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Chess experts have repeatedly demonstrated exceptional recall of chessboards, which is weakened by disruption of the chessboard. However, chess experts still perform better than novices when recalling such disrupted chessboards, suggesting a somewhat generalized expertise effect. In the current study, we examined the extent of this generalized expertise effect on early processing of visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), by comparing 14 chess experts (Elo rating > 2000) and 15 novices on a change-detection paradigm using disrupted chessboards, where attention had to be selectively deployed to either visual or spatial features, or divided across both features. The paradigm differed in the stimuli used (domain-specific chess pieces vs. novel visual shapes) to evaluate domain-general effects of chess expertise. Both experts and novices had greater memory discriminability for chess stimuli than for the unfamiliar stimuli, suggesting a salience advantage for familiar stimuli. Experts, however, demonstrated better memory discriminability than novices not only for chess stimuli presented on these disrupted chessboards, but also for novel, domain-general stimuli, particularly when detecting spatial changes. This expertise advantage was greater for chessboards with supra-capacity set sizes. For set sizes within the working-memory capacity, the expertise advantage was driven by enhanced selective attention to spatial features by chess experts when compared to visual features. However, any expertise-related VSWM advantage disappeared in the absence of the 8 × 8 chessboard display, which implicates the chessboard display as an essential perceptual aspect facilitating the “expert memory effect” in chess, albeit one that might generalize beyond strictly domain-relevant stimuli.

Roughly 26-32% of US veterans, who served in the first Gulf War, report suffering from chronic health problems ( Golomb, 2008 , Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 105, 4295). The present study investigated the memory deficits reported by these ill Gulf War veterans (GWV) using a face-name associative memory paradigm administered during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The fMRI data confirmed memory performance on the memory task to be related to the amount of activation in the left hippocampus observed during the study. In addition, ill-GWV demonstrated decreased memory performance relative to unaffected GWV on this memory test, providing evidence of memory deficits using an objective measure of memory.

In three experiments, a dual-process approach to face recognition memory is examined, with a specific focus on the idea that a recollection process can be used to retrieve configural information of a studied face. Subjects could avoid, with confidence, a recognition error to conjunction lure faces (each a reconfiguration of features from separate studied faces) or feature lure faces (each based on a set of old features and a set of new features) by recalling a studied configuration. In Experiment 1, study repetition (one vs. eight presentations) was manipulated, and in Experiments 2 and 3, retention interval over a short number of trials (0-20) was manipulated. Different measures converged on the conclusion that subjects were unable to use a recollection process to retrieve configural information in an effort to temper recognition errors for conjunction or feature lure faces. A single process, familiarity, appears to be the sole process underlying recognition of conjunction and feature faces, and familiarity contributes, perhaps in whole, to discrimination of old from conjunction faces.

Eyewitness memory is vulnerable to information encountered prior to a lineup. Young (18-30 years) and older (60-80 years) witnesses viewed a crime video. Some witnesses were then exposed to mugshots of innocent suspects that included a critical foil. After a 48-h delay, all the witnesses took part in a target-absent lineup that included the critical foil and five new foils. Witnesses who picked one of the mugshots as the likely perpetrator showed inflated rates of choosing the critical foil from the lineup. Context reinstatement instructions did not reduce choices of innocent foils following mugshot exposure. Despite age-related increases in false choosing, age did not qualify other effects. The results are discussed in terms of commitment, source memory, and gist-based processing.

To explore the forensic implications of ‘verbal overshadowing’ in young and older eyewitnesses, we examined the effects of providing a verbal face description on subsequent performance in a lineup task. Young (18–30 years) and older (60–80 years) adults viewed a videotaped crime and performed some unrelated cognitive tasks. Participants in the experimental condition were then asked to supply a description of the target person in the event or to perform a control task. Upon completing the description/control task participants attempted to identify the target person from a target present photo-lineup presented in a sequential or simultaneous mode. Older participants made more false choices and sequential testing reduced correct choices. There was a weak trend consistent with verbal overshadowing that was unrelated to age as well as measures of verbal and face-matching expertise. Although overshadowing reduced performance only slightly, it appeared to affect the self-reported use of a feature-matching strategy linked to accurate decisions by young adults and inaccurate decisions by senior adults. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We provide a description and interpretation of signal detection theory as applied to the analysis of an individual stimulus in a recognition experiment. Despite the common use of signal detection theory in this context, especially in the face recognition literature, the assumptions of the model have rarely been made explicit. In a series of simulations, we first varied the stability of d’ and C in face sampling distributions and report the pattern of correlations between the hit and false alarm rate components of the model across the simulated experiments. These kinds of correlation measures have been reported in recent face recognition papers and have been considered to be theoretically important. The simulation data we report revealed widely different correlation expectations as a function of the parameters of the face sampling distribution, making claims of theoretical importance for any particular correlation questionable. Next, we report simulations aimed at exploring the effects of face sampling distribution parameters on correlations between individual components of the signal detection model (i.e. hit and false alarm rates), and other facial measures such as typicality ratings. These data indicated that valid interpretations of such correlations need to make reference to the parameters of the relevant face sampling distribution.

