Papers by Steve Goldinger
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 2010
Visual search (e.g., finding a specific object in an array of other objects) is performed most ef... more Visual search (e.g., finding a specific object in an array of other objects) is performed most effectively when people are able to ignore distracting nontargets. In repeated search, however, incidental learning of object identities may facilitate performance. In three experiments, with over 1,100 participants, we examined the extent to which search could be facilitated by object memory and by memory for spatial layouts. Participants searched for new targets (real-world, nameable objects) embedded among repeated distractors. To make the task more challenging, some participants performed search for multiple targets, increasing demands on visual working memory (WM). Following search, memory for search distractors was assessed using a surprise two-alternative forced choice recognition memory test with semantically matched foils. Search performance was facilitated by distractor object learning and by spatial memory; it was most robust when object identity was consistently tied to spatial locations and weakest (or absent) when object identities were inconsistent across trials. Incidental memory for distractors was better among participants who searched under high WM load, relative to low WM load. These results were observed when visual search included exhaustive-search trials (Experiment 1) or when all trials were self-terminating (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, stimulus exposure was equated across WM load groups by presenting objects in a single-object stream; recognition accuracy was similar to that in Experiments 1 and 2. Together, the results suggest that people incidentally generate memory for nontarget objects encountered during search and that such memory can facilitate search performance.
Memory & cognition, 2006
We examined associative priming of words (e.g., toad) and pseudohomophones of those words (e.g., ... more We examined associative priming of words (e.g., toad) and pseudohomophones of those words (e.g., tode) in lexical decision. in addition to word frequency effects, reliable base-word frequency effects were observed for pseudohomophones: Those based on high-frequency words elicited faster and more accurate correct rejections. associative priming had disparate effects on high-and low-frequency items. Whereas priming improved performance to high-frequency pseudohomophones, it impaired performance to low-frequency pseudohomophones. The results suggested a resonance process, wherein phonologic identity and semantic priming combine to undermine the veridical perception of infrequent items. We tested this hypothesis in another experiment by administering a surprise recognition memory test after lexical decision. When asked to identify words that were spelled correctly during lexical decision, the participants often misremembered pseudohomophones as correctly spelled items. Patterns of false memory, however, were jointly affected by base-word frequencies and their original responses during lexical decision. Taken together, the results are consistent with resonance accounts of word recognition, wherein bottom-up and top-down information sources coalesce into correct, and sometimes illusory, perception. The results are also consistent with a recent lexical decision model, reM-lD, that emphasizes memory retrieval and top-down matching processes in lexical decision.
The American journal of psychology, 2009
Individual differences in working memory (WM) predict principled variation in tasks of reasoning,... more Individual differences in working memory (WM) predict principled variation in tasks of reasoning, response time, memory, and other abilities. Theoretically, a central function of WM is keeping task-relevant information easily accessible while suppressing irrelevant information. The present experiment was a novel study of mental control, using performance in the game Taboo as a measure. We tested effects of WM capacity on several indices, including perseveration errors (repeating previous guesses or clues) and taboo errors (saying at least part of a taboo or target word). By most measures, high-span participants were superior to low-span participants: High-spans were better at guessing answers, better at encouraging correct guesses from teammates, and less likely to either repeat themselves or produce taboo clues. Differences in taboo errors occurred only in an easy control condition. The results suggest that WM capacity predicts behavior in tasks requiring mental control, extending this finding to an interactive group setting.
International Journal of …, 2011
Voice-specificity effects in recognition memory were investigated using both behavioral data and ... more Voice-specificity effects in recognition memory were investigated using both behavioral data and pupillometry. Volunteers initially heard spoken words and nonwords in two voices; they later provided confidence-based old/ new classifications to items presented in their original voices, changed (but familiar) voices, or entirely new voices. Recognition was more accurate for old-voice items, replicating prior research. Pupillometry was used to gauge cognitive demand during both encoding and testing: enlarged pupils revealed that participants devoted greater effort to encoding items that were subsequently recognized. Further, pupil responses were sensitive to the cue match between encoding and retrieval voices, as well as memory strength. Strong memories, and those with the closest encoding-retrieval voice matches, resulted in the highest peak pupil diameters. The results are discussed with respect to episodic memory models and Whittlesea's (1997) SCAPE framework for recognition memory.
Resonance within and between linguistic beings
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2004
Abstract Pickering & Garrod (P&G) deserve appreciation for their ... more Abstract Pickering & Garrod (P&G) deserve appreciation for their cogent argument that dialogue merits greater scientific consideration. Current models make little contact with behaviors of dialogue, motivating the interactive alignment theory. However, the theory is not truly “mechanistic.” A full account requires both representations and processes bringing those representations into harmony. We suggest that Grossberg's (1980) adaptive resonance theory may naturally conform to the principles of dialogue.
