Effects of Environmental Context on Recognition Memory and Claims of Remembering

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The Effects of Environmental Context on Recognition Memory and Claimsof Remembering

William E. HockleyWilfrid Laurier University

Recognition memory for words was tested in same or different contexts using the remember/knowresponse procedure. Context was manipulated by presenting words in different screen colors andlocations and by presenting words against real-world photographs. Overall hit and false-alarm rates werehigher for tests presented in an old context compared to a new context. This concordant effect was seenin both remember responses and estimates of familiarity. Similar results were found for rearrangedpairings of old study contexts and targets, for study contexts that were unique or were repeated withdifferent words, and for new picture contexts that were physically similar to old contexts. Similar resultswere also found when subjects focused attention on the study words, but a different pattern of results wasobtained when subjects explicitly associated the study words with their picture context. The results showthat subjective feelings of recollection play a role in the effects of environmental context but are likelybased more on a sense of familiarity that is evoked by the context than on explicit associations between

targets and their study context.

Keywords: episodic memory, recognition, environmental context, recollection, familiarity

It has long been assumed that the context in which learningoccurs plays an important role in determining memory perfor-mance in both animals (e.g., Carr, 1917; see Spear, 1978, for areview) and humans (e.g., Dulsky, 1935; Melton & Irwin, 1940;see Smith, 1988, and Smith & Vela, 2001). The general view isthat reinstating the original learning context at the time of retrievalproduces optimal performance, and changes in context betweenstudy and test have deleterious effects on memory. This result has

been demonstrated with a variety of different manipulations of context, including environmental changes (e.g., Godden & Bad-deley, 1975; Smith, Glenberg, & Bjork, 1978), state-dependenteffects (see Eich, 1980), differences in mood states (e.g., Bower,Monteiro, & Gilligan, 1978; Weingartner, Miller, & Murphy,1977; Eich, 1985; Eich & Metcalfe, 1989), changes in the script of the stimuli (e.g., Reder, Donavos, & Erickson, 2002), and semanticcontext (e.g., Humphreys, 1976; Light & Carter-Sobell, 1970;McKenzie & Tiberghien, 2004; Tulving & Thomson, 1973).

One problem associated with the study of the effects of contexton memory is defining or specifying the elements of the learningsituation that constitute the context. The boundary between thecontext and the to-be-remembered (TBR) event is not always clear.Investigators have distinguished between two general types of context that have been characterized in various ways: local versusglobal (Dalton, 1993), interactive versus independent (Baddeley,1982), integrated versus nonintegrated (Eich, 1985; Murnane,

Phelps, & Malmberg, 1999), context alpha versus context beta(Wickens, 1987), and nonincidental versus incidental (Smith &Vela, 2001). Local, interactive, integrated, nonincidental, and con-text alpha refer to aspects of the episode that are processed duringencoding and can influence the meaning or representation of theTBR event. Local context is usually associated with only one or afew TBR items. The role of local context is well illustrated byTulving and Thomson’s (1973) demonstration of the effects of

semantic context on word recognition. As an example, the word jam is encoded quite differently when presented in the pair traffic- JAM than when studied in the pair strawberry-JAM .

Global, or environmental, context, on the other hand, generallyrefers to aspects of the surroundings or background in which learningtakes place, but includes drug and mood states as well. Global contextis usually associated with many TBR items and is incidental in that itis independent of the TBR information, should not influence themanner in which the TBR items are interpreted when encoded, and isnot predictive of a correct response (Bjork & Richardson-Klavehn,1989). Global context manipulations have included such environmen-tal changes between study and test as different rooms (e.g., Dalton,1993; Fernandez & Glenberg, 1985; Smith, 1979, 1985, 1986; Smithet al., 1978), different background colors (Dulsky, 1935; Weiss &Margolius, 1954; Murnane & Phelps, 1993, 1994, 1995), and muchmore dramatic changes, such as underwater versus on land (Godden& Baddeley, 1975, 1980) or on a boat (Emmerson, 1986). The presentstudy is principally concerned with the effects of this type of contexton recognition memory.

Although a number of studies have demonstrated the influenceof global or environmental context on tests of recall, this effect hasbeen far more inconsistent and elusive for recognition memory(see Bjork & Richardson-Klavehn, 1989; Smith, 1988; Smith &Vela, 2001). Although some investigators have found effects of context in tests of recognition (e.g., Dalton, 1993; Geiselman &Bjork, 1980; Geiselman & Glenny, 1977; Murnane & Phelps,

This study was supported by a discovery grant from the Natural Sci-ences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the author. Exper-iments 3, 4A, and 4B were carried out by Benjamin Glicksman for hishonors thesis.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to W. E.Hockley, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo,ON N2L 3C5, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological AssociationLearning, Memory, and Cognition2008, Vol. 34, No. 6, 1412–1429

0278-7393/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0013016

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1993, 1994, 1995; Smith, 1986; Smith & Vela, 1992), others havenot (e.g., Fernandez & Glenberg, 1985; Godden & Baddeley,1980; Jacoby, 1983; Smith, 1986; Smith et al., 1978).

