Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, 79085, Freiburg, Germany.
Mem Cognit. 2023 Jan;51(1):160-174. doi: 10.3758/s13421-022-01346-7. Epub 2022 Aug 19.
Recently, it has been suggested that the mnemonic information that underlies recognition decisions changes when participants are asked to indicate whether a test stimulus is new rather than old (Brainerd et al., 2021, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory, and Cognition, advance online publication). However, some observations that have been interpreted as evidence for this assertion need not be due to mnemonic changes, but may instead be the result of conservative response strategies if the possibility of asymmetric receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) is taken into account. Conversely, recent findings in support of asymmetric ROCs rely on the assumption that the mnemonic information accessed by the decision-maker does not depend on whether an old or a new item is considered to be the target Kellen et al. (2021, Psychological Review 128[6], 1022-1050). Here, we aim to clarify whether there is such a difference in accessibility of mnemonic information by applying signal detection theory. To this end, we used two versions of a simultaneous detection and identification task in which we presented participants with two test stimuli at a time. In one version, the old item was the target; in the other, the new item was the target. This allowed us to assess differences in mnemonic information retrieved in the two tasks while taking possible ROC asymmetry into account. Results clearly indicate that there is indeed a difference in the accessibility of mnemonic information as postulated by (Brainerd et al., 2021, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory, and Cognition, advance online publication).
最近，有人提出，当参与者被要求指出测试刺激是新的还是旧的时，识别决策所基于的记忆信息会发生变化（Brainerd 等人，2021，《实验心理学杂志：学习、记忆和认知》，在线提前发布）。然而，一些被解释为支持这一断言的观察结果不一定是由于记忆变化引起的，而是如果考虑到不对称的接收者操作特征（ROC）的可能性，可能是保守反应策略的结果。相反，最近支持不对称 ROC 的发现依赖于这样的假设，即决策者所访问的记忆信息不取决于是将旧项还是新项视为目标（Kellen 等人，2021，《心理评论》128[6]，1022-1050）。在这里，我们旨在通过应用信号检测理论来澄清记忆信息的可及性是否存在这种差异。为此，我们使用了两种同时检测和识别任务的版本，在这两种版本中，我们一次向参与者呈现两个测试刺激。在一个版本中，旧项是目标；在另一个版本中，新项是目标。这使我们能够评估在两个任务中检索的记忆信息的差异，同时考虑到可能的 ROC 不对称性。结果清楚地表明，正如（Brainerd 等人，2021，《实验心理学杂志：学习、记忆和认知》，在线提前发布）所假设的那样，记忆信息的可及性确实存在差异。
