Variation in the standard deviation of the lure rating distribution: Implications for estimates of recollection probability

Dopkins, Stephen; Varner, Kaitlin M.; Hoyer, Darin

doi:10.3758/s13423-017-1232-9

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…However, it remains unclear as to why greater lure variability would sometimes be observed. Meanwhile, empirically, there have been several studies that investigated the effects of semantic and orthographic similarity of lures to targets on word recognition memory (Ratcliff et al, 1994 ; Heathcote, 2003 ; Neely & Tse, 2009 ; Cho & Neely, 2013 ; Dopkins, Varner, & Hoyer, 2017 ; Shiffrin, Huber, & Marinelli, 1995 ). While a tendency for lure variance to increase for similar items was sometimes reported (e.g., Ratcliff et al , 1994 ; Heathcote , 2003 ), lure variance exceeding that of targets was otherwise never found.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greater target or lure variability? An exploration on the effects of stimulus types and memory paradigms

Chen,

Heathcote,

Sauer

et al. 2023

Mem Cogn

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In recognition memory, the variance of the target distribution is almost universally found to be greater than that of the lure distribution. However, these estimates commonly come from long-term memory paradigms where words are used as stimuli. Two exceptions to this rule have found evidence for greater lure variability: a short-term memory task (Yotsumoto et al., Memory & Cognition,36, 282–294 2008) and in an eyewitness memory paradigm (Wixted et al., Cognitive Psychology,105, 81–114 2018). In the present work, we conducted a series of recognition memory experiments using different stimulus (faces vs. words) along with different paradigms (long-term vs. short-term paradigms) to evaluate whether either of these conditions would result in greater variability in lure items. Greater target variability was observed across stimulus types and memory paradigms. This suggests that factors other than stimuli and retention interval might be responsible for cases where variability is less for targets than lures.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greater target or lure variability? An exploration on the effects of stimulus types and memory paradigms

Chen,

Heathcote,

Sauer

et al. 2023

Mem Cogn

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show abstract

“…The finding that greater strength coincides with greater old item variance has since been observed in other studies ( Glanzer & Adams, 1990 ; Heathcote, 2003 ; Hirshman & Hostetter, 2000 ; Koen et al, 2013 ; but see Grider and Malmberg, 2008 ; Starns et al, 2012 ). More recently, Dopkins et al (2017) found that a semantic priming manipulation increased the memory strength of new items and the variance of their corresponding confidence ratings at test, as well as the z -ROC slope. This suggests that a form of strength and item variance scaling could apply more generally to both old and new item types—a distribution with a greater mean tends to have a greater variance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Does variability in recognition memory scale with mean memory strength or encoding variability in the UVSD model?

Spanton

Berry

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) model of recognition memory assumes that the variance of old item memory strength (σo) is typically greater than that of new items. It has been suggested that this old item variance effect can be explained by the encoding variability hypothesis. However, Spanton and Berry (2020) failed to find evidence for this account, suggesting that σo may simply scale with mean memory strength (d) in the UVSD model. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of encoding variability and strength scaling on old item variance by creating conditions in which mean memory strength and variability in item characteristics was either low or high in 2 × 2 factorial designs. In Experiment 1, overall strength determined estimates of σo, with no effect of item characteristic variability. The same effect of overall strength was found in Experiment 2; there was also a significant effect of item characteristic variability, although this manipulation also had some effect on d and was therefore partially confounded. Experiment 3 similarly found a simultaneous increase in old item variance and memory strength in a design using mixed item characteristic variability conditions in a single study/test block. We conclude that old item variance increases with mean memory strength in the UVSD model, with uncertainty about the effects of encoding variability, and that future explanations of the old item variance effect should bear this in mind.

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“…More recently, Dopkins, Varner, and Hoyer (2017) found that a semantic priming manipulation increased the memory strength of new items and the variance of their corresponding confidence ratings at test, as well as the z-ROC slope. This suggests that a form of strength and item variance scaling could apply more generally to both old and new item typesa distribution with a greater mean tends to have a greater variance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does variability in recognition memory scale with mean memory strength or encoding variability in the UVSD model?

Spanton¹,

Berry²

2021

Preprint

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The unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) model of recognition memory assumes that the variance of memory strength for studied items (σo) is typically greater than that of non-studied items. It has been proposed that this old item variance effect is caused by many factors that affect memory strength at encoding, which add variable amounts of strength to a baseline amount. However, Spanton and Berry (2020) failed to find evidence for this encoding variability hypothesis and instead found that estimates of σo tended to be strongly positively correlated with estimates of mean memory strength (d) across participants, suggesting that σo may simply scale with d. The present experiments examined the effects of encoding variability and scaling on old item variance by creating conditions in which mean memory strength and encoding variability was either low or high in 2 × 2 factorial designs. In Experiment 1, overall strength determined estimates of σo, with no effect of encoding variability. The same effect of overall strength was found in Experiment 2; there was also a significant effect of encoding variability, although this manipulation also affected overall memory strength and was therefore partially confounded. We conclude that there is strong evidence that mean memory strength at least partially determines estimates of old item variance, and that satisfactory explanations of the old item variance effect should account for this.

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Variation in the standard deviation of the lure rating distribution: Implications for estimates of recollection probability

Cited by 4 publications

References 20 publications

Greater target or lure variability? An exploration on the effects of stimulus types and memory paradigms

Greater target or lure variability? An exploration on the effects of stimulus types and memory paradigms

Does variability in recognition memory scale with mean memory strength or encoding variability in the UVSD model?

Does variability in recognition memory scale with mean memory strength or encoding variability in the UVSD model?

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