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Age-related declines in associative memory are ubiquitous, having been observed across a wide array of stimuli and experimental paradigms. Research further shows that such decreases in behavioral discriminability arise from increases in false memories for recombined lures. The current study examined the underlying neural basis of associative false memories by using representational similarity analyses to examine both age differences in the reactivation of encoded representations during retrieval and the neural overlap in the similarity of neural patterns underlying targets and related lures during retrieval. Behaviorally, we observed an age-related reduction in d’, which was shown to be driven by increased false alarms in the older adults. While we found no age difference in the relationship between patterns of neural activity underlying hits across memory phases (as measured by ERS), the similarity of neural patterns underlying targets and lures was affected by age. Specifically, while younger and older adults exhibited overall higher pattern similarity between hits and CRs compared to hits and FAs (as measured by RSA), this difference was reduced in older adults within occipital cortices. Additionally, greater Hit-FA representational similarity correlated with increases in associative FAs across occipital, frontal, and parietal cortices. Results suggest that while neural representations underlying targets may not differ across age, greater pattern similarity between the neural representation of targets and lures may reflect reduced distinctiveness of the information encoded in memory, such that old and new items are more difficult to discriminate, leading to more false alarms.

[This article has been accepted for publication as a brief report for Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (https://www.springer.com/journal/13423) ]There is growing appreciation for the role of long-term memory in guiding temporalpreparation in speeded reaction time tasks. In experiments with variable foreperiodsbetween a warning stimulus (S1) and a target stimulus (S2), preparation is affected byforeperiod distributions experienced in the past, long after the distribution has changed.These effects from memory can shape preparation largely implicitly, outside of participants’awareness. Recent studies have demonstrated the associative nature of memory-guidedpreparation. When distinct S1s predict different foreperiods, they can trigger differentialpreparation accordingly. Here, we propose that memory-guided preparation allows foranother key feature of learning: the ability to generalize across acquired associations andapply them to novel situations. Participants completed a variable foreperiod task where S1was a unique image of either a face or a scene on each trial. Images of either category werepaired with different distributions with predominantly shorter versus predominantly longerforeperiods. Participants displayed differential preparation to never-before seen images ofeither category, without being aware of the predictive nature of these categories. Theycontinued doing so in a subsequent Transfer phase, after they had been informed that thesecontingencies no longer held. A novel rolling regression analysis revealed at a fine timescalehow category-guided preparation gradually developed throughout the task, and thatexplicit information about these contingencies only briefly disrupted memory-guidedpreparation. These results offer new insights into temporal preparation as the product of alargely implicit process governed by associative learning from past experiences.

We propose that the specificity with which associations in episodic memory can be remembered varies on a continuum. Older adults have been shown to forget highly specific information (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, 2020b), and in Experiment 1, we provide further evidence that older adults' deficits in associative memory scale with the amount of specificity that needs to be retrieved. In Experiment 2, we address whether depleted attentional resources, simulated in young adults under divided attention at encoding, could account for older adults' associative memory specificity deficits. Participants studied face-scene pairs and later completed an associative recognition test, with test pairs that were old, highly similar or less similar to old pairs, or completely dissimilar. Participants rated their confidence in their decisions. False positive recognition responses increased with the amount of specificity needed to be retrieved. Whereas older adults' associative memory deficits scaled with how much specific information needed to be remembered, younger adults under divided attention had a more general deficit in associative memory. Confidence-accuracy analysis showed that participants were best able to calibrate their confidence when less specific information was needed to perform well. While divided attention young adults were generally prone to high-confidence errors, older adults' high-confidence errors were most apparent when highly specific information needed to be remembered. These results provide further evidence for levels of specificity in episodic memory. Access to the most specific levels is most vulnerable to forgetting, in line with a specificity principle of memory (Surprenant & Neath, 2009). Further, depleted attentional resources at encoding cannot entirely explain older adults' associative memory specificity deficits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Some aspects of our memory are enhanced by emotion, whereas other can be unaffected or even hinder. In particular, previous studies report impaired associative memory of emotional content, an effect termed associative 'emotional interference'. The current study utilized EEG and an associative recognition paradigm to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with this effect. In two experiments, participants studied negative and neutral stimulus-pairs that were either semantically related or unrelated. In Experiment 1 emotions were relevant to the encoding task (valence judgment) whereas in Experiment 2 emotions were irrelevant (familiarity judgment). In a subsequent associative recognition test, EEG was recorded while participants discriminated between intact, rearranged, and new pairs. An associative emotional interference effect was observed in both experiments, but was attenuated for semantically related pairs when emotions were relevant to the study task. Moreover, a modulation of an early associative memory ERP component depended on task relevancy of emotions, and occurred for negative pairs when emotions were relevant, but for semantically related pairs when emotions were irrelevant. A later ERP component depicted a more general pattern, and was observed in all experimental conditions. These results suggest that both emotions and semantic relations can act as organizing principles that promote associative binding. Their ability to contribute to successful retrieval depends on specific task demands.

