false alarm rate while maintaining a constant hit rate. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 with additional stimulus types (words and faces) but did not provide accuracy feedback to participants. The criterion shifts in Experiment 3 were smaller in magnitude than Experiments 1 and 2 and varied in consistency across stimulus type, suggesting, in line with previous studies, that feedback is important for participants to shift their criteria.

Multiple dimensions of semantic and perceptual similarity contribute to mnemonic discrimination for pictures.

“…However, both these findings could be due to modulations of response criterion rather than effects on memory (see also Montefinese et al, 2018). People's bias to respond "old" versus "new" can change itemby-item in response to properties of the test probes (Heit et al, 2003;Kent et al, 2018). For example, processing shared semantic features might increase attention to items in the absence of any retrieval of a gist trace.…”

Multiple dimensions of semantic and perceptual similarity contribute to mnemonic discrimination for pictures

“…However, both these findings could be due to modulations of response criterion rather than effects on memory. People's bias to respond "old" versus "new" can change item-by-item in response to properties of the test probes (Heit et al, 2003;Kent et al, 2018). For example, processing shared semantic features might increase attention to items in the absence of any retrieval of a gist trace.…”

Test position effects on hit and false alarm rates in recognition memory for paintings and words

“…Scientific interest in recognition memory response bias and the related signal detection construct of the decision criterion has grown dramatically in the last 20 years (Aminoff et al, 2012;Bowen, Marchesi, & Kensinger, 2020;G. E. Cox & Shiffrin, 2012;Frithsen, Kantner, Lopez, & Miller, 2018;Han & Dobbins, 2008;Heit, Brockdorff, & Lamberts, 2003;Hilford, Glanzer, Kim, & Maloney, 2019;Kent, Lamberts, & Patton, 2018;Koop, Criss, & Pardini, 2019;Megla, Woodman, & Maxcey, 2021;M B Miller, Handy, Cutler, Inati, & Wolford, 2001; M. G. Rhodes & Jacoby, 2007;Rotello, Macmillan, Hicks, & Hautus, 2006). Criterion shifts have been put forth as a potential explanation for a number of mysterious effects in the recognition literature, such as strength-based mirror effects (Hirshman, 1995;Hockley & Niewiadomski, 2007) and the revelation effect (Aßfalg, Bernstein, & Hockley, 2017;Verde & Rotello, 2004).…”