Effect of delay on recognition decisions: Evidence for a criterion shift

Response bias in recognition memory as a cognitive trait

“…For example, a growing literature has demonstrated that participants tend not to make appropriate criterion shifts in response to changing classes of items (e.g., strongly vs. weakly encoded) when the shifts must occur within a single test list (Stretch & Wixted, 1998;Verde & Rotello, 2007). Generally, within-list criterion shifts are not observed unless the two item classes are strikingly different (Bruno, Higham, & Perfect, 2009;Singer, 2009;Singer & Wixted, 2006) or corrective feedback is administered (Rhodes & Jacoby, 2007;Verde & Rotello, 2007). Participants' resistance to within-list criterion shifting might be a partial result of inherent bias tendencies that anchor shifting behavior.…”

Strength-based criterion shifts in recognition memory

“…In this regard, Singer and Wixted (2006) documented a within-list criterion shift in the comparison of items tested immediately versus at a 2-day delay (although not at shorter intervals). It should be noted that delay may differ from other strength manipulations in terms of people's metacognitive reasoning about immediate and delayed memory tests (Hasher & Griffin, 1978;Reder, 1982).…”

“…In addition, 30 color words, selected in a similar manner, made up the stimuli for a practice category. The stimuli appear in the Appendix of Singer and Wixted (2006).…”

“…The stimuli were based on the materials in Singer and Wixted (2006). Those authors identified 40 words that represented each of the following 10 categories: birds, body parts, chemical elements, cities, countries, diseases, male names, mammals/ four-footed animals, occupations, and American states.…”

“…This study scrutinized a discrepancy in which withinlist criterion shifts have been detected under delay manipulations (Singer et al, 2002;Singer & Wixted, 2006) but not under strength manipulations (Morrell, Gaitan, & Wixted, 2002;Stretch & Wixted, 1998b). The discrepancy is puzzling: Because immediately tested items ought to be represented more strongly than those tested at a delay, the impact of delay ought to parallel that of strength manipulations.…”