Children's learning capabilities change while growing up. One framework that describes the cognitive and neural development of children's growing learning abilities is the two‐component model. It distinguishes processes that integrate separate features into a coherent memory representation (associative component) and executive abilities, such as elaboration, evaluation, and monitoring, that support memory processing (strategic component). In an fMRI study using an object‐location association paradigm, we investigated how the two components influence memory performance across development. We tested children (10–12 years, n = 31), late adolescents (18 years, n = 29), and adults (25+ years, n = 30). For studying the associative component, we also probed how the utilisation of prior knowledge (schemas) facilitates memory across age groups. Children had overall lower retrieval performance, while adolescents and adults did not differ from each other. All groups benefitted from schemas, but this effect did not differ between groups. Performance differences between groups were associated with deactivation of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which in turn was linked to executive functioning. These patterns were stronger in adolescents and adults and seemed absent in children. Thus, the children's executive system, the strategic component, is not as mature and thus cannot facilitate memory performance in the same way as in adolescents/adults. In contrast, we did not find age‐related differences in the associative component; with activity in the angular gyrus predicting memory performance systematically across groups. Overall, our results suggest that differences of executive rather than associative abilities explain memory differences between children, adolescents, and adults., In an fMRI study, we investigated whether memory differences between children, adolescents, and adults stem from developmental changes in executive abilities, the strategic component, or rather from differences in mechanisms related to binding different features together into a memory representation, the associative component. Overall, our results suggest that differences of executive rather than associative abilities explain memory differences between children, adolescents and adults.

Much research has been executed to investigate how altering focus of attention impacts performance and feelings of fatigue. Using a within-participant design, the present study examined how an associative and dissociative attentional in addition to an internal and external attentional dimension influenced the running economy of nonprofessional runners. Twelve women (aged 18–30 years old) ran on a treadmill at 70% of their predetermined maximum velocity. Participants ran in four counterbalanced conditions (dissociative-external, dissociative-internal, associative-external, and associative-internal). Average oxygen volume, respiration volume and breathing frequency, heart rate, blood lactate level, and Borg rating of perceived exertion were measured. Our findings revealed when participants adopted a dissociative-external focus of attention, they consumed less oxygen, had lower blood lactate, and a lower rating of perceived exertion compared with trials completed using an associative attention strategy. The findings of this study demonstrate that running economy is improved and feelings of fatigue are lowest when using a combination of a dissociative-external focus of attention.

People tend to better remember same-race faces relative to other-race faces (an "own-race" bias). We examined whether the own-race bias extends to associative memory, particularly in the identification and recall of information paired with faces. In Experiment 1, we presented white participants with own- and other-race faces which either appeared alone or accompanied by a label indicating whether the face was a "criminal" or a "victim". Results revealed an own-race facial recognition advantage regardless of the presence of associative information. In Experiment 2, we again paired same- and other-race faces with either "criminal" or "victim" labels, but rather than a recognition test, participants were asked to identify whether each face had been presented as a criminal or a victim. White criminals were better categorised than Black criminals, but race did not influence the categorisation of victims. In Experiment 3, white participants were presented with same- and other-race faces and asked to remember where the person was from, their occupation, and a crime they committed. Results revealed a recall advantage for the associative information paired with same-race faces. Collectively, these findings suggest that the own-race bias extends to the categorisation and recall of information in associative memory.

The current study leveraged experimental and individual differences methodology to examine whether false memories across different list-learning tasks arise from a common cause. Participants completed multiple false memory (associative and conjunction lure), working memory (operation and reading span), and source monitoring (verbal and picture) tasks. Memory discriminability in the associative and conjunction tasks loaded onto a single (general) factor and were unaffected by warnings provided at encoding. Consistent with previous research, source-monitoring ability fully mediated the relation between working memory and false memories. Moreover, individuals with higher source monitoring-ability were better able to recall contextual information from encoding to correctly reject lures. These results suggest that there are stable individual differences in false remembering across tasks. The commonality across tasks may be due, at least in part, to the ability to effectively use disqualifying monitoring processes.

Studies of switching between tasks and studies of error commission have both provided solid behavioral measures of executive control. Nonetheless, a gap remains between these strands of research. In three experiments we sought to reduce this gap by assessing the impact of task errors on N-2 repetition costs, an effect supposedly related to task-set inhibition. Based on previous literature reporting a task-switch benefit following task errors, due to incidental learning of the erroneously executed task-set, we predicted N-2 repetition costs to be decreased after task errors in Trial N-2, relative to correct responses. Furthermore, we predicted this effect to be present only when corrective control mechanisms would not have the time to build up on the post-error trial (i.e., following fast post-error trial only). This hypothesis was tested in a three-tasks paradigm using incongruent stimuli, under the assumption that errors on such trials are partly due to task confusions. Consistent with our predictions, N-2 repetition costs following N-2 errors were found to be reduced when responses in Trial N-1 were fast but were present when the N-1 response was slow. Taken together, our results suggest that task execution leads to associative strengthening of the corresponding task-set, irrespective of response accuracy, and that such automatic strengthening can be counteracted by slowly acting control mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

In the article, the authors highlight the peculiarities of schizophrenia speech manifestations and presents an algorithm for its identification. The algorithm consists of four stages, which include the respondents’ oral and written speech analysis which considers the specifics of systemic speech indicators, associative reactions and grapheme features. The first stage features oral communication with patients, during which they are asked to answer questions about their past, general orientation in space and time, etc., which is generally consistent with the tactics of questioning, but in the projection not only on psychomental peculiarities, but on the linguistic indicators as well. This way we get an idea of the level of the patient’s general communicative competence. The results of the study are recorded in the according table. During the second stage, the authors utilize an associative experiment, the results of which are compared with the results of mentally healthy respondents and are also recorded in the table. Such comparative analysis reveals the conceptual differences between the respondents’ associative background and makes it possible to identify informative semantic segments. During the third stage, patients are asked to write a short essay about their daily routine, the most memorable day in life, which helps to determine their personal view of events, perceptions of such events, and illustrates the grapheme features of speech realizations. The results are also recorded in the table. The fourth stage involves the analysis and generalization of the results. The scientific novelty of article is that it is the first one to present a comprehensive algorithm for examining the speech of patients with schizophrenia, in particular at the level of their oral and written speech. The theoretical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of utilizing the findings in an in-depth study of speech features of patients with schizophrenia at different stages, considering the most informative language indicators, as well as in further development of pathopsycholinguistics general theory, altered consciousness states studies and other related studies. The practical value of the obtained results is determined by the possibility of utilizing them in developing methods for speech correction of mentally ill people and in the recognition of such diseases at the initial stage.

