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M A McDaniel

Publications and source records attributed to M A McDaniel.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Age-related deficits in prospective memory: the influence of task complexity.

Younger and older subjects were asked to perform an action whenever target words occurred during a short-term memory task. The difficulty of this prospective memory task was manipulated by varying the delay preceding the occurrence of a target event and by varying the number of different target events. Age-related performance differences emerged when there were several different target events but not when there was one target event presented several times. Age-related performance differences, when they occurred, were associated with poorer retrospective memory for the target events. The results were interpreted in terms of a componential analysis of prospective memory, which assumes both similarities and differences between prospective and retrospective memory.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Mental models, pictures, and text: integration of spatial and verbal information.

In the past several years, there has been an acceleration in the publication of cognitive research on the interplay between linguistic and pictorial/spatial information. To report on and encourage this sort of research, we organized a symposium at the 1991 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. The articles in this special section of Memory & Cognition are based on the work presented at the symposium. In this introduction, we offer a suggestion for why the integration of linguistic and spatial information is not only a possibility, but a requirement for effective communication. Our suggestion follows the linguistic analysis of the closed-class elements that convey spatial relations, the prepositions (Talmy, 1983). The structure of language provides but a small set of prepositions to encode the vast number of spatial relations that we can perceive. Thus, to understand a situation that a speaker or a writer is conveying, the listener or reader must combine linguistic information with (perhaps metric) spatial information derived from pictures, the environment, or memory.

Cognition↗
PubMed1992

Pictorial enhancement of text memory: limitations imposed by picture type and comprehension skill.

We examined the kinds of information in a prose passage that is better remembered when depictive illustrations are embedded in the passage than when the passage contains no illustrations. Experiment 1 showed that (1) pictures depicting details effectively increased recall of those details and (2) pictures depicting relationships effectively increased recall of that relational information (relative to a no-picture control condition). In Experiment 2, comprehension skill was found to modulate the general effects obtained in Experiment 1. Detail pictures enhanced the recall of targeted details for all skill levels. Relational pictures enhanced recall of pictured relational information for highly skilled and moderately skilled comprehenders, but not for less skilled comprehenders. Because there were no recall differences across the different skill levels in the no-picture control condition, it is suggested that pictures may serve to enable processing in which readers would not necessarily engage under ordinary circumstances. Pictures, however, did not appear to compensate for limitations reflected in lower scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

On imaging and seeing: repetition priming and interactive views of imagery.

The interaction between perceptual and imaginal processes was investigated, with the use of the repetition-priming paradigm. The idea is that the overlap between processes employed in imagery and processes employed in perception will be reflected in the amount of transfer from one encounter with an item that engages perception or imagery and a second encounter that engages perception or imagery. The greater the overlap between perception and imagery, the greater the transfer between them should be. The results showed that perceptual and imaginal processes transferred maximally to themselves; that is, maximum transfer occurred when an item was processed in the same way on both encounters. Further, prior use of perceptual processes transferred to the use of imaginal processes, but not vice versa. These results are discussed as they relate to the interactive view of imagery, which holds that imagery relies on many of the same mental structures and processes as perception.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Normal aging and prospective memory.

We develop a laboratory paradigm for studying prospective memory and examine whether or not this type of memory is especially difficult for the elderly. In two experiments, young and old subjects were given a prospective memory test (they were asked to perform an action when a target event occurred) and three tests of retrospective memory (short-term memory, free recall, and recognition). From the perspective that aging disrupts mainly self-initiated retrieval processes, large age-related decrements in prospective memory were anticipated. However, despite showing reliable age differences on retrospective memory tests, both experiments showed no age deficits in prospective memory. Moreover, regression analyses produced no reliable relation between the prospective and retrospective memory tasks. Also, the experiments showed that external aids and unfamiliar target events benefit prospective memory performance. These results suggest some basic differences between prospective and retrospective memory.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Generation effects in free recall: further support for a three-factor theory.