Second International Conference on Spoken …, 1992
Nearly all theories of spoken word perception presume a lexicon with singular entries correspondi... more Nearly all theories of spoken word perception presume a lexicon with singular entries corresponding to each word. In turn, the perceptual system is presumed to operate by matching entries to the variable signals that speakers produce, requiring either normalization or sophisticated guessing. In contrast, episodic theories assume that people store multiple entries, in the form of detailed perceptual traces, for each known word. Such episodic theories are robust to variation, and they provide a natural account of extra-linguistic learning, such as learning voices. This paper presents a new experiment on episodic effects in word perception, and it reviews the application of a multiple-trace model to the data. Theoretical issues are briefly discussed, including the critical role of selective attention, and the relation of episodic theories to other burgeoning views.
Constructions of remembering and …, 2011
It is an honor to contribute to a collection of essays celebrating Bruce Whittlesea"s career. The... more It is an honor to contribute to a collection of essays celebrating Bruce Whittlesea"s career. The research and ideas from Whittlesea and his colleagues have heavily influenced much of the research in our laboratory, particularly our studies of face perception and memory. Although face processing is often considered "modular" (i.e., highly specialized in neural and computational terms; Haxby, , we have consistently observed that judgments of face memory are affected by the evaluative and heuristic processes that Whittlesea has hypothesized (e.g. . In this chapter, we briefly review several prior findings that connect Whittlesea"s (1997) SCAPE framework with face memory. We then describe new results, wherein we hypothesize that long-term struggles from the SCAPE evaluation system may inspire a new heuristic (kindly dubbed the "oh… screw it" heuristic).
Canadian Journal of Experimental …, 2009
The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition is typically observed in tasks which require long... more The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition is typically observed in tasks which require long-term memory. Several studies, however, have found the effect early in face encoding . In 6 experiments, with over 300 participants, we found no evidence that the recognition deficit associated with the ORE reflects deficits in immediate encoding. In Experiment 1, with a study-to-test retention interval of 4 min, participants were better able to recognise White faces, relative to Asian faces. Experiment 1 also validated the use of computer-generated faces in subsequent experiments. In Experiments 2 through 4, performance was virtually identical to Asian and White faces in match-to-sample, immediate recognition. In Experiment 5, decreasing target-foil similarity and disrupting the retention interval with trivia questions elicited a re-emergence of the ORE. Experiments 6A and 6B replicated this effect, and showed that memory for Asian faces was particularly susceptible to distraction; White faces were recognised equally well, regardless of trivia questions during the retention interval. The recognition deficit in the ORE apparently emerges from retention or retrieval deficits, not differences in immediate perceptual processing.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: …, 2010
Handwritten word recognition is a field of study that has largely been neglected in the psycholog... more Handwritten word recognition is a field of study that has largely been neglected in the psychological literature, despite its prevalence in society. Whereas studies of spoken word recognition almost exclusively employ natural, human voices as stimuli, studies of visual word recognition use synthetic typefaces, thus simplifying the process of word recognition. The current study examined the effects of handwriting on a series of lexical variables thought to influence bottom-up and top-down processing, including word frequency, regularity, bidirectional consistency, and imageability. The results suggest that the natural physical ambiguity of handwritten stimuli forces a greater reliance on top-down processes, because almost all effects were magnified, relative to conditions with computer print. These findings suggest that processes of word perception naturally adapt to handwriting, compensating for physical ambiguity by increasing top-down feedback.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: …, 2006
Like all probabilistic decisions, recognition memory judgments are based on inferences about the ... more Like all probabilistic decisions, recognition memory judgments are based on inferences about the strength and quality of stimulus familiarity. In recent articles, B. W. A. Whittlesea and J. proposed that such memory decisions entail various heuristics, similar to well-known heuristics in overt decision making. Using verbal stimulus materials, Whittlesea and Leboe illustrated 3 separate memory heuristics: fluency, generation, and resemblance. In the present investigation, the authors examined the generation and resemblance heuristics in face recognition. In 12 experiments, people memorized faces and later performed exclusion (source memory) tasks. Every experiment contained natural groups of facial photographs (e.g., Caucasian vs. Asian faces), but such groups were not always valid source-memory predictors. Instead, across experiments, the potential utility of generation and resemblance strategies was systematically varied. People were quite sensitive to such variations, changing from one heuristic to another as needed. However, they also combined heuristics, both improving and damaging performance across conditions. The relevance of recognition decision heuristics to eyewitness memory is considered.
