Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2024-05-27
Abstract： Judgments of learning (JOLs) refer to learners’ subjective predictions of whether they can successfully extract what they have learned on future tests. Face memory is an important foundation for acquiring information during social interactions and ensuring that social activities are carried out properly. Emotion and attractiveness are two important cues that influence JOLs of face memory. In reality, emotion and attractiveness often appear simultaneously in the same face. However, previous studies have only examined the effects of the two cues on JOLs individually, and have not deeply explored the effects of the integration of the two cues on the accuracy of JOLs and their mechanisms./t/nThe present study first explored the proportion of the number of emotional and attractive cue integrators. Then, we increased the gradient of each level of the attractiveness cue in Experiment 1, and utilized a mixed experimental design of 2 (group: cue-integrated group, non-cue-integrated group) × 3 (emotional cue: high-intensity, medium-intensity, and low-intensity) × 3 (attractiveness cue: high-intensity, medium-intensity, and low-intensity) to explore whether the cue-integration could improve face memory and the accuracy of JOLs. In Experiment 2, in order to further improve the sensitivity of the subjects to the two cues, the mixed experimental design was changed to 2 (group: cue-integration group, non-cue-integration group) × 2 (emotional cues: high intensity, low intensity) × 2 (attraction cues: high intensity, low intensity), and the EEG was used to investigate the temporal characteristics of cue-integration in promoting the accuracy of JOLs./t/nFindings: (1) Subjects integrated both emotion and attraction cues for JOLs ratings(the pre-experiment). (2) Integrating emotional and attractiveness cues improved the accuracy of JOLs (Experiment 1). (3) The group that integrated cues had a higher amplitude of late positive waves (LPP) in the parietal region during the encoding stage and late negative waves (NSW) in the frontal region during the JOLs stage compared to the group that did not integrate cues. Additionally, the amplitudes of NSW and LPP in the cue-integrated group were significantly correlated with the accuracy of JOLs(Experiment 2). The study found that individuals who integrated emotion and attractiveness cues during the encoding stage were better able to allocate cognitive resources for cognitive assessment and retain information in the JOLs stage. This led to more accurate monitoring of their own face memory. The study suggests that integrating two cues can improve cognitive performance./t/nThis study offers a foundation for individuals to comprehend the impact of cue integration on memory and metamemory in real-world face learning scenarios. It also aids in the development of effective learning plans and strategies, as well as precise monitoring of the learning process.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2024-05-09
Abstract： The effect of difficulty on the font size effect was examined by event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. The results revealed that (1) subjects gave lower judgment of learning (JOLs) values for difficult word pairs compared to simple word pairs; and there was no difference in JOLs values for large fonts compared to small fonts. (2) Font size affects the early stage of encoding (200-300 ms), which induces individuals to process learning items superficially (non-semantic encoding); and difficulty affects the middle and late stage of encoding (450-600 ms), when difficult word pairs induce individuals to process learning items deeply (semantic encoding). (3) Subjects performing JOLs would evoke LPN components in the prefrontal lobe representing the attempted extraction. The above results indicate that the difficulty cue in the encoding stage eliminates the font size effect by inducing individuals to semantically encode items; in the JOLs stage individuals will make attempts to extract, a process in which individuals make accurate JOLs based on semantically encoded information.The results of the present study not only illustrate the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying the generation and elimination of the font size effect, but also provide neural evidence on how to improve the accuracy of JOLs, a metamemory monitoring process provides neural evidence for the accuracy of the process.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2024-05-09
