Associative influences on the apparent recency of encounters with perceptual objects.

Lead Research Organisation: University of Exeter
Department Name: Psychology

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Description There are two main contributions made by this research programme:

1. We have established that, if a stimulus has recently been encountered, the associative activation of that stimulus' representation reduces the perceived recency of that stimulus on subsequent presentation. In other words, if a stimulus such as a chequerboard or face was recently encountered, and then that stimulus representation was associatively retrieved, the effect is for that stimulus to seem less recent when next encountered than would otherwise have been the case. The effect of associative activation of a stimulus representation is thus the opposite to what occurs when a stimulus representation is directly activated by perception of that stimulus. This is a novel, remarkable, important result, it is a result that we predicted based on the model of associative memory that informed our proposal, and it strongly constrains the way that we view memory for recency.

2. We have also established that retroactive interference effects on memory for recency of occurrence have a non-monotonic relationship with similarity. This is another result predicted by our model and may lead to a better understanding of interference effects in memory. The result is that whilst encountering quite different stimuli (e.g. letter strings) to the to-be-remembered stimulus (e.g. a face) typically makes relatively little difference to memory for that face, encountering another face makes memory worse, but encountering a very similar yet distinct face has a less negative impact roughly equivalent to that of encountering an unrelated stimulus.
Exploitation Route We intend to follow up this research and establish whether similar effects to those found with positive probes can, as we expect, be found with negative probes. Further development of the model that generated the predictions tested in this proposal is also planned. One question that our work now poses for the the wider psychological community is this: Is it always the case that the effect of associatively activating a stimulus representation is the opposite to that obtained by its direct perception? This is now the active focus of research at a number of the Universities in the UK and represents ongoing impact for this project.
Another consequence of this project is that it entails a reappraisal of our understanding of the mechanisms governing interference in memory. The wider question here is to what extent the non-monotonic function that we have found for memory for recency of occurrence is also the case in other memory domains. We expect this to be an ongoing question that continues to have impact over the next several years.
Sectors Education
 
Description Invited talk given the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Questions and discussion.

None so far.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012