University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada.
Mem Cognit. 2010 Mar;38(2):154-62. doi: 10.3758/MC.38.2.154.
Several studies have shown that people's memory for location can be influenced by categorical information. According to a model proposed by Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Duncan (1991), people estimate location by combining fine-grained item-level information in memory with category-level information. When the fine-grained information is inexact, category-level information is given greater weight, which leads to biased responses. We manipulated the distribution of locations presented in order to alter the usefulness of category information, and we manipulated background texture in order to alter accuracy of fine-grained memory. The distributional information reduced bias without altering overall accuracy of responding, whereas the background texture manipulation affected accuracy without changing bias. Our results suggest that category information may weigh in only when it is actively processed.
多项研究表明，人们对地点的记忆可以受到类别信息的影响。根据 Huttenlocher、Hedges 和 Duncan（1991）提出的模型，人们通过将记忆中的细粒度项目信息与类别信息相结合来估计位置。当细粒度信息不精确时，类别信息会被赋予更大的权重，从而导致有偏差的反应。我们操纵呈现的位置分布，以改变类别信息的有用性，并操纵背景纹理，以改变细粒度记忆的准确性。分布信息减少了偏差，而不改变反应的整体准确性，而背景纹理处理则在不改变偏差的情况下影响准确性。我们的结果表明，只有在主动处理时，类别信息才可能产生影响。