Abstract： Judgments of learning (JOLs) refer to learners’ subjective predictions of whether they can successfully extract what they have learned on future tests. Face memory is an important foundation for acquiring information during social interactions and ensuring that social activities are carried out properly. Emotion and attractiveness are two important cues that influence JOLs of face memory. In reality, emotion and attractiveness often appear simultaneously in the same face. However, previous studies have only examined the effects of the two cues on JOLs individually, and have not deeply explored the effects of the integration of the two cues on the accuracy of JOLs and their mechanisms./t/nThe present study first explored the proportion of the number of emotional and attractive cue integrators. Then, we increased the gradient of each level of the attractiveness cue in Experiment 1, and utilized a mixed experimental design of 2 (group: cue-integrated group, non-cue-integrated group) × 3 (emotional cue: high-intensity, medium-intensity, and low-intensity) × 3 (attractiveness cue: high-intensity, medium-intensity, and low-intensity) to explore whether the cue-integration could improve face memory and the accuracy of JOLs. In Experiment 2, in order to further improve the sensitivity of the subjects to the two cues, the mixed experimental design was changed to 2 (group: cue-integration group, non-cue-integration group) × 2 (emotional cues: high intensity, low intensity) × 2 (attraction cues: high intensity, low intensity), and the EEG was used to investigate the temporal characteristics of cue-integration in promoting the accuracy of JOLs./t/nFindings: (1) Subjects integrated both emotion and attraction cues for JOLs ratings(the pre-experiment). (2) Integrating emotional and attractiveness cues improved the accuracy of JOLs (Experiment 1). (3) The group that integrated cues had a higher amplitude of late positive waves (LPP) in the parietal region during the encoding stage and late negative waves (NSW) in the frontal region during the JOLs stage compared to the group that did not integrate cues. Additionally, the amplitudes of NSW and LPP in the cue-integrated group were significantly correlated with the accuracy of JOLs(Experiment 2). The study found that individuals who integrated emotion and attractiveness cues during the encoding stage were better able to allocate cognitive resources for cognitive assessment and retain information in the JOLs stage. This led to more accurate monitoring of their own face memory. The study suggests that integrating two cues can improve cognitive performance./t/nThis study offers a foundation for individuals to comprehend the impact of cue integration on memory and metamemory in real-world face learning scenarios. It also aids in the development of effective learning plans and strategies, as well as precise monitoring of the learning process.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2023-11-24
Abstract： Reward can improve working memory performance. However, there has been controversy on whether reward can regulate the retrieval of working memory. Some studies have presented reward signals before the retrieval stage, with the results showing that reward can affect the retrieval phase during working memory. Klink et al. (2017) indicated that reward cues presented in the retrieval phase cannot affect working memory. However, this finding lacks support in the literature and needs to be further tested. The present study aims to explore the mechanism and effect of reward on the precision of working memory during retrieval.
A total of 24 participants (experiment 1) and 60 participants (experiment 2) were recruited for two experiments. Experiment 1 included two stages: association learning and memory test. The participants first established the connection between color and value through association learning. Thereafter, a working memory test was conducted. Reward cues were presented with the memory probe during the working memory test. Experiment 2 included four stages: pretest, association learning, posttest, and confidence assessment. Pre- and post-test tasks were the same, in which the participants performed two memory tests in sequence during the retrieval phase. Colored cues were not related to rewards in the pre-test but associated with rewards in the post-test. Confidence judgment required the participants to evaluate their confidence that they can infer the color of the second cue based on the color of the first cue. This undertaking aimed to test whether the participants have expectations for the order of cues.
Results of experiment 1 showed that the effect of reward was significant in the memory test stage. In particular, memory performance with high and low reward cues was better than that with no reward cues. Results of the post-test of experiment 2 showed a significant main effect of test order. Memory performance of the first test item was particularly better than that of the second test item. Moreover, there was a significant test order by serial position of the high-reward cue interaction effect. Memory performance of the first test item was better when the high-reward cue appeared before the low-reward cue. Memory performance of the second test item was better when the low reward cue appeared before the high-reward cue. The participants’ working memory capacity was differentiated according to their performance during the pre-test to investigate the individual differences of the reward effects. Results likewise indicated that reward did not affect the memory performance of the high-capacity group. For the low-capacity group, memory performance was affected by the test order, serial position of the high-reward cue, and their interaction. Thus, the effect of reward was more evident with the low-capacity group.