Murnane and Phelps (1993, 1994, 1995) provided a series of demonstrations of the effects of global context on recognitionusing unique combinations of foreground color, background color,

and location on a computer screen in within-subject and within-listmanipulations of context. Murnane and Phelps (1993) noted thatseveral studies that have failed to observe context effects in rec-ognition have used between-subjects manipulations of context, andthey suggested that such a design allows subjects to adopt differentdecision criteria for the different context conditions, which mayattenuate the effects of context. Murnane and Phelps (1994) wenton to show that the nature of the new context also influencescontext effects. They compared a completely new context not seenat study with a context that was seen at study but was not pairedwith the same item at test. The different-but-familiar contextcondition produced an effect of context similar to the same-oldcontext condition. That is, it behaved as an old context.

Murnane and Phelps (1993, 1994, 1995) proposed a globalmatching model account of their effects of context. In this view,item recognition is based on the degree to which information in theretrieval cue matches information stored in memory. Memory isactivated in response to both the item information and the contextinformation contained in the test presentation. A target presentedin the same context at study and test would have a high degree of activation, because both item and context information wouldmatch the stored information. A target presented in a new contextwould have a lower degree of activation because only the itemitself would match with information stored in memory; the non-matching context would serve to decrease the overall familiarityvalue of the probe.

Murnane et al. (1999) extended this global matching view of

context effects in their ICE (item, context, and ensemble information)model. In ICE, item information is information vital to the cognitivetaskperformed, whereascontext information is peripheral informationin the processing environment. Ensemble information represents theintegration of item and context information. In ICE, the nature of theeffects of context depend on how context information is encoded atstudy and test. Matching global context at study and test will increaseboth the hit rate and the false-alarm rate without necessarily influenc-ing discrimination. In contrast, local context, or context that is inte-grated or associated with the item information in an ensemble, willaffect both familiarity and discrimination. In support of this view,Murnane et al. (1999) examined the effects of both simple contexts(foreground and background colors) andenriched contexts (line draw-ings where the TBR items are shown in a congruous situation, such asa classroom with words written on a blackboard). Hit and false-alarmrates were both higher when items were tested in either type of oldcontext compared to new contexts. In contrast to simple contexts,discrimination as measured by d Ј was greater for items tested in an oldenriched context. Murnane et al. argued that subjects were more likelyto integrate the TBR items with their context in the rich contextcondition producing an effect of context dependent discrimination.

Macken (2002) has more recently proposed a dual-processingaccount of context effects in recognition memory. Macken com-bined Murnane and Phelps’s (1993) context manipulation withTulving’s (1985) remember/know response procedure. In this re-sponse procedure, subjects are asked to classify their old recogni-

tion decisions as being based on the recollection of specific detailsof a prior experience (remember responses), or on a strong senseof familiarity in the absence of the recollection of any specificdetails (know responses). Macken found that the effects of contextwere seen only in recognition judgments identified by participantsas based on recollection. Macken proposed that global context

effects are due to the encoding and retrieval of specific item-context associations. Thus, context can affect recognition deci-sions that are accompanied by conscious recollection of details of the study episode (i.e., remember responses), but not decisionsbased only on familiarity (i.e., know responses). The results of Perfect, Mayes, Downes, and Van Eijk (1996) provide support forthis view in that they showed that memory for contextual infor-mation is greater for items that were accompanied by a recollectiveexperience than for items deemed only familiar.

Macken (2002, Experiment 3) examined the effects of testingitems in their same study context, an old but different (switched)context, or a new context and found an effect of context that wasseen only in remember responses. The proportion of rememberresponses was greater in the old context condition compared toboth the switched and the new context conditions. The latter twoconditions did not differ. In comparison, familiarity-based re-sponses estimated from corrected know responses using Jacoby,Yonelinas, and Jennings’ (1997) independence remember/know(IRK) procedure 1 did not vary with the context condition. Mackenalso found that context influenced discrimination for recollection-based but not familiarity-based responses.

