Recognition failure of recallable unique names: Evidence for an empirical law of memory and learning.

Nilsson, Lars‐Göran; Law, Janine; Tulving, Endel

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.14.2.266

Cited by 44 publications

(81 citation statements)

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“…Evidence suggesting that Muter's (1984) results were due not to any representational properties of the names as assumed by generate-recognize theory but to overlap in the contextual information provided by the target and the cue was reported by Nilsson et al (1988), who showed that, when the contextual cues were less predictable from the targets, the relation between the recognition and recall of unique famous names was much as expected from Equation I.…”

Section: Recognition Of Recallable Music 633mentioning

confidence: 69%

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The Tulving-Wiseman law and the recognition of recallable music

et al. 1990

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Memory for well-known musical phrases was tested first for recognition in the absence of any specific musical context and then for recall given the preceding musical phrase as a contextual cue. Recognition and recall were found to be largely, but not completely, independent. Moreover, there was no evidence of any greater dependency between recognition and recall than that previously observed in the relation between word recognition and recall, as summarized by the Tulving-Wiseman law. These findings significantly extend the range of applicability of this law.It has been claimed that there is an empirical law in the relation between recognition and recall. This law has come to be known as the Tulving-Wiseman law, after those who discovered the regularity that it embodies (Tulving & Wiseman, 1975). Tulving and Wiseman proposed that this regularity could be summarized mathematically by the following equation:where the constant e = .5. In this equation, the relation between recognition and recall is assessed by the conditional probability of recognition (Rn) given recall (Re), and the relation is one in which recognition and recall are largely, but not completely, independent.The claim that this relation between recognition and recall is lawful has been recently discussed by Gardiner (1988Gardiner ( , 1989, Jones and Gardiner (1990), Nilsson, Dinniwell, andTulving (1987), andNilsson, Law, andTulving (1988). But the fullest review has been provided by Gardiner and Nilsson (1990), who state the law as follows:Recognition of a set of to-be-remembered items in the absence of any item-specific context is largely independent of their subsequent recall given item-specific contextual cues-provided these cues are functionally related to, hut not equivalent to, the target items themselves.Gardiner and Nilsson reviewed results from 78 relevant experiments from 42 published articles. These experiments yielded a total of 272 different observations of the probability ofrecognition given recall, and-with few exceptions-these observations all corresponded approximately with the probability of recognition given recall that would be expected, on the basis of Equation 1, from the probability of recognition. The experiments naturallyWe thank Ian Cross for help in computer programming and James Harnpton and Paul Williams for help in recording the music. Requests for reprints should be addressed to lohn Gardiner, Memory

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Section: Recognition Of Recallable Music 633mentioning

confidence: 69%

“…The claim that this relation between recognition and recall is lawful has been recently discussed by Gardiner (1988Gardiner ( , 1989, Jones and Gardiner (1990), Nilsson, Dinniwell, and Tulving (1987), and Nilsson, Law, and Tulving (1988). But the fullest review has been provided by Gardiner and Nilsson (1990), who state the law as follows:…”

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The Tulving-Wiseman law and the recognition of recallable music

et al. 1990

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“…When data in the Nilsson-Gardiner (N-G) database were plotted in the Tulving-Wiseman (TW) graph space (i.e., with recognition success as the y-ordinate and probability of recognition as the x-abscissa), 92% of the data points conformed to the function. Therefore, some researchers Copyright 1998 Psychonomic Society, Inc. (Cohen, 1985;Jones, 1984;Nilsson, Law, & Tulving, 1988) have treated the TW function as an empirical law. Many other researchers (e.g., Arlemalm, 1996;Flexser & Tulving, 1978;Tulving, 1983) relied on the meta-analysis ofeither the TW or the N-G database to claim that recognition is the sole determinant ofrecognition success.…”

Section: P(rn Irc) = P(rn) + 5[p(rn) -P(rn)2] (1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Item-specific effects in recognition failure: Reasons for rejection of the Tulving-Wiseman function

