Table Of ContentThis is a volume in
ACADEMIC PRESS
SERIES IN COGNITION AND PERCEPTION
A Series of Monographs and Treatises
A complete list of titles in this series appears at the end of this volume.
Handbook of Research Methods in
Human Memory and Cognition
Edited by
C. Richard Puff
Department of Psychology
Whitely Psychology Laboratories
Franklin and Marshall College
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
1982
ACADEMIC PRESS
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
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Copyright © 1982, by Academic Press, Inc.
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United Kingdom Edition published by
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Handbook of research methods in human memory and
cognition.
(Academic Press series in cognition and perception)
Includes index.
1. Memory—Research—Methodology. 2. Cognition—
Research—Methodology. I. Puff, C. Richard. II. Series.
[DNLM: 1. Cognition. 2. Memory. 3. Psychology,
Experimental—Methods. BF 371 H236]
BF371.H36 153'.072 81-17661
ISBN 0-12-566760-4 AACR2
PRINTED IN T HE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
82 83 84 85 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors9 contributions begin.
PAMELA M. AUBLE (395), Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240
HARRY P. BAHRICK (427), Department of Psychology, Ohio Wesleyan
University, Delaware, Ohio 43015
GAY L. BISANZ (349), Department of Psychology, University of Al-
berta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada
JEFFREY BISANZ (229), Department of Psychology, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada
JOHN D. BRANSFORD (395), Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240
MICHAEL W. EYSENCK (197), Department of Psychology, Birkbeck
College, University of London, London WC1E 7HX England
JEFFERY J. FRANKS (395), Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240
JOHN M. GARDINER (173), Department of Social Science and Hu-
manities, The City University, London EC1V OHV, England
MURRAY GLANZER (63), Psychology Department, New York Uni-
versity, New York, New York 10003
KEITH J. HOLYOAK (315), Department of Psychology, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
xi
xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
LAWRENCE J. HUBERT (129), Graduate School of Education, Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106
ROBERT V. KAIL, JR. (229), Department of Psychological Sciences,
Stanley Coulter Annex, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
47907
DEMETRIUS KARIS (427), Department of Psychology, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820
STEPHEN M. KOSSLYN (315), Program in Linguistics and Cognitive
Science, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02154
GEOFFREY R. LOFTUS (257), Department of Psychology, Univer-
sity of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
BENNET B. MURDOCK, JR. (1), Department of Psychology, Univer-
sity of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1
MARTIN D. MURPHY (99), Department of Psychology, The University
of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325
JAMES W. PELLEGRINO (129), Graduate School of Education, Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106
C. RICHARD PUFF (99), Department of Psychology, Franklin and
Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17604
PATRICK RABBITT (27), Department of Experimental Psychology,
University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, England
EDWARD SHOBEN (287), Department of Psychology, University of
Illinois-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820
SHERMAN TYLER (349), Learning Research and Development, Uni-
versity of Illinois-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820
JAMES VOSS (349), Department of Psychology and Learning Research
and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Penn-
sylvania 15260
MICHAEL J. WATKINS (173), Department of Psychology, Rice Uni-
versity, Houston, Texas 77001
Preface
This volume is intended to be a reference tool for those interested
in research in the area of human memory and cognition. Its purpose is
to help people be aware of important methodological issues in planning
investigations and evaluating existing literature. Toward this end, a group
of senior investigators provide a critical examination of the major con-
temporary research methods.
The need for such a book stems from the methodological challenge
created by the rapid evolution in the kinds of problems of interest and
the progressive refinement in methodology within specific problem areas.
It is increasingly difficult for anyone to pursue competently or to evaluate
research in more than a few subareas in which he or she can develop
and maintain a high level of expertise. The hope is that the existence
of a single, authoritative source will introduce newcomers to the range
of methodologies in the area, and will enable established investigators
to be more flexible in the choice of problems and methods by which to
attack them.
The specific topics covered in the book represent areas of substantial
current interest and research activity. To minimize overlap, most of the
topics were defined in terms of experimental tasks and materials rather
than theoretical constructs. There are chapters on recognition memory,
free-recall, and prose memory, but not on encoding, storage, or retrieval,
xiii
xiv PREFACE
because of the overlapping methodological approaches the latter notions
involve.
So that the book can function effectively as a reference tool or
handbook, each chapter is designed to stand on its own, and the chapters
can thus be read in any order. To achieve the most complete coverage
of methods and issues relevant to a particular type of investigation, the
chapters can be read in pairs or clusters. Thus, for example, if someone
is interested in the effects of various orienting tasks in incidental learning
on recognition test performance, he or she would want to read the chapter
by Eysenck and the one by Murdock. A number of these cross-references
are included in the chapters.
There is considerable diversity in organization and approach within
the chapters. However, each chapter covers some reference experiments
that serve as prototypes for research in the particular area, some treat-
ment of the important parameters of the materials and presentation con-
ditions, and some consideration of how performance is evaluated. Be-
yond this, the chapters differ in how heavily the discussion of methodology
is tied to theoretical issues, and whether the balance of the weight is
given to the details of how to carry out specific procedures, or to the
consideration of conceptual issues involved in designing the research.
These alternative emphases, no doubt, partly reflect the nature of the
subareas and partly the inclinations of the different contributors who
were given the freedom to emphasize what they thought most appropriate.
