Imani Floyd

Psychology

Dr. Chris Wahlheim

Research Proposal

The project I am interested in taking on will be under the direction of cognitive

psychologist Dr. Chris Wahlheim, an UNCG faculty member whose research lab I am currently

assisting in. The proposed research is a follow up to a 2013 paper by Sarah DuBrow and Lila

Davachi, The Influence of Context Boundaries on Memory for the Sequential Order of Events.

As is done in the paper, I would like to examine the role of study phase retrieval in memory for

temporal order within and between event boundaries. My contribution would be to take it a step

further and determine how taking into account semantic knowledge and associative memory

abilities will influence the results. The hypothesis is that introducing semantic context

boundaries will enhance memory for temporal events.

The project will consist of three experiments. Experiment 1 will be a replica of DuBrow

and Davachi using new material set, creating unrelated pairs by using exemplars from different

categories in each of the study test cycles. These categories will repeat across cycles but not

within a cycle. Experiment 2 will use the same paradigm as Experiment 1 but include exemplars

from the same categories within pairs. This is to test whether related pairs will change the effect.

Experiment 3, the final experiment, will compare unrelated and related pairs within subjects. The

overall design is intended to allow for manipulation of the relationship between individually

presented items later tested in pairs for relative temporal order.

 Experiments with and without explicit relationship detection judgments will be utilized

during the study. Starting without those judgments, I will add later for conditional analyses. At

test, participants will be asked if they remember making the link between objects.

Literature Review

Dubrow, Sarah, and Lila Davachi. “The Influence of Context Boundaries on Memory for

the Sequential Order of Events.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 142,

no. 4, 2013, pp. 1277–1286., doi:10.1037/a0034024.

The fact that people are able to selectively relive moments from the past can be attributed to

episodic memory. The experiments detailed in this paper by Dubrow & Davachi ask how the

ability to remember the past, and specifically the order in which things have occurred, may be

influenced by shifts in context. There are some elements that become tightly related to each other

in memory, and these elements would be referred to as being within the same context. What was

surprising about the outcome of this experiment was the implication that with the introduction of

context boundaries memory for the temporal order of events was actually facilitated among items

that share the same context.

Dubrow, S., and L. Davachi. “Temporal Memory Is Shaped by Encoding Stability and

Intervening Item Reactivation.” Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 34, no. 42, 2014, pp.

13998–14005., doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2535-14.2014.

Memory for the order in which individual related events happen has shown temporal information

has an association with the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe cortex. How information is

encoded and retrieved across unrelated items is poorly understood. In this experiment

participants studied celebrity faces and common objects then were tested on which items had
occurred most recently. Dubrow & Davachi used fMRI to test predictions about how the

hippocampus plays a role in memorizing sequential information when there is a categorical shift

(faces and objects) introduced. The end data suggests that encoding and retrieval mediated by the

hippocampus does contribute to temporal order memory.

Wahlheim, Christopher N. “Testing Can Counteract Proactive Interference by

Integrating Competing Information.” Memory & Cognition, vol. 43, no. 1, 2014, pp. 27–

38., doi:10.3758/s13421-014-0455-5

Proactive interference occurs when the learning of new information impairs memory for what

has been learned previously. Testing has been proven to enhance memory and reduce the impacts

of proactive interference by inducing the act of memory retrieval before new information is

introduced. Previous studies have suggested that this can best be explained by the test

segregating competing sources of information. The experiments conducted by Dr. Wahlheim in

this paper demonstrated that testing can also have its effects in part by integrating competing

information.

Divis, Kristin M., and Aaron S. Benjamin. “Retrieval Speeds Context Fluctuation: Why

Semantic Generation Enhances Later Learning but Hinders Prior Learning.” Memory &

Cognition, vol. 42, no. 7, Nov. 2014, pp. 1049–1062., doi:10.3758/s13421-014-0425-y.

Testing and events that cue retrieval can affect proactive interference and retroactive

interference. To more precisely determine the origin of the costs and benefits of retrieval a single

experiment was created by Davis. The aim of having the single experiment is help evaluate the

effects of retrieval on both future and prior learning. The original hypothesis presented in this

paper is that retrieval events lead to greater internal context change. Thus, testing between events

induces a greater contextual segregation and impairs retention. It is almost contrary to recent
work where retrieval has been shown to solely enhance memory for events following that

retrieval. However, it supports those findings in that segregation highlighted the potential to

improve long term memory for the information present by creating a greater disparity between

the context.

Chanon, Vicki West, and Joseph B. Hopfinger. “Memory's Grip on Attention: The

Influence of Item Memory on the Allocation of Attention.” Visual Cognition, vol. 16, no.

2-3, 2008, pp. 325–340., doi:10.1080/13506280701459026.

Not enough is known about how memory impacts the allocation of attention. To make advances

on this subject, participants in this experiment viewed scenes while an eye tracking machine was

used. Items that the participants had seen earlier were fixated on sooner and held their attention

more than novel items. Participants were given varying instructions on the same task and

reported numerous strategies which reinforced the idea that the effects on attentional allocation

were unintentional. The most important takeaway is that item memory affects the allocation of

attention, influencing both the guidance of attention and subsequent dwell time which could

mean it is encoded deeper.

When Misinformation Improves Memory: The Effects of Recollecting Change- Adam L. Putnam,

Victor W. Sungkhasettee, and Henry L. Roediger, III2

Detecting and remembering a change in information occurring can enhance retention of the

original and post-change event. This article details how misinformation can actually increase

recollection of the original events.The experimenters had people watched slide shows then read

narratives containing misinformation about what had occurred in the slide shows. They then

reported whether any details had changed. The results yielded proof that providing
misinformation can bring to mind what originally happened in the case of more memorable

details. It also concluded that misinformation effects occur mostly for details that are minor.