1998

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The present paper addresses the problems of whether recognition failure of recallable words is a function of both recognition and recall, and whether recognition failure is restricted to a small and specifiable subset of study items. A meta-analysis of the Nilsson-Gardiner database showed that recognition given recall was positively correlated with recognition and negatively correlated with recall. Two new experiments are reported, the first one using 48 word pairs for which recognition failure was found in previous studies. An item analysis of the data demonstrated that recognition failure occurred primarily with noun-adjective pairs. The second experiment compared Norwegian-American and American-Norwegian name pairs. Widedeviation from the Tulving-Wiseman function (Tulving & Wiseman, 1975)was observed for the latter condition. In both conditions, recognition failure occurred with only the items for which the beginnings of names shared three or more letters. It is concluded that recognition failure occurs when there exists a relationship between the members of an A-B pair that is independent of their pairing in the study context. The Tulving-Wiseman function is the result of collapsing across items in the analysis of previous studies.Both remembering and forgetting are imperfect phenomena. A list item that is forgotten on one occasion may be remembered on a later occasion. Tulving and his colleagues (Tulving, 1983) have contributed many studies ofsuch fluctuations in retrieval that make use ofa common experimental paradigm, a procedure that has been called the recognition-failure paradigm. In this paradigm, subjects study a list of paired, A-B, items (e.g., cabbageround). After a certain retention interval, they are given a recognition test for the B words (e.g., round) in the absence ofthe A words. This is followed by a cued recall test in which they are given A (e.g., cabbage) and asked to retrieve B. Tulving found that a certain proportion of the B words that were not recognized when used as targets on the recognition test were nevertheless recalled in response to their corresponding A word in the cued recall test. This finding is commonly referred to as recognition failure of recallable words, or just recognition failure. -Accepted by previous editor, Geoffrey R. Loftus Tulving (1983) organized the results of experiments using the recognition-failure paradigm in 2 X 2 contingency tables categorized according to success and failure in recognition (RN) and success and failure in recall (RC). Such tables give 4 unconditional and 8 conditional probabilities. The relation between recognition and recall is generally expressed by the conditional probability of recognition given recall, P(RN IRC). This measure, which is also called recognition success, is of course the complement of P(nRN IRC) (i.e., recognition failure of recallable words). Tulving and Wiseman (1975) reported that recognition success was related to the unconditional probability of recognition, P(RN). On the basis of a metaanalysis of the results o...

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“…However, when the items were divided into two groups differing in memorability, a negative correlation appeared between recognition and guessing probability with the more memorable items, and a positive correlation appeared with the less memorable items. This suggests that response bias, rather than the memory the tasks are designed to test, is responsible for the normally reported lack of correlation between recognition and word completion.In a widely used experimental paradigm for studying memory, subjects are presented with a list of words and then are tested, first using a recognition task and then using a cued-recall or word-completion task (for a review, see Nilsson , Law, & Tulving, 1988). A measure of statistical association is then computed between the scores of the two tasks .…”

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“…In a widely used experimental paradigm for studying memory, subjects are presented with a list of words and then are tested, first using a recognition task and then using a cued-recall or word-completion task (for a review, see Nilsson , Law, & Tulving, 1988). A measure of statistical association is then computed between the scores of the two tasks .…”

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Implicit and explicit memory and response bias

Deutsch

1992

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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The influence of response bias on tests of implicit and explicit memory was assessed by using word-stem completion and recognition. During acquisition, subjects were presented either with a list of words unrelated to the task in the retrieval phase or with a list of words whose stems could be completed in only two ways (e.g. " appeal," "appear"). In the word-stem-completion retrieval phase, the subjects, who were given either explicit or implicit memory instructions, were asked to complete these stems. Retrieval of items in implicit and explicit memory tasks was highly correlated (r = .593 and .625, respectively) when the acquisition list had contained the words completing the stems and similarly correlated (r = .667) when the acquisition list had contained no words completing the stems. There was no correlation between recognition and explicit stem completion. In contrast to stem completion, there was no overall correlation between " recognition" in the condition in which the acquisition list contained words to be recognized later and the guessing condition, in which the acquisition list had contained no words presented during the retrieval phase. However, when the items were divided into two groups differing in memorability, a negative correlation appeared between recognition and guessing probability with the more memorable items, and a positive correlation appeared with the less memorable items. This suggests that response bias, rather than the memory the tasks are designed to test, is responsible for the normally reported lack of correlation between recognition and word completion.In a widely used experimental paradigm for studying memory, subjects are presented with a list of words and then are tested, first using a recognition task and then using a cued-recall or word-completion task (for a review, see Nilsson , Law, & Tulving, 1988). A measure of statistical association is then computed between the scores of the two tasks . In the present experiments, a paradigm is used that measures the same essential relationships but that has been modified to enable a simple comparison between the way underlying biases operate on the two tasks between which a measure of association is calculated.It has been proposed (Tulving & Schacter, 1990) that there are two independent types of memory, implicit and explicit, whose presence can be revealed by the use of different tests . The absence of correlation between the results of such different tests has been used to argue for the independence of two memory processes, although the validity of such arguments has been challenged (Hintzman & Hartry, 1990). However, the probabilities of response on the two tests could be influenced by another factor besides the memory processes being tested (e.g., item familiarity). This nonmemory factor or bias could be the major determinant of the pattern of results on one of the tests. If the major determinant of the other test being correlated is a different bias, or a memory factor, a lack of correlation between the tests would not show that...

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Recognition failure of recallable unique names: Evidence for an empirical law of memory and learning.

Cited by 44 publications

References 39 publications

The Tulving-Wiseman law and the recognition of recallable music

The Tulving-Wiseman law and the recognition of recallable music

Item-specific effects in recognition failure: Reasons for rejection of the Tulving-Wiseman function

Implicit and explicit memory and response bias

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