OBJECTIVES Recently, a growing number of studies have shown that familiarity can promote associative recognition when more than two types of stimuli are combined into a single entity. However, it is not clear why the effect of unitization on associative recognition varies in the different studies. In this study, we examined whether the unitization congruence (UC) between original image pairs and rearranged ones affects associative recognition. METHODS Participants were asked to learn relevant and irrelevant picture pairs for the encoding phase, and they needed to distinguish intact pairs from rearranged pairs for the retrieval phase, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the whole process. RESULTS The results of the behavioral experiments showed that the performances of recognition (Prs: hits-false alarms) were higher under the relevant condition than under the irrelevant one for both UC conditions, although this effect was much larger under the inconsistent UC condition than under the consistent one. The ERP results also revealed that there were larger early old/new effect (FN400) and late left parietal old/new effect (LPC) under the relevant condition than under the irrelevant ones, irrespective of its consistency or inconsistency. However, these effects were more significant for inconsistent conditions. CONCLUSIONS These results indicated that UC can moderate the effect of unitization on associative recognition by increasing familiarity and recollection and revealed the need to match the level of unitization of materials arrangements in future studies.

Temporal and semantic associative processes during the acquisition of new verbal information undergo various changes across the life span. Temporal order clusters and subjective clusters were monitored during verbal learning trials using the Rey (Auditory Verbal Learning Task) for 1471 participants aged 8-91. Pairs, three-word, and four-word clusters were measured. Subjective clusters were generated at similar frequency across the whole life span. By contrast, a clear inverted-U curve across life span was indicated for temporal clusters. More words were subjectively clustered than clustered by temporal presentation order. The number of words clustered increased across trials, and cluster types showed a different increase profile across trials. The subjective cluster increment was faster and steeper than the temporal cluster increment in most of the age segments. Life span trajectory tendencies in the formation of temporal and semantic associations in recall were interpreted in relation to different frameworks of cognitive life span changes.

Relative to studying alone, guessing the meanings of unknown words can improve later recognition of their meanings, even if those guesses were incorrect – the pretesting effect (PTE). The error-correction hypothesis suggests that incorrect guesses produce error signals that promote memory for the meanings when they are revealed. The current research sought to test the error-correction explanation of the PTE. In three experiments, participants studied unfamiliar Finnish-English word pairs by either studying each complete pair or by guessing the English translation before its presentation. In the latter case, the participants also guessed which of two categories the word belonged to. Hence, guesses from the correct category were semantically closer to the true translation than guesses from the incorrect category. In Experiment 1, guessing increased subsequent recognition of the English translations, especially for translations that were presented on trials in which the participants’ guesses were from the correct category. Experiment 2 replicated these target recognition effects while also demonstrating that they do not extend to associative recognition performance. Experiment 3 again replicated the target recognition pattern, while also examining participants’ metacognitive recognition judgments. Participants correctly judged that their memory would be better after small than after large errors, but incorrectly believed that making any errors would be detrimental, relative to study-only. Overall, the data are inconsistent with the error-correction hypothesis; small, within-category errors produced better recognition than large, cross-category errors. Alternative theories, based on elaborative encoding and motivated learning, are considered.

Space and time are both essential aspects of human episodic memory. Yet, behavioral studies into the dynamics of recall have focused more on time than space. For instance, it is now well known that temporally contiguous events are more likely to be subsequently recalled than temporally remote events, as measured by the lag-conditional response probability (lag-CRP), which represents the probability of recalling item i + lag after recalling item i. The present study administered both verbal and spatial delayed free recall (DFR) tasks to a sample of 168 participants in order to measure lag-CRPs along both spatial and temporal associative dimensions. Whereas only the temporal lag-CRP could be measured in the verbal DFR task, both temporal and spatial lag-CRPs could be measured in the spatial DFR task. As expected, the results obtained in the verbal DFR task indicated the typical temporal contiguity effect. More importantly, the results obtained in the spatial DFR task indicated significant contiguity effects along both associative dimensions, and the spatial contiguity effect was found to be significantly larger than the temporal contiguity effect. In addition, the relatively small temporal contiguity effect observed in the spatial DFR task was also found to be significantly smaller than the temporal contiguity effect observed in the verbal DFR task. Altogether, the present findings provided novel evidence that spatial and temporal proximity can both cue sequential dependencies between successive recalls. As such, retrieved context models of episodic memory should be expanded to include spatial context as well as temporal context.