Elderly persons exceed young adults in false recognitions of new faces. One account claims there are age-related deficits in memory for context of encounter with faces. Because of these deficits, elderly persons frequently recognize faces on the basis of perceived familiarity (i.e., resemblance to face representations in memory), which is high for some new faces. To test this context-recollection hypothesis, we had young adult and elderly subjects judge whether faces: (1) had been seen previously in a test (though no face was repeated), and (2) were subjectively familiar (though no face was famous). The elderly exceeded the young subjects in seen-before judgements (false recognitions), and only the elderly showed a positive correlation between false recognitions and subjective familiarity. In Experiment 2, this finding was extended from false recognitions to correct recognitions, supporting the view that elderly persons, compared to young adults, rely more on resemblance in recognizing faces.

Studies of age differences in face recognition have shown age-related increases in false-alarm errors: elderly persons exceed young adults in judging new faces to be old. To distinguish among theoretical accounts of this finding, we compared young and elderly subjects in two recognition tasks: (1) that of judging whether faces were recent or nonrecent, and (2) that of judging whether faces were famous or nonfamous. The major independent variable was prior presentation of faces-including nonrecent and nonfamous foils-1 week before the test. False recent judgments in response to nonrecent faces and false famous judgments in response to nonfamous faces were higher among the elderly. Moreover, these age-related differences in false-alarm rates were larger for faces viewed 1 week previously than for entirely new faces. The findings suggest that, compared to young adults, older individuals rely relatively more on perceived familiarity, and relatively less on recollection of context, in making recognition decisions.

Studies of aging and face recognition show age-related increases in false recognitions of new faces. To explore implications of this false alarm effect, we had young and senior adults perform (1) three eye-witness identification tasks, using both target present and target absent lineups, and (2) and old/new recognition task in which a study list of faces was followed by a test including old and new faces, along with conjunctions of old faces. Compared with the young, seniors had lower accuracy and higher choosing rates on the lineups, and they also falsely recognized more new faces on the recognition test. However, after screening for perceptual processing deficits, there was no age difference in false recognition of conjunctions, or in discriminating old faces from conjunctions. We conclude that the false alarm effect generalizes to lineup identification, but does not extend to conjunction faces. The findings are consistent with age-related deficits in recollection of context and relative age invariance in perceptual integrative processes underlying the experience of familiarity.

We tested normal young and elderly adults and elderly Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients on recognition memory for tunes. In Experiment 1, AD patients and age-matched controls received a study list and an old/new recognition test of highly familiar, traditional tunes, followed by a study list and test of novel tunes. The controls performed better than did the AD patients. The controls showed the "mirror effect" of increased hits and reduced false alarms for traditional versus novel tunes, whereas the patients false-alarmed as often to traditional tunes as to novel tunes. Experiment 2 compared young adults and healthy elderly persons using a similar design. Performance was lower in the elderly group, but both younger and older subjects showed the mirror effect. Experiment 3 produced confusion between preexperimental familiarity and intraexperimental familiarity by mixing traditional and novel tunes in the study lists and tests. Here, the subjects in both age groups resembled the patients of Experiment 1 in failing to show the mirror effect. Older subjects again performed more poorly, and they differed qualitatively from younger subjects in setting stricter criteria for more nameable tunes. Distinguishing different sources of global familiarity is a factor in tune recognition, and the data suggest that this type of source monitoring is impaired in AD and involves different strategies in younger and older adults.

We examined context-free familiarity information as a source of the effects of face typicality upon face recognition. Experiment 1 tested memory for typical and unusual faces by (1) subjects who received an input list followed immediately by a recognition test (standard condition), (2) subjects who viewed all test faces (targets and lures) prior to the input list (prefamiliarization condition), and (3) subjects who viewed all test faces after the input list but prior to recognition (postfamiliarization condition). Although false-alarm errors in the standard condition were lower for unusual than for typical faces, this effect was reduced by postfamiliarization and was eliminated entirely by prefamiliarization. The prefamiliarization and typicality effects were replicated in Experiment 2, which showed that patterns of old judgments were compatible with the hypothesis that, although familiarity of new faces is greater if these faces are typical, the increment in familiarity that results from presentation is greater if these faces are unusual.

