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Does familiarity change in the revelation effect?
Michael F Verde1, Caren M Rotello
1Department of Psychology, Box 37710, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003-7710, USA. mverde@psych.umass.edu
Summary
The revelation effect, where incidental tasks boost "old" judgments in memory recognition, is not due to familiarity changes. Instead, it appears to be a generic response bias, not a memory retrieval alteration.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Human Memory Research
Background:
- The revelation effect is characterized by an increased tendency to label items as 'old' after an incidental task.
- Previous research suggested this effect stems from changes in familiarity, supported by decreased recognition sensitivity (d').
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the underlying mechanisms of the revelation effect.
- To determine if the effect is caused by changes in recognition sensitivity or response bias.
- To examine the influence of revelation materials on the revelation effect.
Main Methods:
- Utilized receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves across three experiments to analyze recognition data.
- Assessed recognition sensitivity and response bias.
- Varied memorability, similarity to probes, and task difficulty of revelation items.
Main Results:
- ROC curve data provided no evidence for changes in recognition sensitivity (d').
- The study highlights the limitations of single-point measures like d' with unequal familiarity distribution variances.
- The revelation effect's magnitude was unaffected by the nature of the revelation materials or task difficulty.
Conclusions:
- The revelation effect is likely driven by response bias, not alterations in memory familiarity or retrieval.
- The effect appears to be a generic, all-or-nothing phenomenon.
- Findings challenge previous interpretations attributing the revelation effect solely to familiarity changes.