Comparative psychologists study cognition by characterizing the behavior of individual species and explicitly comparing behavior across species. We use the extensive comparative literature on transitive inference (TI) as a case study to evaluate four central methodological questions that continue to be debated in the field of comparative psychology: 1) Are contextual variables sufficient to explain species differences in cognition? 2) Can cognitive performance be accounted for by associative processes alone? 3) Can we determine the cognitive mechanisms by which animals solve tasks? and 4) What is the role of ecologically driven hypotheses in comparative psychology? Although contextual variables and associative processes undeniably influence choice behavior in TI tasks, neither is sufficient to explain all performance. Instead, multiple distinct cognitive mechanisms, including associative processes, logical inference, and spatial representations, can and do result in successful TI performance. TI is not a unitary task solved using a single mechanism; multiple processes are recruited, with their degree of involvement dependent on context, species, and evolutionary pressures. This suggests that rather than asking whether animals possess a certain cognitive ability, research should focus on differences in when and how species employ tools from what is often a reasonably similar cognitive toolbox. We join others who have proposed that a main goal of comparative psychology should be to determine how animals solve cognitive tasks, through minimizing and studying the influence of contextual variables, evaluating the contributions of associative processes, clearly characterizing and testing alternative cognitive mechanisms, and using strong evolutionary hypotheses to guide predictions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of divided attention (DA) during encoding on later memory performance are widely documented. However, the precise nature of these effects on underlying memory representations and subsequent retrieval processes has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we examined whether DA at encoding would disrupt young adults’ ability to remember associations in episodic memory at highly specific levels of representation (i.e., verbatim memory), or whether the effects of DA extend also to gist memory for associations. Two groups of participants (one under full attention, one under DA) studied face–scene pairs. The DA group simultaneously completed an auditory choice reaction-time task during encoding. Following either a short or long delay, participants were tested on their ability to discriminate intact face–scene pairs from recombined pairs that were either highly similar, less similar, or completely unrelated to originally studied pairs. The DA group performed more poorly than the full attention participants at correctly classifying most types of test pairs at both delays, and results from a multinomial-processing-tree model demonstrated that participants who encoded associations under DA experienced deficits in both specific and gist memory retrieval. We also compared the DA group to full attention older adults who were tested with the same paradigm (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, Psychological Science, 31[3], 316–331, 2020). The DA group had lower estimates of gist retrieval than the older adults but similar estimates of verbatim memory. These results suggest that DA at encoding disrupts episodic memories at multiple levels of representation, in contrast to age-related effects, which are restricted only to the highest levels of specificity. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13421-021-01196-9.

This study focused on the associative learning of new word forms in the first language and haptic stimuli. In this study, healthy Japanese participants performed three-step tasks. First, participants made nine subjective evaluations of haptic stimuli using five-point semantic differential scales (e.g., regarding stickiness, scored from 1 (not sticky) to 5 (sticky)). Second, the participants carried out learning and recognition tasks for associative pairs of new (meaningless) word forms in their first language (Japanese) and haptic stimulus (H condition), and performed learning and recognition tasks for new (meaningless) word forms only (W condition). The order of conditions was counterbalanced among participants. Third, participants performed free recall tasks. The results of the recognition tasks showed that the proportions and response times of the W condition were better and faster, respectively, than those of the H condition. Furthermore, preference of haptic features negatively correlated with free recall scores of the H condition, however, there was no significant difference between the free recall scores of the H and W conditions. Our results suggest that new word forms were learned better than associative pairs of new word forms and haptic stimuli in a single day of learning. Furthermore, the free recall performance of word forms associated with haptic features could also be affected by their subjective evaluation (preference).

How do we form mental links between related items? Forming associations between representations is a key feature of episodic memory and provides the foundation for learning and guiding behavior. Theories suggest that spatial context plays a supportive role in episodic memory, providing a scaffold on which to form associations, but this has mostly been tested in the context of autobiographical memory. We examined the memory boosting effect of spatial stimuli in memory using an associative inference paradigm combined with eye-tracking. Across two experiments, we found that memory was better for associations that included scenes, even indirectly, compared to objects and faces. Eye-tracking measures indicated that these effects may be partly mediated by greater fixations to scenes compared to objects, but did not explain the differences between scenes and faces. These results suggest that scenes facilitate associative memory and integration across memories, demonstrating evidence in support of theories of scenes as a spatial scaffold for episodic memory. A shared spatial context may promote learning and could potentially be leveraged to improve learning and memory in educational settings or for memory-impaired populations.

In the present study, we used the Fuzzy Trace Theory (FTT) perspective to investigate the role of context switching or reinstatement on correct and false recognition. In two experiments, participants studied words presented against unique picture backgrounds. At test, we manipulated pictorial context, presenting test items with reinstated context, switched context or with no pictorial context. As a measurement method we used the multinomial model developed by Stahl and Klauer (2008, 2009) for the simplified conjoint recognition paradigm. The results indicated that providing item-context associative information in the reinstated-context condition enhances verbatim trace retrieval of targets but does not influence their gist retrieval. In the case of false recognitions of related distracters, manipulations of retrieval context resulted in different effects across experiments, putatively because simple false memory for occurrence (FMO) task and Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm involve different latent-processes. The DRM experiment showed decreased phantom recollection and increased gist-based recognition of critical distracters in the switched-context condition in comparison with the remaining conditions. In contrast, the FMO experiment, showed a decrease in the gist memory for related distracters and increase in the response bias to recognize distracters as targets in the switched-context condition in comparison with the reinstated-context condition.

Objectives:This study aimed to identify a well-fitting and theoretically justified item-level latent factor structure for the Wechsler Memory Scales (WMS)-IV verbal paired associates (VerbalPA) subtest to facilitate the ease and accuracy of score interpretations for patients with lateralized temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Methods:Archival data were used from 250 heterogeneous neurosciences patients who were administered the WMS-IV as part of a standard neuropsychological assessment. Three theoretically motivated models for the latent structure of VerbalPA were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The first model, based on cognitive principles of semantic processing from hub-and-spoke theory, tested whether performance is related to specific semantic features of target words. The second, motivated by the Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive abilities, investigated whether the associative properties of items influence performance. A third, Hybrid model tested whether performance is related to both semantic and associative properties of items. The best-fitting model was tested for diagnostic group effects contrasting the heterogeneous neuroscience patients with subsets of left and right TLE (n = 51, n = 26, respectively) patients.Results:The Hybrid model was found to have the best fit. Patients with left TLE scored significantly less well than the heterogeneous neurosciences sample on selected semantic factor scores, although the effect size was small.Conclusions:Future editions of the WMS may consider implementing a semantic scoring structure for the VerbalPA to facilitate test score interpretation. Additionally, these results suggest that principles of hub-and-spoke theory may be integrated into CHC cognitive ability taxonomy.

