Experiencing a familiar concept provides immediate access to associated information that can influence later memory. The investigators' methods require subjects to study familiar words and to remember them in the presence of retrieval cues. They vary encoding and test instructions, the presence of contextual cues during study, the nature of the test cue, and test delay. What is most unique, the proposed experiments vary the associative structure of the studied words and the cues used to prompt recall. Associative structure represents connections acquired prior to the laboratory task as a result of world experience. They use association norms to measure this structure and have collected norms on 4,500+ words. These norms indicate that words vary in how many associates they have and in how connected these associates are. The investigators' research has shown that cued recall is more likely for words with fewer as opposed to more associates. These results are obtained regardless of the learning strategy used to encode the items. However, the recall advantage for words having fewer associates is substantially reduced after switching attention to an unrelated math task, when the words are encoded in context, in recognition tests, and when subjects are asked to exclude these words in recall. Their results also show that cued recall is more likely when the associates of a studied word are more connected. In contrast to the effects of number of associates, high levels of associative connectivity also affect recognition. The purpose of the project is to test predictions of a new model for explaining these findings, to determine when pre-existing structures affect the retrieval of a recently encoded component of that structure, and to explore questions concerning the measurement of associative structure. Briefly, the theory assumes that cued recall is affected by variables that influence the probability of sampling related information in long-term working memory, such as how many competing associates are involved, and by variables that influence recognition, such as connectivity, frequency, encoding strategy, and so on. The project will tell how prior knowledge about a familiar concept becomes involved during encoding and retrieval and how such knowledge affects ones ability to recover specifically targeted memories. The work will also be relevant to the role of: 1) attention in maintaining information in long-term working memory; 2) inhibition in dampening the influence of associated information; and 3) intentionality in the utilization of mediated connections. The research is producing a useful normative database and will increase the understanding of what association norms can tell us about associative structure. Finally, this project has implications for health research. For example, the investigators' work shows that people often remember associated memories in place of what was actually experienced. False memories associated with early childhood may be produced by similar processes. Furthermore, the project offers a new way to explore individual differences. The reduction or absence of effects related to associative structures in special populations (e.g., the elderly, stroke victims, substance abusers, deaf, depressed, and so on) could provide useful information about how these individuals process information as well as providing helpful diagnostic information.
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