That person is now with or without a mask: how encoding context modulates identity recognition.

Previous research has mostly approached face recognition and target identification by focusing on face perception mechanisms, but memory mechanisms also appear to play a role. Here, we examined how the presence of a mask interferes with the memory mechanisms involved in face recognition, focusing on the dynamic interplay between encoding and recognition processes. We approach two known memory effects: (a) matching study and test conditions effects (i.e., by presenting masked and/or unmasked faces) and (b) testing expectation effects (i.e., knowing in advance that a mask could be put on or taken off). Across three experiments using a yes/no recognition paradigm, the presence of a mask was orthogonally manipulated at the study and the test phases. All data showed no evidence of matching effects. In Experiment 1, the presence of masks either at study or test impaired the correct identification of a target. But in Experiments 2 and 3, in which the presence of masks at study or test was manipulated within participants, only masks presented at test-only impaired face identification. In these conditions, test expectations led participants to use similar encoding strategies to process masked and unmasked faces. Across all studies, participants were more liberal (i.e., used a more lenient criterion) when identifying masked faces presented at the test. We discuss these results and propose that to better understand how people may identify a face wearing a mask, researchers should take into account that memory is an active process of discrimination, in which expectations regarding test conditions may induce an encoding strategy that enables overcoming perceptual deficits.

Inferential Costs of Trait Centrality in Impression Formation: Organization in Memory and Misremembering.

An extension of the DRM paradigm was used to study the impact of central traits (Asch, 1946) in impression formation. Traits corresponding to the four clusters of the implicit theory of personality-intellectual, positive and negative; and social, positive and negative (Rosenberg et al., 1968)-were used to develop lists containing several traits of one cluster and one central trait prototypical of the opposite cluster. Participants engaging in impression formation relative to participants engaging in memorization not only produced higher levels of false memories corresponding to the same cluster of the list traits but, under response time pressure at retrieval, also produced more false memories of the cluster corresponding to the central trait. We argue that the importance of central traits stems from their ability to activate their corresponding semantic space within a specialized associative memory structure underlying the implicit theory of personality.

On the placement of practice questions during study.

Retrieval practice improves retention of information on later tests. A question remains: When should retrieval occur during learning-interspersed throughout study or at the end of each study period? In a lab experiment, an online experiment, and a classroom study, we aimed to determine the ideal placement (interspersed vs. at-the-end) of retrieval practice questions. In the lab experiment, 64 subjects viewed slides about APA style and answered short-answer practice questions about the content or restudied the slides (restudy condition). The practice questions either appeared 1 every 1-2 slides (interspersed condition), or all at the end of the presentation (at-the-end condition). One week later, subjects returned and answered the same questions on a final test. In the online experiment, 175 subjects completed the same procedure. In the classroom study, 62 undergraduate students took quizzes as part of class lectures. Short-answer practice questions appeared either throughout the lectures (interspersed condition) or at the end of the lectures (at-the-end condition). Nineteen days after the last quiz, students were given a surprise final test. Results from the 3 experiments converge in demonstrating an advantage for interspersing practice questions on the initial tests, but an absence of this advantage on the final test.

Adapting to test structure: letting testing teach what to learn.

We propose that we encode and store information as a function of the particular ways we have used similar information in the past. More specifically, we contend that the experience of retrieval can serve as a powerful cue to the most effective ways to encode similar information in comparable future learning episodes. To explore these ideas, we did two studies in which all participants went through study-test cycles of single category lists while we manipulated the nature of the recognition tests. The recognition tests either included only same-category lures or only different-category lures. The experience of repeated testing leads participants to avoid conceptual-based strategies but only when conceptual knowledge was poorly diagnostic for recognition (i.e., in the same-category lures condition). In a second study with a similar manipulation, we showed that repeated testing with lures from the same category as study items improved performance in a final recall surprise test compared to conditions in which different-category lures were used. Such a difference is akin to the one obtained when encoding instructions focus on distinctive item features compared to cases in which the focus is on relational processing. We suggest that testing requirements lead to adaptive changes at encoding.

The contributions of language and experience to the representation of abstract and concrete words: different weights but similar organizations.

In the present studies, we evaluated the contributions of language and sensorimotor information to the representation of abstract and concrete words and the possibility that the organizations of the two types of concepts follow different organizational principles: association, for abstract concepts, and semantic similarity, for concrete concepts. In Study 1, we examined the two strongest associates of concrete and abstract words from published free association norms. Study 2 then extended this analysis to individual data collected with a free association task. Language associations were more important for abstract than for concrete words, but for sensorimotor information no differences were observed between the two types of concepts. Also, no clear evidence was found for different qualitative organizational principles for abstract and concrete concepts. Multiple representational systems thus seem to be engaged in the conceptual processing of abstract and concrete concepts, while it remains to be investigated whether their representations follow different organizational principles.

Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall.

Retrieval practice has been shown to protect against the negative effects of previously learned information on the learning of subsequent information, while increasing retention of new information. We report three experiments investigating the impact of retrieval practice on false recall in a multiple list paradigm. In three different experimental designs participants studied blocks of interrelated words that converged on non-presented associates. Participants were tested either after every study block or only after the fifth study block, and both groups received a cumulative test on all five study blocks. Overall the results from all three different experimental designs point to a benefit of testing in increasing long-term veridical recall on the cumulative test. More importantly, this improvement in veridical recall did not come at a cost: False recall on the cumulative test did not increase from retrieval practice.

When less is enough: Cognitive aging, information search, and decision quality in consumer choice.

We conducted a meta-analysis of age differences in predecisional information search (N = 1,304) that suggests that aging is associated with a small but significant decrease in predecisional information search (Hedges's g = -0.30). In addition, we investigated the consequences of limited information search for decision quality in real-world consumer environments using simulation methods. Overall, the results suggest that the aging decision maker can afford to neglect information because this leads to small losses in decision quality. In other words, less may be enough for the aging consumer.