Intrusive memories of a traumatic event can be reduced by a subsequent interference procedure, seemingly sparing voluntary memory for that event. This selective-interference effect has potential therapeutic benefits (e.g., for emotional disorders) and legal importance (e.g., for witness testimony). However, the measurements of intrusive memory and voluntary memory typically differ in the role of associations between a cue and the emotional memory “hotspots.” To test this, we asked participants to watch a traumatic film followed by either an interference procedure (reminder plus Tetris) or control procedure (reminder only). Measurement of intrusions (using a laboratory task) and voluntary memory (recognition for film stills) were crossed with the presence or absence of associative cues. The reminder-plus-Tetris group exhibited fewer intrusions despite comparable recognition memory, replicating the results of prior studies. Note that this selective interference did not appear to depend on associative cues. This involuntary versus voluntary memory dissociation for emotional material further supports separate-trace memory theories and has applied advantages.

Associative learning makes important contributions to our behavior and decisions. The Kamin blocking effect is an associative learning phenomenon that plays a central role in understanding of the psychological principles underlying associative learning. However, several recent failures to replicate the blocking effect suggest that the conditions necessary for blocking are poorly understood. To understand the conditions necessary for blocking, here we review studies into the expression of blocking in subjects that either approach and interact with the conditioned cue (sign trackers) or approach and interact with the reward location (goal trackers) during appetitive classical conditioning. Psychological theory and the neurophysiological correlates of appetitive classical conditioning make opposing predictions regarding the expression of blocking in sign and goal trackers. We reconcile these opposing predictions in a qualitative model using two parallel learning processes. Such models offer a better framework for understanding the psychological associative structures acquired during learning, their interactions contributing to the conditioned response, and how they affect subsequent learning and the expression of the Kamin blocking effect.

Rescorla (2001) used the compound test procedure to compare associative changes to cues located at different points on a performance scale. He found that associative changes to cues conditioned in compound are not necessarily equal, as predicted by common error term theories like Rescorla and Wagner (1972), but instead are larger for the poorer predictor of a trial outcome. Hence, Rescorla proposed a modification to the Rescorla-Wagner model whereby associative change is calculated as the product of 2 error terms: a common error term, as in the original model, and a unique error term for each cue present, which accounts for his findings that the poorer predictor of a trial outcome undergoes more associative change. In a recent study, Spicer, Mitchell, Wills, and Jones (2020) reported findings that appear to be inconsistent with Rescorla's proposal. These authors compared associative changes to cues that differed in associative strength as well as the certainty with which they predicted a trial outcome: One cue had greater strength than did the other, but its prediction of the trial outcome was less certain. Spicer et al. found that the cue that evoked a larger prediction error (the more certain cue) underwent less (not more) associative change and, thereby, concluded that associative change in people is not primarily determined by prediction error. Instead, they argued that cues that predict certain outcomes are somewhat protected from further associative change (theory protection), resulting in greater change to cues that predict uncertain outcomes. In this article, we offer an alternative explanation for the Spicer et al. findings using an approach described by Holmes, Chan, and Westbrook (2019). We show that if the learning-to-performance mapping function is a double sigmoid across the full range of associative strength, the Rescorla-Wagner model accommodates Rescorla's compound test results, as well as those reported by Spicer et al. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

According to the associative deficit hypothesis, older adults experience greater difficulty in remembering associations between pieces of information than young adults, despite their relatively intact memory for individual items. It has been demonstrated that this deficit could be simulated by depleting resources for relational processing. The current study examines the possible mechanisms underlying this simulation. Item and associative memory were assessed using a process dissociation paradigm in which word pairs were encoded under full attention (FA) or relational divided attention (DA) conditions across three groups: FA older adults (

Few studies have compared interference-based forgetting between item versus associative memory. The memory-system dependent forgetting hypothesis (Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013) predicts that effects of interference on associative memory should be minimal because its hippocampal representation allows pattern separation even of highly similar information. In contrast, there should be strong interference effects on extra-hippocampally represented item memory. We tested this prediction in behavioral data from 3 experiments using continuous recognition paradigms. Given older adults' greater deficits in associative than item memory, we also compared younger and older adults to test whether this associative deficit extends to greater interference susceptibility in older adults' associative memory. Experiment 1 examined item-item associative memory with participants studying unrelated word pairs continuously intermixed with item (single words) and associative (intact vs. recombined pairs) recognition tests across interference-filled lags. Experiments 2 and 3 examined item-context (i.e., source) associative memory with participants studying words in different spatial positions continuously intermixed with source-monitoring tests (presented on top vs. on bottom vs. new?) across interference-filled lags (Experiment 3 controlling for delay/decay-based effects). In all experiments, item memory declined from the first lag on. In contrast, associative memory initially remained stable, with strong evidence for null effects of interference even in older adults, but showed some declines at later lags. The data supports Hardt et al.'s proposal of differential interference-based forgetting in item versus associative memory. The results further show that the age-related associative memory deficit does not extend to greater interference-based forgetting in older adults' associative memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The ability to generate associative representations and to retrieve them from long-term episodic memory generally declines in healthy aging. However, it is unclear whether healthy aging has differential effects on associative memory for identity, spatial configuration, and temporal order relationships. In the current study, we assessed how healthy aging impacts on associative memory for identity, spatial, or temporal relationships between pairs of visual objects via discrimination of intact and rearranged pairs. Accuracy and response time performance of healthy older adults (aged 65-80) were compared with young adults (ages 19-30). Age-related declines in associative memory were observed equally for all types of associations, but these declines differed by associative status: aging most strongly affected ability to discriminate rearranged pairs. These results suggest that associative memory for identity, spatial, and temporal relationships are equally affected by healthy aging, and may all depend on a shared set of basic associative mechanisms.