The present study was the first to observe that rewards can directly regulate working memory retrieval without affecting encoding and retention. In addition, the regulation mechanism of reward on working memory retrieval involved the redistribution of working memory resources. Such a reward regulation was affected by the test order and working memory capacity. Moreover, findings indicated that individuals can adjust cognitive strategies before or during learning according to the item value to promote working memory processing. They can also adjust retrieval precision after learning according to the value of information set by the test. This flexible working memory regulation mechanism plays an important role in promoting human cognitive activities and social adaptation.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Pupils were found to exhibit consistent changing patterns in the same processing stage of different memory tasks, and the changes in pupil size reflect the activation state of the nervous system during information processing. During the pre-coding phase before the stimulus is presented, pupils contract as the individual's endogenous attention level increases. In the information encoding stage, the degree of pupil dilation is used as a bio-marker of the subsequent memory effect, which can predict the memory performance of the future information retrieval stage. In the retrieval phase, when the free recall task is used, pupils contract rapidly with the release of memory load, but the report of each item will cause a small pupil dilation; In the recognition task, pupil dilation is more pronounced when old stimulus is presented than that with new stimulus, producing pupil old/ new effect. Pupil size is a sensitive and stable bio-marker in memory processing. Pupil tracking measurement is an effective approach to explore the physiological mechanism of memory processing. In the future research, pupil tracking along with multiple research methods should be used to further explore the physiological mechanism of memory.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Judgments of learning (JOLs) are characterised as metacognitive judgments regarding the likelihood that studied items can be successfully retrieved in a future memory test. Previous studies found that people employ different types of cues to inform their online JOLs. Some of these cues can guide JOLs to accurately reflect memory status but others cannot (and are even misleading in some situations). A widely studied cue for JOL formation is subjective processing experience (e.g., perceptual fluency) while completing a given task, which often confers metacognitive illusions. It has been found that people give higher JOLs to large than to small words, despite the fact that font size has minimal influence on retention, a phenomenon termed the font size effect on JOLs. A potential mechanism underlying the effect is perceptual fluency: Large words are perceived more fluently than small ones, and fluent processing experience of large words induces a feeling of knowing, which drives people to offer higher JOLs. The font size effect is important because it spotlights a dissociation between metacognitive judgments and memory itself. The current study aims to explore the influences of encoding strength on the font size effect, and to explore practical techniques to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual fluency. Experiment 1 aimed to delineate the role of perceptual fluency in the font size effect. Twenty-six participants first completed a continuous identification (CID) task to measure the difference in perceptual fluency (indexed by response times; RTs) between large (70-pt) and small (9-pt) words, after which they attended a classic learning task. In the learning task, participants studied large and small words one-by-one, for 2 s each, and made item-by-item JOLs. Immediately following the learning task, they completed a distractor task, followed by a free recall test. The results showed that, in the CID task, participants responded much faster to large than to small words, indicating the natural difference in perceptual fluency between large and small words. In addition, perceptual fluency (i.e., RTs in the CID task) significantly correlated with JOLs, reflecting the fluency effect on JOLs. More importantly, perceptual fluency significantly mediated the font size effect on JOLs, supporting the claim that perceptual fluency is responsible for the font size effect.Experiment 2 manipulated study durations to investigate the influence of enhancing encoding strength (through prolonging study duration) on the font size effect. Specifically, three groups of participants studied each word for 2 s, 4 s, and 8 s, respectively, and made item-by-item JOLs. The results demonstrated that prolonging study duration correspondingly decreased the font size effect on JOLs. It is, however, worth highlighting that expanding study time cannot fully eliminate the font size effect because the results still showed a significant font size effect even when the study time was increased to 8 s.Experiment 3 was conducted to further investigate the effectiveness of enhancing encoding strength for calibration of the font size effect. A sentence-making group was instructed to encode each word by generating a sentence to deepen the level of processing (i.e., encoding strength). By contrast, there were no explicit requirements of encoding strategies in the control group (i.e., participants in the control group could use any strategies they liked). In the control group, the classic font size effect on JOLs was successfully replicated; of critical interest, the effect disappeared in the sentence-making group. Such results reflect the power of improving encoding strength to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual features.In summary, the current study establishes that perceptual fluency is at least one of the mechanisms underlying the font size effect on JOLs; prolonging study duration reduces but fails to eliminate the font size effect on JOLs; more importantly, directly deepening the level of processing through sentence-making is a valid strategy to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual features. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the main text.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Episodic memory consists of item memory and associative memory. Individual cognitive resources are typically allocated to more valuable information during encoding through metamemory, leading to competitive processing of item and associative information. Reward prediction error (RPE), defined as the difference between reward results and reward expectations, has two properties: valence (positive or negative) and salience (degree of difference). To examine the impact of reward prediction error valence and salience on item and associative memory, and how reward prediction error influences memory based on metamemory, three experiments were conducted. In the learning stage, participants were presented with indoor and outdoor scene pictures. They were asked to predict the score of each picture and then received feedback on the actual score. Through this reinforcement learning process, participants had to find out which type of pictures is more valuable, and 30% of the scores were accumulated into the total score. To induce the effect of reward motivation on memory, participants were introduced to the opportunity to choose between two pictures and receive the value of the selected picture, although the actual program did not include a decision-making stage. After