Similarity neighborhoods of spoken words, Cognitive models of speech processing
Cognition, 2010
We examined predictions derived from Valentine's (1991) Multidimensional Space (MDS) framework fo... more We examined predictions derived from Valentine's (1991) Multidimensional Space (MDS) framework for own-and other-race face processing. A set of 20 computerized faces was generated from a single prototype. Each face was saved as Black and White, changing only skin tone, such that structurally identical faces were represented in both race categories. Participants made speeded ''same-different" judgments to all possible combinations of faces, from which we generated psychological spaces, with ''different" RTs as the measure of similarity. Consistent with the MDS framework, all faces were pseudo-normally distributed around the (unseen) prototype. The distribution of faces was consistent with Valentine's (1991) predictions: despite their physical identity to the White faces, Black faces had lower mean inter-object distances in psychological space. Other-race faces are more densely clustered in psychological space, which could underlie well-known recognition deficits.
Behavioral and Brain …, 2000
We applaud Norris et al.'s critical review of the literature on lexical effects in phoneme decisi... more We applaud Norris et al.'s critical review of the literature on lexical effects in phoneme decision making, and we sympathize with their attempt to reconcile autonomous models of word recognition with current research. However, we suggest that adaptive resonance theory (ART) may provide a coherent account of the data while preserving limited inhibitory feedback among certain lexical and sublexical representations.
Psychological Science, 2005
According to dual-process theories of memory, ''old'' responses in recognition may reflect the se... more According to dual-process theories of memory, ''old'' responses in recognition may reflect the separate or combined effects of two states, specific recollection and feelings of nonspecific familiarity. When decisions are based on familiarity, people may attribute enhanced perceptual fluency to memory for prior occurrence. In this experiment, we used a subliminal somatic cue to test whether a low-amplitude buzz could enhance feelings of familiarity. The buzz increased the likelihood that participants responded ''old,'' both correctly and incorrectly. This effect occurred only with subjectively difficult stimuli, those relatively unlikely to elicit clear recollection. When a stronger control buzz was used, the effect vanished. Results for confidence ratings were consistent with Whittlesea's SCAPE theory, producing a dissociation between hits and false alarms. Specifically, the buzz reduced confidence in hits and increased confidence in false alarms, in accord with the most likely attributions for the feelings of familiarity associated with the buzz.
Font-specific memory: More than meets the eye?
Abstract 1. This chapter focuses on printed word perception and its underlying representations. T... more Abstract 1. This chapter focuses on printed word perception and its underlying representations. The empirical focus is on repetition effects in both implicit and explicit memory, and the theoretical focus begins with the categorical episodic-abstractionist divide.(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
…, 2004
In this study, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were tested to see if executive d... more In this study, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were tested to see if executive dysfunction impacts their implementation of expectancy biases in a priming task. Young adults, healthy older adults, and individuals with MCI made speed-related decisions to sequentially presented word pairs. The proportion of category related (e.g., apple-fruit) versus coordinate related (apple-pear) pairs was varied to create different expectancy biases. When the proportion of category pairs was high (80%), the control groups showed an expectancy bias: Significant inhibition was observed for coordinate pairs compared with category pairs. The MCI group also demonstrated an expectancy bias but with much larger costs for unexpected targets. The findings suggest that individuals with MCI are inordinately sensitive to expectancy violations, and these findings are discussed in terms of possible executive dysfunction.
Applied Cognitive …, 2008
When recollection is difficult, people may use schematic processing to enhance memory. Two experi... more When recollection is difficult, people may use schematic processing to enhance memory. Two experiments showed that a delay between witnessing and recalling a visual sequence increases schematic processing, resulting in stereotypic memory errors. Participants watched a slide show of a man and a woman performing stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent actions, followed by an immediate or delayed memory test. Over a two-day delay, stereotype-inconsistent actions were increasingly misremembered as having been performed by the stereotype-consistent actor (Experiment 1). All the source errors increased, regardless of stereotype consistency, when the wrong actor was suggested. When we merely suggested that 'someone' performed an action (Experiment 2), only stereotype-consistent source errors were increased. Although visual scenes are typically well remembered, these results suggest that when memory fades, reliance on schemata increases, leading to increased stereotypic memory errors.
Journal of Memory and Language, 2004
When people perform a recognition memory task, they may avail themselves of different forms of in... more When people perform a recognition memory task, they may avail themselves of different forms of information. For example, they may recall specific learning episodes, or rely on general feelings of familiarity. Although subjective familiarity is often valid, it can make people vulnerable to memory illusions. Research using verbal materials has shown that ''old'' responses are often increased by enhancing perceptual fluency, as when selected words are shown with relatively higher contrast on a computer. Conversely, episodic memory can create an erroneous sense of perceptual advantages for recently studied words. In this investigation, symmetric fluency effects were tested in face memory, a domain that is often considered neurologically and psychologically unique. In eight experiments involving over 800 participants, we found consistent memorial and perceptual illusions-fluency created feelings of familiarity, and familiarity created feelings of fluency. In both directions, these effects were manifested as response biases, suggesting effects based on memorial and perceptual attributions.
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Papers by Steve Goldinger