A framework is presented that helps explain and predict generation effects in free recall (for between-subjects manipulations of generating vs. reading). When the targets share common features and when that shared information is salient to subjects, subjects will exploit that information to help generate the target items. This produces more relational processing among the targets (relative to reading), enhancing free recall. Consistent with this idea, when shared information (among targets) was salient, generation effects in free recall were found under encoding conditions that can disrupt generation effects in cued recall (e.g., pairing targets with unrelated cues). Further, within the same list, generation effects emerged in free recall for targets that were processed after shared information became evident but not for targets processed prior to the availability of the shared information. In recognition, generation effects were found for targets regardless of when they were processed.

Attention↗
PubMed1989

Bizarre imagery, interference, and distinctiveness.

Previous studies have shown that bizarre and common images produce equivalent levels of recall in unmixed-list designs. Using unmixed lists, we tested the view that bizarre images would be less susceptible than common images to common sources of interference. In all experiments, subjects imaged a list of either bizarre or common sentences and then performed some kind of interfering task before recalling the initial list of sentences. Experiment 1 showed that bizarre images were better accessed than common images after imaging an intervening list of common sentences. Also, components of common images tended to be better recalled than those of bizarre images after imaging an intervening list of bizarre sentences. Experiments 2a and 2b showed that interfering tasks consisting of studying lists of common concrete nouns did not differentially affect memory for bizarre and common images. In Experiment 3, labeling and imaging an interfering list of common pictures produced higher recall of bizarre images. Generally, bizarre images appeared to be less susceptible than common images to interference from certain types of common encodings. Importantly, the superior recall of bizarre images was always due to greater image (sentence) access, whereas higher recall of common images was associated with greater recovery of the image (sentence) constituents. Explanation of the precise pattern of results requires consideration of the distinctive properties of bizarre images.

Attention↗
PubMed1989

Encoding difficulty and memory enhancement for young and older readers.

Memory for text that required active construction (generation) on the part of the reader to comprehend some of the information was examined. (Letters were deleted from the words composing some of the idea units of the text). For both high school students and older adults, idea units that had letters deleted were remembered better than idea units with intact words on a cued-recall test. This pattern held for easier as well as for harder letter deletions. It was concluded that retention of textually presented information can be improved in older adults if the presentation format of the text induces or guides mental operations that support good encoding. Production-deficiency accounts and attentional/resource deficiency accounts of age-related text memory decrements are discussed in light of the present results.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Altering memory through recall: the effects of cue-guided retrieval processing.

Three experiments were designed to investigate the influence of initial recall on memory by assessing delayed recall after different immediate cued-recall tests. In all experiments, subjects performed semantic and phonemic encoding tasks on a word list. The subjects then received a cued-recall test that cued the target using the same word as the context word in the encoding task, a test that cued the target with a word from the same level at which the target was encoded, a test that cued the target with a cue from a different level at which the target was encoded, or no immediate-recall test. One day later, the subjects performed a final cued-recall test in which the type of cue (semantic or phonemic) was varied. Consistently, delayed recall was facilitated primarily when the cue on the immediate test was from the same level as the cue on the delayed test. This pattern of facilitation suggests that immediate cued-recall produces an elaboration of an existing memory representation that is closely tied to the type of cue used on the immediate test.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Effects of elaboration and relational distinctiveness on sentence memory.

Memory for normal and distinct target sentences in elaborated and isolated contexts was examined in two experiments. Distinctiveness was operationalized as the uniqueness of the stated relation among the elements (words) of the sentence. In both experiments distinct target sentences were recalled significantly better than normal target sentences. Robust elaboration effects emerged only in Experiment 2, however, when care was taken to construct elaborations that were causally related to the target sentences. Further, the positive mnemonic effects of elaboration in Experiment 2 combined additively with the distinctiveness effects. These results demonstrate that text manipulations emphasizing both relational distinctiveness and causal elaboration facilitate memory performance. Several possible theoretical mechanisms underlying this facilitation are outlined.

Attention↗