Popular claims of virtual reality systems serving as ‘empathy machines’ often fail to consider (a) the cognitive mechanisms driving the effects of technological immersion on empathy and (b) the conceptualization of empathy as a multidimensional construct. More, recent research has yielded mixed empirical support. This study investigates how dimensions of psychological presence—perceived self-location, sense of copresence, and judgments of social realism—mediate the effect of immersion on cognitive, affective, and associative empathy. Findings indicate that experiencing a news story via 360° video on a head-mounted display led to stronger self-location and copresence than engaging with the same video via desktop or reading a text version. While only copresence increased cognitive empathy, both self-location and copresence facilitated affective empathy. Whereas self-location and copresence enhanced associative empathy, social realism decreased it. These results highlight the value of a multidimensional conceptualization of empathy in investigating the prosocial potential of immersive media.

We examined affective consequences arising from the kinds of memory retrieval failures that often accompany social interaction. To do so, we measured the influence of cued-recall outcomes for biographical information on the rated attractiveness of faces. The data demonstrate that retrieval of names (Experiment 1a) and professions (Experiment 1b) increases the rated attractiveness of target faces relative to faces that failed to produce recall of associative information. This was predicted by a confirmation of search (COS) model originally developed on verbal memoranda, which assumes that confirmation bias during memory search leads to affective consequences depending upon retrieval's success or failure. The current study extends this model, showing that evaluative judgments of individuals are in part contingent upon the memory retrieval skills of their assessors. We conclude by discussing potential extensions of the COS paradigm to the measurement of implicit attitudes and special populations.

In two experiments we examined the role of language proficiency and associative strength in the production of false memory. We constructed Deese-Roediger-McDermott lists using both Spanish and English free association norms. Lists were constructed to vary in backward associative strength (BAS). Experiment 1 participants were native Spanish speakers with some proficiency in English while Experiment 2 participants were native Spanish participants that had either high, intermediate, or low English proficiency. Results showed that, in both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, false recognition was greater in participants' dominant language (L1 or Spanish) than in their non-dominant language (L2 or English), and false recognition in L2 increased with L2 proficiency when low-BAS lists were studied (Experiment 2). Further, false recognition was higher in high-BAS lists than in low-BAS lists in both L1 and L2. Finally, we collected a measure of participants' knowledge of our stimulus words in L2. These data showed that participants had far from perfect knowledge of all L2 stimuli. Analyses that factored out the effects of L2 word knowledge failed to alter the effects of L1 vs. L2, L2 proficiency and BAS on false recognition.

This article presents the main results of a pilot study of the concept sphere “subjects of educational activity” through an associative experiment. Students of the Crimean Federal University named after V. I. Vernadsky were involved as respondents. The resulting lexical associative material was analyzed and interpreted according to the criteria of compliance with various macro- and microcomponents of the concepts structure: “school”, “university”, “higher education institution”, “teacher”, “professor”, “pupil”, “student”. The core and periphery of these concepts are identified and described. The structure of each concept was investigated in accordance with the following criteria: a figurative component, differential encyclopedic features set of the concept, an interpretation field, which includes utilitarian, general evaluative, regulatory, socio-cultural, mythological and identification zones. As a result of the analy­sis of the associative reactions of the respondents, the hypothesis about the differences in the structure of the studied concepts was confirmed. The semantic features of verbal reactions, the mode of emotivity, as well as their correlation with the paradigmatic or syntagmatic type have been determined. Obvious differences are revealed mainly in the interpretational field of the considered concepts. The structure study of the concepts school, university, higher education institution, teacher, professor, pupil in an associative experiment allows us to describe their significant cognitive and perceptual features, thereby contributing to the description of the “state of affairs” in the education system through the eyes of students. This approach helps to identify the most problematic, confrontational zones in the interaction of educational activity with real subjects. One of these problems is the predominantly negative perception by the respondents of such subjects of educational activity as the teacher and the school.

The paper deals with the understanding of property relations, a sense of ownership, and the need for property. Ownership relations are presented as a wide range of interactions with or around property, which is based on three interrelated elements: the owner, the target of ownership, and others (potential owners or those who must recognize the legitimacy of psychological possession). Ownership relations, as well as a very sense of ownership, on the one hand is often unconscious, background, and on the other - an ambiguous attitude on the part of society, which encourages people to hide their feelings about a target of ownership. Therefore, to work with such queries, it is best to use, especially in the initial stages, projective methods, including metaphorical associative cards. The aim of the article is to substantiate the practical techniques and means of the psychologists’ work with property relations, attitude towards property and feeling a sense of ownership with metaphorical associative cards as a tool for diagnosing and correcting client behavior and feelings about property relations. Methods. To achieve the goal of the study, the methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison are used to understand the general algorithm of work with the topic of psychological ownership and in general the principles and techniques of working with MAC, as well as the descriptive method. The main demands that can be caused by ownership relations are jealousy, envy, pathological accumulation, waste, excessive frugality, greed, feelings of loss of property, inability to own, irresponsibility, and so on. The possibility of using metaphorical associative cards as a projective method for diagnostic and correctional-therapeutic work of a psychologist with property relations is substantiated. The advantages of metaphorical associative cards for working with such type of queries are shown. The basic algorithms of request processing are described, as well as the techniques "Relationship with the target of ownership", "Ownership and parental guidelines" are presented. It has been shown that projective methods are an effective tool in the work of a psychologist and psychotherapist with such often unconscious issues as ownership and the desire for possession.