Differences in the ability of young adults and elderly to recognize faces were examined under two conditions. In a standard single-view condition, in which each input face was shown as one photograph, we confirmed prior findings that young adults perform better than the elderly at distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of new faces. We also found that the elderly had more trouble distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of(l) old faces changed in facial expression and (2) old faces changed in expression and pose. Yet there were no reliable age differences in distinguishing old-but-changed faces from entirely new faces. In a more naturalistic multi-view condition, in which each input face was shown in four poses and with two expressions, no age differences were found. A second experiment ruled out the possibility that varied repetition, by itself, removes age differences in recognizing faces. These data supported age differences in remembering facial expressions and possibly other details of photographs of faces, but not in remembering faces perse.

Two experiments investigated the role of verbalization in memory for environmental sounds. Experiment i extended earlier research (Bower & Holyoak, 1973) showing that sound recognition is highly dependent upon consistent verbal interpretation at input and test. While such a finding implies an important role for verbalization, Experiment 2 suggested that verbalization is not the only efficacious strategy for encoding environmental sounds. Recognition after presentation of sounds was shown to differ qualitatively from recognition after presentation of sounds accompanied with interpretative verbal labels and from recognition after presentation of verbal labels alone. The results also suggest that encoding physical information about sounds is of greater importance for sound recognition than for verbal free recall, and that verbalization is of greater importance for free recall than for recognition. Several alternative frameworks for the results are presented, and separate retrieval and discrimination processes in recognition are proposed.

Two experiments examined the effects of label retrieval upon subsequent recognition of complex, scenic pictures. Contrary to past research, i.e., Bahrick and Boucher's 1968 study, retrieval of labels which accompanied pictures at input was associated with high recognition of "same-photo" (copy) cues but not false recognition of similar "same-scene" cues on a subsequent "photo" recognition test. The label-retrieval effect can be attributed to actual rehearsal of pictorial information and not to item selection. In addition, the beneficial effects of label retrieval did not vary with the informational content of the label itself, i.e., its power to distinguish between same-photo and same-scene items. However, the effects of label-type as well as label retrieval varied with recognition test instructions. In a "scene" recognition test, requiring recognition of both same-photo and same-scene items, effects of label-type were stronger than in the "photo" test, while effects of label retrieval were not significant. The results highlight the complexity of the relationships between label retrieval and picture recognition and suggest several factors which might determine such relationships.

Middle-aged and elderly subjects heard melodyand title-cues for popular songs dating from 1921 to 1974. Subjects made familiarity and time-ofpopularity judgments, and, when a cue was recognized, they attempted lyric recall and estimated when the song was last heard. Two findings indicate that performance was based on very long term memory: Middle-aged subjects made relatively few recognition responses to songs from the twenties and thirties (when they were unborn or very young) while older subjects did not show this trend, and the last-heard judgments of all subjects were highly correlated with actual year-of-popularity. The major findings were that (a) cued recall of lyrics was higher in response to melodies than in response to titles, while temporal judgments showed no effect of cue and (b) temporal placement of a song was more accurate when recognized than when not recognized, even when lyrics were not recalled. The results suggest that accurate lifespan memory for popular songs exists, and that temporal judgments are based on episodic memory for information at least partially independent of lyric representations.

When dichotic pairs are presented in rapid succession, the best strategy is usually to segregate the items by ear of arrival. If the stimuli fall into distinguishable classes such as letters and digits, then report by class is roughly comparable to that obtained by the ear method. In the present experiment, a stimulus class distinction markedly interfered with listeners' ability to use the ear report method. The classes were speech (/ba, da, ga/) and nonspeech (500‐, 700‐, and 1000‐Hz tones). A trial consisted of three successive pairs of speech to one ear and nonspeech to the other. In separate blocks of trials, subjects reported the order of arrival for a given stimulus class (speech or nonspeech) or for a given ear (left or right). Performance was excellent for both types of report as long as all the speech went to one ear and all the nonspeech went to the other ear. However, when speech and nonspeech switched between the ears during a trial, class report remained excellent but ear report dropped substantially. The status of stimuli as speech or nonspeech, then, is a fundamental distinction, one that can reduce the effectiveness of the normally useful ear report method in dichotic memory tests.

Temporal order judgment (TOJ) in dichotic listening can be a difficult task. Previous experiments that used two speech stimuli on each trial (S/S) obtained sizable error rates when subjects were required to report which ear led (TOJ‐by‐ear). When subjects were required to identify the leading stimulus (TO J‐by‐stimulus), the error rate increased substantially. Apparently, the two speech stimuli were competing for analysis by the same processor, and so were overloading it. The present experiment used the same TOJ tasks, but presented a speech and a nonspeech stimulus on each trial (S/NS). The error rate was comparable to that of S/S for TO J‐by‐ear, but did not increase for TO J‐by‐stimulus. This would be expected if the speech and nonspeech stimuli are being sent to different processors, each of which performs its analysis without interference from the other. The interpretation of the data given here is consistent with the results of standard identification experiments reported elsewhere: when asked to identify both stimuli on each dichotic trial, subjects made many errors on S/S, while performance was virtually error‐free on S/NS.