Are mnemonic failures and benefits two sides of the same coin?: Investigating the real-world consequences of individual differences in memory integration
Open accessAbstract
Theories of reconstructive memory have long been influenced by investigations of false recognition errors, in which old/new judgements are compromised by spontaneous activation of associated but nonpresented concepts. Recent evidence similarly suggests that reconstructive memory processes (so-called memory integration) also support positive learning behaviors, such as inferential reasoning. Despite prevailing hypotheses, the question of whether a common integration process underlies these seemingly disparate mnemonic outcomes is not well understood. To address this question, young adults, recruited from two institutions, completed the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (Deese, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 17-22, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21(4), 803-814, 1995) and Bransford and Franks (Cognitive Psychology, 2, 331-350, 1971) false recognition paradigms, as well as an inferential paradigm (Varga & Bauer, Memory & Cognition, 45, 1014-1027, 2017b), all of which depend on integration of related information in memory. Across two experiments, the well-established tasks were adapted such that successful memory integration resulted in the same negative outcome (i.e., false recognition; Experiment 1) or positive outcome (i.e., inferential reasoning; Experiment 2). By capturing variability in item-to-item responding within and among tasks for each person, a common memory integration process was found to elicit positive and negative consequences in paradigms that required the combination of individual units to construct a composite understanding, but only when memory for directly learned and novel, integrated items were modeled together. Furthermore, linking task-related behavior to academic performance revealed that a greater propensity to integrate factual information (but not arbitrary materials) was related to higher SAT scores. Together, these results provide evidence for domain-general and domain-specific reconstructive mechanisms and their role in supporting educational success beyond the laboratory.
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Adults' generalization relied on remembering specific item-context representations.
“Adults’ generalization relied on remembering specific item-context representations, consistent with the notion that rapid generalization relies on retrieving specific instances 7,8, and that there was no generalization-specificity trade off 28,29”
From Contingency of semantic generalization on episodic specificity varies across development (2021) · cites this paper as [29]
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- Authors
- L. Varga, N., Gaugler, T., & Talarico, J.
- Affiliations
- Lafayette College (US)
- Venue
- Memory & Cognition
- Published
- 2019-01-07
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 496-510
- ISSN
- 0090-502X (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5946
- PMC
- PMC6534966
- OpenAlex
- W2906741954
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 2.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Memory & Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH HD67359)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Keywords
- memory integration, memory reconstruction, false recognition, Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, inferential reasoning, individual differences, academic performance, SAT scores
- MeSH terms
- Academic Performance, Adult, Female, Humans, Individuality, Male, Mental Recall, Thinking, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult, Memory, Episodic
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