Sometimes memory misleads: Variants of the error-speed effect strengthen the evidence for systematically misleading memory signals in recognition memory.

The error-speed effect describes the observation that the speed of recognition errors in a first binary recognition task predicts the response accuracy in a subsequent two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task that comprises the erroneously judged items of the first task. So far, the effect has been primarily explained by the assumption that some error responses result from misleading memory evidence. However, it is also possible that the effect arises because participants remember and use their response times from the binary task to solve the 2AFC task. Furthermore, the phenomenon is quite new and its robustness or generalizability across other recognition tasks (e.g., a confidence-rating task) remains to be demonstrated. The aim of the present study is to address these limitations by introducing a new variant of the error-speed effect, replacing the 2AFC task with a confidence-rating task (Experiment 1), and by reversing task order (Experiment 2) to test whether participants employ a response-time strategy. In both experiments, we collected data using a sequential probability ratio t-test procedure and found evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the speed of binary recognition errors predicts confidence ratings for the same stimulus. These results attest to the robustness and generalizability of the error-speed effect and reveal that at least some errors must be due to systematically misleading memory evidence.

Do moments of inattention during study cause the error-speed effect for targets in recognition-memory tasks?

The error-speed effect - characterized by a decreased performance in a second recognition task for stimuli that elicited fast error responses in a first recognition task - has so far been predominantly interpreted as evidence for the existence of misleading memory information. However, this neglects a possible alternative explanation, namely that the effect may instead be caused by moments of inattention during study. Here, we introduce a manipulation that allowed us to distinguish between words from the study phase that participants most certainly paid attention to and those they did not. We hypothesized that if moments of inattention cause the error-speed effect, this effect should disappear when considering only targets that verifiably received attention during study. However, our results (N = 89) suggest that this is not the case: The error-speed effect still occurs for targets that participants attended to during study and thus indeed seems to be caused by misleading memory evidence rather than by moments of inattention during study.

The simultaneous recognition of multiple words: A process analysis.

In everyday life, recognition decisions often have to be made for multiple objects simultaneously. In contrast, research on recognition memory has predominantly relied on single-item recognition paradigms. We present a first systematic investigation into the cognitive processes that differ between single-word and paired-word tests of recognition memory. In a single-word test, participants categorize previously presented words and new words as having been studied before (old) or not (new). In a paired-word test, however, the test words are randomly paired, and participants provide joint old-new categorizations of both words for each pair. Across two experiments (N = 170), we found better memory performance for words tested singly rather than in pairs and, more importantly, dependencies between the two single-word decisions implied by the paired-word test. We extended two popular model classes of single-item recognition to paired-word recognition, a discrete-state model and a continuous model. Both models attribute performance differences between single-word and paired-word recognition to differences in memory-evidence strength. Discrete-state models account for the dependencies in paired-word decisions in terms of dependencies in guessing. In contrast, continuous models map the dependencies on mnemonic (Experiment 1 & 2) as well as on decisional processes (Experiment 2). However, in both experiments, model comparison favored the discrete-state model, indicating that memory decisions for word pairs seem to be mediated by discrete states. Our work suggests that individuals tackle multiple-item recognition fundamentally differently from single-item recognition, and it provides both a behavioral and model-based paradigm for studying multiple-item recognition.

Does speed of recognition predict two-alternative forced-choice performance? Replicating and extending Starns, Dubé, and Frelinger (2018).

Does the speed of single-item recognition errors predict performance in subsequent two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials that include an item with a previous error response? Starns, Dubé, and Frelinger found effects of this kind in two experiments and accounted for them in terms of continuous memory-strength signal guiding recognition decisions. However, the effects of error speed might just as well only reflect an artefact due to an error-correction strategy that uses response latency as a heuristic cue to guide 2AFC responses, elicited through confounding factors in their experimental design such as error-correction instructions and feedback. Using two conditions, a replication condition, replicating the procedure from Starns et al., and an extension condition (each n = 130), controlling for the named shortcomings, we replicated the error speed effect. In both conditions, speed of errors in a single-item recognition task was predictive of subsequent 2AFC performance, including the respective error item. To be more precise, fast errors were associated with decreased 2AFC performance. As there was no interaction with the factor condition, the results support the idea that speed of single-item recognition responses reflects the amount of memory information underlying the respective response rather than being used for a simple error-correction strategy to improve 2AFC performance.