On the development of conscious and unconscious memory.

Abstract

The distinction between conscious and unconscious memory, which is central to modern theories of cognition, has received only limited scrutiny in developmental research. One reason is a need for developmental methodologies that allow age variability in conscious and unconscious memory to be quantified. A simple paradigm (called conjoint recognition) and model are presented that quantify conscious and unconscious memory for learned materials and for the types of unlearned materials that have been found to induce false memories in children. A validation study showed that the model gave excellent accounts of the performance of 7-and 10-year-olds and that conscious and unconscious memory parameters reacted in appropriate ways to 3 manipulations (age, meaningfulness of distractors and targets, and priming).Much research in the adult memory literature has been devoted to the question of how two processes affect performance. One has been termed conscious (controlled or explicit) memory, and the other has been termed unconscious (automatic or implicit) memory. Conscious memory is said to involve vivid recollections of the occurrence of specific items as part of previously presented material. Phenomenologically, items' prior occurrences are "seen" in the mind's eye or "heard" in the mind's ear. Unconscious memory is said to involve definite feelings that items resemble presented material, but those feelings are not anchored in specific recollection of prior occurrences. Research on these two processes has produced a number of important results--for instance, that retrieval of verbatim traces of items' surface forms is involved in conscious memory and that retrieval of gist traces of their patterns and meanings is involved in unconscious memory (Brainerd, Reyna, & Brandse, 1995;Payne, Elie, Blackwell, & Neuschatz, 1996;Reyna & Brainerd, 1995a).Research on conscious versus unconscious memory is quite thin in the developmental literature, with only a few studies having been reported (e.g., Bullock Drummey & Newcombe, 1995;Newcombe & Fox, 1994;Newcombe & Lie, 1995;Russo, Nichelli, Gibertoni, & Cornia, 1995). Those studies have been concerned with questions such as whether above-chance performance on unconscious memory tests can be demonstrated in young children after long delays (Bullock Drummey & Newcombe, 1995;Newcombe & Fox, 1994), whether performance on unconscious memory tests exhibits age variability (Russo et al., 1995), and whether children's performance on unconscious memory tests is dissociated from their performance on conscious memory tests (Newcombe & Lie, 1995). The present article builds on these pioneering studies, focusing on the question of how to factor the contributions of conscious and uncon-C. J. Brainerd and L. M. Stein, College of Education, University of Arizona; V. E Reyna, Department of Surgery, University of Arizona.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to C. J. Brainerd, College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. Electronic mail may be sent to brainer...

Trichotomous processes in early memory development, aging, and neurocognitive impairment: A unified theory.

“…The picture in the memory development literature is quite different. On the one hand, some progress has been made in tracking the early ontogenetic course of dual memory processes, using methodologies that were originally devised to measure those processes in adults (e.g., Brainerd, Stein, & Reyna, 1998; Ghetti & Agelini, 2008;Ghetti & Castelli, 2006;Holliday & Hayes, 2000, 2002Newcombe, & Lie, 1995). However, such research has been sparse and sporadic, and findings have been inconsistent.…”

A influência do traço de personalidade neuroticismo na suscetibilidade às falsas memórias

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móra de essênca armazena somente o sgnficado do fato ocorrdo, a memóra lteral contém em s as lembranças dos detalhes específicos sobre o evento (Branerd, Sten & Reyna, 1998). Assm, segundo a Teora do Traço Dfuso, as falsas memóras ocorrem em função da lembrança de nformações acerca do sentdo das experêncas (memóras de essênca).

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False memory for perceptually similar but conceptually distinct line drawings

“…For instance, an analysis of "similar" responses showed that they were partly able to detect and reject related lures: The proportion of "similar" responses was affected by probe type, As a complimentary approach, we applied a simplified version of the Conjoint Recognition model (Brainerd, Reyna, & Mojardin, 1999;Brainerd, Stein, & Reyna, 1998;Stahl & Klauer, 2008, 2009 to the data that allows for a quantitative estimation of the following processes: (a) an all-or-nothing detection of either the probe's identity with a studied item (resulting in an old judgement), or its distinctiveness from a studied item (resulting in a similar judgement); (b) a (process detecting) gradual similarity between the probe and the items presented in the study phase that does not allow distinction of whether the probe is a target or a related lure; in this case, participants are assumed to guess old with probability a, and similar with probability (1 − a); (c) a guessing process that selects a new judgment with probability b, and (with probability 1 − b) proceeds to select among the old and similar judgments as above. In this model, if there is false memory for related lures, this should be reflected in non-zero estimates of the similarity process for these probes (i.e., S related > 0).…”