The book begins with a chapter on the methodology in the study
of recognition memory by Murdock. He describes the types of recog-
nition memory tests and measures, including the application of signal-
detection theory and concludes with a set of guidelines for designing
experiments on recognition memory.
In Chapter 2, Rabbitt examines the methodology in visual search
experiments, stimulus categorization paradigms, the Sternberg search
paradigm, and binary classification tasks. He emphasizes the variables
affecting performance in these tasks and the common logical structure
of the decisions made.
The variety of tasks used in studying short-term memory is reviewed
in Chapter 3 by Glanzer. He concentrates on a set of representative
studies ranging across distractor, probe, PI release, and other paradigms,
along with consideration of the role of rehearsal, modality, pre- and
concurrent-task loads.
Murphy and Puff (Chapter 4) review the methodology in the free
recall paradigm. They discuss the manipulation and control of task pa-
rameters and the measurement of recall performance. This chapter is
essentially prefatory to Chapter 5.
PREFACE xv
Pellegrino and Hubert (Chapter 5) present a systematic approach to
the analysis of organization and structure in free recall protocols. Their
analytic procedures, developed within an explicit conceptual framework,
are applicable to testing the well-known, list-learning hypotheses of clus-
tering, subjective organization, seriation, etc. as well as original structural
hypotheses in list learning, prose memory, sorting, and other paradigms.
Chapter 6, by Watkins and Gardiner, analyzes cued recall perfor-
mance in terms of types of designs for studying it, important task pa-
rameters, and measures for evaluating it. The relation between the con-
ventional cued recall procedure and other experimental paradigms is also
considered.
In Chapter 7, Eysenck critically evaluates paradigms for comparing
intentional and incidental learning. He also considers the relationship
between orienting tasks and processing activities, including the inter-
action of orienting tasks with other variables such as the type of retention
test employed.
Kail and Bisanz (Chapter 8) focus on conceptual issues to be con-
sidered in determining the appropriateness of methods for assessing stra-
tegic activity. They examine the use of inferential, direct, and correlative
measures in memory tasks, along with the use of task analysis, latencies,
and verbal reports in problem solving tasks.
The methods used in the study of the encoding of pictures are
described by Loftus in Chapter 9. He discusses the role of eye movements
and fixation patterns, characteristics of the presentation such as lumi-
nance and masking, and the implementation of different types of retention
tests.
In Chapter 10, Shoben discusses semantic and lexical decision tasks
as they are used to investigate the structure and processing of semantic
knowledge. He emphasizes, in particular, the issues involved in the use
of natural language materials, the treatment of reaction time data, and
the application of the additive, subtractive, and order types of logic used
in such studies.
The issues and paradigms in the study of imagery are examined in
Chapter 11 by Kosslyn and Holyoak. They cover basic methodological
problems, such as how to avoid biasing the subjects in imagery studies,
and they emphasize the importance of an appropriate match-up between
a particular kind of question about imagery and the nature of the paradigm
used to investigate it.
Voss, Tyler, and Bisanz (Chapter 12) review the methodology that
has developed in the study of prose comprehension and memory. They
consider the methodological contributions of lines of prose research in-
volving models of text structure, investigation of parameters of the task
xvi PREFACE
situation, and the study of how higher-level knowledge structures influ-
ence text processing.
Franks, Bransford and Auble (Chapter 13) discuss procedures for
exploring the relationship between retention and the learner's previously
acquired knowledge. These procedures are designed explicitly to ma-
nipulate available knowledge and its usefulness in the retention situation
by considering the nature of the target information, contextual infor-
mation, the sequencing of these, and the nature of the criterion task.
In the final chapter (Chapter 14), Bahrick and Karis describe the
methods used to study memory for real life experiences as viewed within
a framework for classifying memory content. They provide an evaluation
of the methods in this area, stressing the advantage of ecological validity
and the problem of verification.
CHAPTER JL BENNET Β. MURDOCK, JR.
Recognition Memory
The term recognition memory can have at least two quite different
meanings. In one sense, it refers to the act of recognizing someone or
something: a familiar face, a familiar piece of music, a familiar scene.
(See Mandler, 1980, for a discussion of this meaning.) In the second
sense, it refers to a method of testing memory that presents one or more
alternatives and asks for a judgment of familiarity. I shall concentrate
on the second meaning, though at times I must consider the first as well.
Recognition is one of the oldest and best established techniques of testing
memory. Much is known about recognition memory. By now we have
standard techniques and, as a result of their use, much data and theory.
The techniques are popular today, and will likely continue to be widely
used.
Designing experiments in recognition memory can sometimes get
tricky. As an example, see the rather elaborate precautions necessary
to guard against confoundings in some tests of a scanning model (Mur-
dock, Hockley, & Muter, 1977). In this chapter, I will not go into such
detail; rather, I shall indicate only general principles.
It has long been known that retention is a function of the method
of measurement. In one of the early classic studies Luh (1922; see also
Postman & Rau, 1957) compared recognition, relearning, reconstruction,
written reproduction, and anticipation. The recognition scores were the
ι
HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH METHODS IN Copyright © 1982 byAcademic Press, Inc.
HUMAN MEMORY AND COGNITION All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-566760-4
