Verbatim and gist memory and individual differences in inhibition, sustained attention, and working memory capacity

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we explored whether individual differences in inhibition, sustained attention, and working memory capacity (WMC) are related to false memory task performance. We defined the processes in such a task according to the fuzzy trace theory and used multinomial modelling methodology to measure the contribution of these latent processes. We found higher verbatim memory in participants with a high WMC, as measured by the Rotation Span task, and in individuals who committed more errors in the Sustained Attention Response Task (SART). Participants with a high WMC and low-error level in SART showed higher gist memory for targets, and individuals high in WMC also rejected orthographically related distractors more effectively due to the recollection of distractors’ corresponding targets. We also observed that participants with better inhibition control were more conservative in guessing that an item was old.

KEYWORDS:

• False memory
• inhibition
• executive function
• working-memory capacity
• fuzzy-trace theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Marek Nieznański http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2457-3909

Michał Obidziński http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7854-3123

Notes

1 There were two sessions of the false memory task in order to increase statistical power in the data, for the purpose of MPT analyses. The observations gathered in the two sessions were combined for the analyses.

2 We assumed that this should increase the contribution of recollection rejection to participants’ performance (this contribution is relatively low in standard studies with semantically related pairs of words). However, the low levels of the V_r parameter that we obtained in our study suggest that it did not yield the expected effect.

3 For 70% of unrelated words, changing the letter presented in lower case does not result in obtaining a new word. We did not control this because we were lacking in word-pairs differing in only one letter. However, as a reviewer suggested, it is possible that unrelated words were identified as new words because the participants learned that these words cannot be changed by switching one letter. In order to examine this possibility, we compared the percentages of correct identifications of unrelated distractors for changeable words vs. unchangeable words, and we found 62% vs. 68% accuracy levels, respectively; therefore, we argue that this oversight in material selection had no significant consequences for our results.

4 In detail, a single participant’s score in the SART was removed because she had 100% of commission errors; a single participant’s score in the Flanker test was removed because she jumbled the keys assigned to stimuli and, finally, a single participant ignored the letter rotation task in the Rotation Span task (she correctly responded to less than 30% trials). The data of a particular participant was removed just for the specific analysis involving the test she failed to follow.