Language is a powerful vehicle for expressing emotions, although the process by which words acquire their emotional meaning remains poorly understood. This study investigates how words acquire emotional meanings using two types of associative contexts: faces and sentences. To this end, participants were exposed to pseudowords repeatedly paired either with faces or with sentences expressing the emotions of disgust, sadness, or neutrality. We examined participants’ acquisition of meanings by testing them in both within-modality (e.g., learning pseudowords with faces and testing them with a new set of faces with the target expressions) and cross-modality generalization tasks (e.g. learning pseudowords with faces and testing them with sentences). Results in the generalization tests showed that the participants in the Face Group acquired disgust and neutral meanings better than participants in the Sentence Group. In turn, participants in the Sentence Group acquired the meaning of sadness better than their counterparts in the Face Group, but this advantage was only manifested in the cross-modality test with faces. We conclude that both contexts are effective for acquiring the emotional meaning of words, although acquisition with faces is more versatile or generalizable.

Although several studies have investigated the influence of the grammatical class of cue words on response patterns in the word association task, relatively little is known about the influence of more fine-grained distinctions such as cue transitivity. The present study tests two predictions, made in existing studies, of the influence of this variable. The first is that cue transitivity would influence the grammatical class of responses; the second, that it would affect the directionality of position-based, or syntagmatic, responses. English language associative responses to 49 transitive and 49 intransitive cues were gathered from 53 English L1 respondents. These responses were then analysed according to their grammatical class and categorical designation. Results suggested that cue transitivity influences both of these measurements: transitive cues yielded more noun responses and more associations classified as likely to follow the cue in text than did intransitives, while transitives received more verb responses and more associations likely to precede the cue. These results are discussed in the light of contiguity-based and semantic theories of the determinants of word association.

The article presents the analysis of the onomasiological structure of the metaphorical somatonyms of Northern Samogitians, focusing on the indicators of the source of metaphors. Based on the explicit semantics of the source (lexical motivators), the metaphorical somatonyms of Northern Samogitians belong to several motivational models, the most productive of which is the artefactual motivational model. The basis of the artefactual metaphor is the associative similarity of the object (artefact) and the body part according to various parameters – shape, size, features of structure and materiality, actions, especially repetitive movements.

Статья представляет собой изложение результатов предварительного эксперимента, связанного с изучением динамических аспектов ассоциативной структуры значения медицинских терминов в индивидуальном сознании студентов медицинского вуза с разной степенью сформированности профессиональных компетенций. Проведенный анализ данных психолингвистического эксперимента позволяет обнаружить закономерности в изменении ассоциативного пространства терминологической единицы в строящемся профессиональном сознании будущего медика. The article shows the results of the preliminary experiment connected to the study of dynamic aspects of the associative structure of medical terms’ meaning in the individual consciousness of medical students with different degree of professional competence. Complex usage of the experiment’s data reveals the regularity in changing of the associative space of a term in the forming professional consciousness of a future doctor.

В статье представлены результаты интерпретации данных, полученных в ходе проведения ассоциативного эксперимента с современными школьниками, изучающими английский язык как иностранный. Цель эксперимента состоит в выявлении специфики формирования когнитивных структур, репрезентируемых словами широкой семантики, в сознании современного школьника. Статистический анализ и интерпретация полученных экспериментальных данных позволяют сделать некоторые предварительные выводы о структуре и содержании этих когнитивных структур. The article features the findings of the associative experiment held with present-day school children who learn English as their first foreign language. The objective of the experiment lies in unveiling, how cognitive structures, which are represented in the language through everysemantic words, are shaped. The analysis and interpretation of the empirical data helps draw preliminary conclusions about the structure and the contents of the language consciousness of a present-day student.

To explain animal learning, researchers invoke a dominant associative construct. In contrast, researchers freely acknowledge humans' explicit-declarative learning capacity. Here, we stretched animals' learning performance toward the explicit pole of cognition. We tested four macaques (Macaca mulatta) in new discrimination-learning paradigms. Monkeys learned a series of two-choice discrimination tasks. But immediate reinforcement was denied. Instead, reinforcement was lagged-monkeys received feedback for trial N only after seeing and responding to the N + 1-trial stimulus. Theory suggests that lagged reinforcement will eliminate a dominant form of implicit discrimination learning. Yet monkeys still learned successfully. Thus, monkeys may have alternative learning algorithms usable when reinforcement is displaced and reinforcement learning undermined. This learning may, as in humans, take a more explicit form. This and related methods that disable associative learning-fostering a possible transition to explicit cognition-could have empirical utility and theoretical significance within comparative psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