the learning stage, participants were tested on item and reward associative memory. The findings of the study showed that: (1) There were advantages in associative memory performance for positive reward prediction error valence and low salience, with higher accuracy of JOCs at positive valence. In contrast, there were advantages in item memory performance for negative valence and high salience. (2) In the eye-tracking results during the encoding process, positive valence and low salience of reward prediction error resulted in increased mean and peak pupil dilation after feedback presentation, as well as longer value fixation duration and shorter picture fixation duration at low salience. (3) When the reward prediction error level was increased to reduce overlap between reward results and reward prediction error effects, the separation effect of reward prediction error on item and associative memory performance remained stable. The results of the study suggest that the effects of reward prediction error on item and associative memory are distinct. During the encoding stage, individuals use the valence and salience of reward prediction error as cues to allocate cognitive resources differently in item and associative memory encoding through metamemory control. In the retrieval stage, positive valence of reward prediction error enhances the metamemory monitoring level of associative memory retrieval.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Metamemory monitoring is a process in which individuals subjectively evaluate or judge the memory process and state, and the common indicator is judgments of learning (JOLs). Metamemory control is the regulation and control of memory processes carried out on the basis of metamemory monitoring, and the study time allocation during self-paced learning is a central component of metamemory control. According to Agenda-Based Regulation Model (ABR), individuals in the learning process will comprehensively analyze various factors such as task objectives, task constraints to construct the learning agenda, which is used to prioritize the study items and the amount of time needed to study. However, the main concern of the previous studies is the value presented as a reward outcome (reward obtained after successfully memory), leading to a lack of valid examination of whether reward expectation (prediction of reward outcome) affects the agenda construction and memory performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to supplement the reward expectation into the ABR model by verifying whether a sufficiently high reward expectation can replace difficulty with exerting a dominant influence on JOLs and time allocation in an agenda construction.Experiment 1 added a control group on the basis of Soderstrom and McCabe's (2011) to examine the effect of reward expectation and difficulty on JOLs and memory rates under a time limited learning condition by presenting the reward posteriorly. Experiment 2, which abolished the limited time learning to self-paced learning, was designed to examine the effect of reward expectation and difficulty on the study time allocation. To go a step further, Experiment 3 controlled reward expectation in the test by manipulating the value gradient, and was designed to examine the effect of the size of the gradient of reward expectation.The current study found that: (1) under the limited time learning condition in Experiment 1, reward outcomes facilitated the memory performance and JOLs of both easy and hard word pairs, and reward expectation only improved the memory performance of easy word pairs without significant effects on JOLs. (2) in self-paced learning in Experiment 2, reward outcome only affected the JOLs rather than memory performance, but reward expectation promoted both JOLs and study time allocation thus improving the memory performance, what’s more, JOLs and study time allocation of hard word pairs in condition with reward expectation are higher than with no reward. (3) in self-paced learning in Experiment 3, the influence of difficulty on study time not significant any more, reward expectation beyond difficulty becomes the main factor affecting the study time allocation. The above results proved that reward expectation is a contributing factor in ABR model. Individuals synthesize reward expectation, reward outcome and difficulty while constructing a learning agenda, and reward expectation overrides difficulty as the dominant factor in agenda construction when it is sufficiently large. However, the effects of reward expectation and reward outcome on memory performance, study time allocation, and JOLs were modulated by the learning conditions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Experimental Psychology submitted time 2023-01-08
Abstract：
Episodic memory consists of item memory and associative memory. Individual cognitive resources are typically allocated to more valuable information during encoding through metamemory, leading to competitive processing of item and associative information. Reward prediction error (RPE), defined as the difference between reward results and reward expectations, has two properties: valence (positive or negative) and salience (degree of difference). To examine the impact of reward prediction error valence and salience on item and associative memory, and how reward prediction error influences memory based on metamemory, three experiments were conducted.
In the learning stage, participants were presented with indoor and outdoor scene pictures. They were asked to predict the score of each picture and then received feedback on the actual score. Through this reinforcement learning process, participants had to find out which type of pictures is more valuable, and 30% of the scores were accumulated into the total score. To induce the effect of reward motivation on memory, participants were introduced to the opportunity to choose between two pictures and receive the value of the selected picture, although the actual program did not include a decision-making stage. After the learning stage, participants were tested on item and reward associative memory.
The findings of the study showed that: (1) There were advantages in associative memory performance for positive reward prediction error valence and low salience, with higher accuracy of JOCs at positive valence. In contrast, there were advantages in item memory performance for negative valence and high salience. (2) In the eye-tracking results during the encoding process, positive valence and low salience of reward prediction error resulted in increased mean and peak pupil dilation after feedback presentation, as well as longer value fixation duration and shorter picture fixation duration at low salience. (3) When the reward prediction error level was increased to reduce overlap between reward results and reward prediction error effects, the separation effect of reward prediction error on item and associative memory performance remained stable.
The results of the study suggest that the effects of reward prediction error on item and associative memory are distinct. During the encoding stage, individuals use the valence and salience of reward prediction error as cues to allocate cognitive resources differently in item and associative memory encoding through metamemory control. In the retrieval stage, positive valence of reward prediction error enhances the metamemory monitoring level of associative memory retrieval.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-06-12
Abstract： "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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