RESUMO
Retrieval practice, the act of recalling previously studied information, yields greater memory retention than repeated studying (retrieval practice effect). Retrieval practice can also protect memories against the negative effects of stress at retrieval in free recall tests. In cued-recall tests, however, retrieval practice may not provide complete protection against stress-related memory impairments. Here we ask whether these conflicting results may be explained by the relative difficulty of the study materials. Participants (59 men) first studied 40 Swahili-Portuguese word pairs. Half of the pairs were then repeatedly studied while the other half were repeatedly recalled. In each condition, half of the pairs were easy to remember (high in memorability) while the other half were more difficult to remember (low in memorability). Participants returned 1 week later for a final cued-recall test. Half of the participants underwent a stress-induction protocol (modified Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test) 25 min before the final test for all 40-word pairs; the other half underwent a control condition. Salivary cortisol and questionnaire responses were used to assess the efficacy of stress induction. Participants recalled more word pairs learned via retrieval practice than via repeated study, replicating previous research. More importantly, the results revealed an interaction such that stress decreased recall for easy items, but increased recall for difficult items that had been successfully retrieved during encoding (conditional analysis). The results suggest that the impact of stress on cued recall depends both on the learning strategy and on the intrinsic difficulty of the to-be-learned materials.
Assuntos
Sinais (Psicologia) , Rememoração Mental , Masculino , Humanos , Rememoração Mental/fisiologia , Aprendizagem/fisiologia , Memória , Transtornos da MemóriaRESUMO
Memória episódica envolve a retenção e evocação de eventos passadosexperienciados pelo indivíduo. No presente trabalho, as tarefasexperimentais mais comumente utilizadas para estudar este tipo dememória são apresentadas. Estas tarefas são (1) tarefas dereconhecimento, incluindo tarefas de reconhecimento sim/não, escolhaforçada, e lembrar/saber, (2) tarefas de recordação com pista, (3) tarefasde recordar livre e (4) tarefas de monitoramento da fonte. Estas tarefas sãoexemplificadas e discutidas em termos teóricos levando em consideraçãomodelos cognitivos que explicam seus processos mnemônicos. Nóstambém abordamos a ideia de que tarefas de recordar com pistas,recordar livre, e monitoramento da fonte são mais fortemente baseadas naevocação de informações episódicas do que tarefas de reconhecimento,uma vez que a última pode ser desempenhada com base na simplessensação de familiaridade despertada pelo item memorizado.
Episodic memory involves the retention and retrieval of past eventsexperienced by individuals. In the current work, the experimental tasksmost typically used to study this type of memory are presented. These tasksare (1) memory recognition tasks, including simple yes/no, forced-choice,and remember/know tasks, (2) cued recall tasks, (3) free recall tasks, and(4) source-monitoring tasks. These tasks are presented through examples,discussed in terms of the potential cognitive processes they produced, anddiscussed considering their main theoretical models. We also approach thenotion that cued recall, free recall, and source-monitoring tasks are morestrongly based on retrieval of episodic information than recognition tasks,since the latter can be potentially performed based on a simple sense offamiliarity towards the items.
Assuntos
Humanos , Memória Episódica , CogniçãoRESUMO
Memória episódica envolve a retenção e evocação de eventos passados experienciados pelo indivíduo. No presente trabalho, as tarefas experimentais mais comumente utilizadas para estudar este tipo de memória são apresentadas. Estas tarefas são (1) tarefas de reconhecimento, incluindo tarefas de reconhecimento "sim/não", escolha forçada, e "lembrar/saber", (2) tarefas de recordação com pista, (3) tarefas de recordar livre e (4) tarefas de monitoramento da fonte. Estas tarefas são exemplificadas e discutidas em termos teóricos levando em consideração modelos cognitivos que explicam seus processos mnemônicos. Nós também abordamos a ideia de que tarefas de recordar com pistas,recordar livre, e monitoramento da fonte são mais fortemente baseadas na evocação de informações episódicas do que tarefas de reconhecimento,uma vez que a última pode ser desempenhada com base na simples sensação de familiaridade despertada pelo item memorizado.
Episodic memory involves the retention and retrieval of past eventsexperienced by individuals. In the current work, the experimental tasksmost typically used to study this type of memory are presented. These tasksare (1) memory recognition tasks, including simple "yes/no", forced-choice,and remember/know tasks, (2) cued recall tasks, (3) free recall tasks, and(4) source-monitoring tasks. These tasks are presented through examples,discussed in terms of the potential cognitive processes they produced, anddiscussed considering their main theoretical models. We also approach thenotion that cued recall, free recall, and source-monitoring tasks are morestrongly based on retrieval of episodic information than recognition tasks,since the latter can be potentially performed based on a simple sense offamiliarity towards the items.
Assuntos
Humanos , Memória Episódica , CogniçãoRESUMO
The effects of increasing the number of items to be remembered on associative recognition and cued recall were examined. Thirty participants were asked during encoding to determine whether two- and three-item stimuli contained natural objects, artificial objects, or both. In an associative recognition task, the participants indicated whether the stimuli were identical to those presented during encoding, were rearranged by exchanging one of the two-item stimuli for one of the three-item stimuli, or represented a new stimulus. The correctly identified rearranged item pairs and triads were included in a subsequent cued-recall task in which participants verbally reported the missing item. As the number of items increased, the discrimination of rearranged stimuli diminished, but that of identical trials remained the same. Furthermore, the ability to retrieve the missing item was unaffected. It was concluded that the effect of the amount of information on binding depends on how the information must be retrieved.