We removed a key uncertainty in the Deese/Roediger/McDermott (DRM) illusion. The mean backward associative strength (MBAS) of DRM lists is the best-known predictor of this illusion, but it is confounded with semantic relations between lists and critical distractors. Thus, it is unclear whether associative relations, semantic relations, or both foment the illusion. In Experiment 1, we developed a tool for investigating this question-a normed pool of materials in which subjects rated the gist strength of 120 DRM lists that varied widely in MBAS. This produced a mean gist strength (MGS) statistic for each list, which allowed MGS and MBAS to be manipulated factorially. In Experiment 2, we conducted the first MGS (high vs. low) × MBAS (high vs. low) factorial study of the DRM illusion. To measure how MGS and MBAS affect underlying retrieval processes, we implemented a conjoint recognition design. For raw memory performance, MGS affected both true and false recognition of critical distractors, and it affected both true and false recognition of list words. MBAS did not affect true or false recognition of list words or true recognition of critical distractors. With false recognition of critical distractors, it had a reliable effect in one condition when MGS was low, but it had no effect in another condition. At the level of retrieval processes, increasing MGS increased the familiarity of critical distractors' semantic content, and it also increased the familiarity of list words' semantic content. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The article presents the empirical study that has shown the interdependence between the development of regulatory functions and the lexical indicator of speech development at preschoolers. The study included 179 children attending senior groups at kindergartens. The technique of “Associative Series” used to study the speech vocabulary turned out to be an adequate tool assessing senior preschoolers’ lexical development. Significant differences in lexical development of children with high and low levels of regulatory functions were revealed. Children from 5–6 to 7–8 years increase the efficiency of word selection, which indicates that this period is sensitive to the development of this speech component. The efficient solution of the tasks revealing lexical speech development was the most strongly linked with auditory working memory and cognitive flexibility. The efficiency of appeared free associations was linked with spatial working memory; and the so-called directed associations (names of actions and animals) were associated with inhibition. We used cluster analysis to divide the sample into three groups: preschoolers with high, average, low levels of regulatory functions, these group division corresponded also to different lexical speech indicators. This proves that certain level of self-regulation must be achieved for effective speech development and vice versa. Children with poorly developed regulatory functions cope much worse with all tasks for associative series selection in comparison with children having highly developed regulatory functions. The study results did not allowed us to make a conclusion on causative-consecutive links, but showed a two-way link between speech (lexical indicator) and regulatory functions, which is consistent with most studies in this field. Only one indicator of speech development (namely, lexical) was examined, so we are planning to examine links between the development of regulatory functions and all speech indicators to obtain a more comprehensive picture of these two constructs important for the preschool age.

The article describes a cross-cultural study of associative oral representation of mental states. 32 Russian and 33German students – 53 female and 12 male aged from 20 up to 24 years participated in the research. The experimental procedure was developed on the basis of the DMDX program allowed to measure the time of speech response to the shown stimuli – names of 25 mental states. In the conditions of time deficiency probands had to call free and estimated associations (adjectives). The mean reaction time was calculated, quantitative content of associative fields was analyzed. In the Russian group associations (both free and estimated in the form of an adjective) to names of mental states were more quickly named. The average time of free oral associative reaction in the Russian group was 2114.6 ms, in the German - 2163.6 ms. The estimated associative response proved slower than the free associative response in both groups: the average time of the estimated oral associative reaction in the Russian group was 2246.9 ms, in the German – 2384.6 ms. During the experiment more evaluation associations in the form of adjectives were named than free ones. The vast majority of free associations to names of mental states were nouns. Most of the associations to names of mental states are unique.

Research has independently highlighted the roles of semantic memory and associative abilities in creative thinking. However, it remains unclear how these two capacities relate to each other, nor ho...

Many (digital) learning materials are often based on a combination of text and pictures, whereby pictures often only serve a decorative (learning-irrelevant) function. Such decorative pictures were proven as detrimental for learning success. In contrast, research on retrieval cues (also known as memory cues) showed that a visual-semantic connection between the learning information and additional pictures might help to foster later retrieval processes. This experimental series tested if decorative pictures might serve as a retrieval enhancer. For this, four experiments (n₁ = 104, n₂ = 124, n₃ = 161, n₄ = 176) were conducted where a learning video about concepts in marketing was used with and without decorative pictures. In a subsequent learning test (retention and transfer questions) with or without these corresponding decorative pictures, the memory cue effect was examined. Besides, mental load and mental effort, as well as intrinsic motivation were measured. Across all experiments, results showed that the groups with decorative pictures which were only shown in the video performed significantly worse than the other groups (seductive detail effect). Moreover, students with decorative pictures in both the learning and the retrieval phase were found to learn more than groups without decorative pictures (memory cue effect). Significant moderators of this effect were found in the salience of the cues, the associative connection between the cues and the learning information, and the modality of the cues (visual vs. verbal). Results were explained by differences in cognitive and motivational variables. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Studies show that emotion enhances memory for individual items but weakens memory for associations between items (Bisby & Burgess, 2014). One explanation for this associative memory impairment is that emotional stimuli capture attention, causing enhanced encoding of the emotional item but reduced encoding of the surrounding environment (Schupp, Junghöfer, Weike, & Hamm, 2003). This explanation generates the prediction that emotional information always impairs associative memory. Alternatively, it may be that emotion orients attention towards threats in the environment, suggesting that emotions’ effects on associative memory may differ depending on where they indicate a threat may be coming from (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). For example, seeing an angry face constitutes a direct threat. The angry face itself potentially captures attention and thereby reduces memory for its associated information. In contrast, seeing a fearful face indicates a threat elsewhere in the environment. Therefore, the fearful face may redirect attention towards the surroundings and thus enhance encoding of the associated information. To adjudicate between these hypotheses, subjects studied sets of three images, consisting of two objects and a face with either a neutral, angry, or fearful expression. Subjects were later tested on their memory for the associations between the three items. Supporting the first hypothesis, memory for both angry and fearful associations was worse than memory for neutral associations. Contrary to the second hypothesis, there were no differences in memory for angry versus fearful associations. Thus, emotional information itself seems to capture attention, weakening memory for related information.