Gruppuso, Lindsay, and Masson (2007) extended Macken’s(2002) findings to face recognition. They paired faces with differ-ent unique pictures during study. At test, old faces were shown intheir same-old context, a different or switched old context, or anew picture context. New faces were tested in old or new contexts.Hit rates were higher for faces tested in their same-old context

compared to different-old or new contexts, and this difference wasseen only in remember responses. Familiarity-based correct oldresponses estimated from IRK-corrected know responses did notvary with context. In addition, context-dependent discriminationwas observed for remember responses but not for familiarity-basedresponses. Gruppuso et al.’s pattern of results is largely consistentwith Macken’s (2002) findings and support similar conclusions.

Figure 1 presents a schematic of the pattern of hit and false-alarmratedifferencesbetween the context conditionsexamined by Murnaneand Phelps (1994), Murnane et al. (1999), Macken (2002, Experiment3), and Gruppuso et al. (2007). Figure 2 shows the correspondingcomparisons of discrimination between the context conditions. Twocommon findings are readily apparent in Figure 1. First, overall hitrates and hits identified as remember responses are systematicallygreater for a target tested in its same-old study context compared to a

1 Based on the assumption that recollection (R) and familiarity (F) areindependent processes, the proportion of “know” (K) responses under-estimates the value of F because of the instances when both recollectionand familiarity support an old decision and the subject responds (ap-propriately) “remember.” Jacoby et al. (1997) proposed that an estimateof F that is independent of recollection can be derived from theequation: F ϭ K/(1 – R). R can be estimated directly from the propor-tion of “remember” responses. Both Macken (2002) and Gruppuso et al.(2007) used this estimation procedure in their analyses of recollectionand familiarity for context effects.

1413EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT



new context, whereas familiarity-based responses estimated fromIRK-transformed know responses do not differ between these twocontext conditions. Second, all types of old responses are higher tolures presented in an old study context compared to a new context(although the false-alarm rates for remember responses were quitelow). Two differences between the studies are also notable. Murnaneand Phelps (1994) found that a different-old context produced similareffects as a same-old context in their tests of yes-no recognition,whereas Macken (2002) and Gruppuso et al. (2007) both found that adifferent-old context produced results similar to a new context con-dition when recognition is conditionalized on responses identified asremembered. Furthermore, as illustrated in Figure 2, Murnane and

colleagues did not find that overall discrimination varied with manip-ulations of simple context, whereas Macken and Gruppuso et al.found that the sensitivity of remember responses was greater in thesame-old context condition compared to both different-old and newcontext conditions.

The present study was designed to further examine the roles of recollection and familiarity in the effects of environmental contexton recognition memory. Following Macken (2002) and Gruppusoet al. (2007), the remember/know response procedure was used ineach experiment. It should be noted, however, that there is con-siderable controversy concerning this subjective response proce-dure. Remember and know responses have been assumed to reflectmutually exclusive processes (e.g., Gardiner & Parkin, 1990), twoindependent processes (e.g., Jacoby et al., 1997), or differentcutoffs on a single strength dimension (e.g., Donaldson, 1996;Dunn, 2004). There is also debate as to whether recollection is anall-or-none process (e.g., Yonelinas, 1994) or a continuous vari-able (e.g., Higham & Vokey, 2004; Wixted & Stretch, 2004).Questions concerning the relationship between remember and knowresponses also raise issues concerning the appropriate method toanalyze know responses (e.g., Jacoby et al., 1997). The remember/ know procedure is used in the present study to compare the degree towhich the effects of the manipulations of context are reflected inremember responses so that the present results can be compared toprevious findings. Remember responses are assumed to reflect thesubjects’ phenomenology of their retrieval without a commitment

to the nature of the distinction between remembering and knowing.As will be seen, however, the present results do have implicationsfor the interpretation of these responses.

To examine the relationship between the effects of environmen-tal context and reports of recollection, context was manipulated indifferent ways across the five experiments that are reported. In

Experiment 1, items were tested in their same-old study context, acontext consisting of a new arrangement of old context elements(foreground and background color and screen position) or a newcontext. If the effect of context is based on an explicit associationbetween the target and its study context, then context effectsshould be seen in remember responses when targets are tested intheir same-old context but not in remember responses for targetstested in other context conditions.

Experiment 1

As can be seen in the pattern of results depicted in Figure 1,Murnane and Phelps (1994) found no differences between theeffect of context when items were tested in (a) their same-old

context and in (b) a context that, although different from that inwhich they had been studied, had itself been present during thelearning phase. In contrast, Macken (2002) and Gruppuso et al.(2007) both observed a decrease in recollection when items weretested in an old context that was different from the context theywere shown in at study compared to the same-old context condi-tion. In Experiment 1 two different “new” test contexts werecompared: a new context in which all of the individual elementshad not been present at study and a context that consisted of arearrangement of previously seen context elements creating a new(not seen before) combination of old context elements. This differsfrom Murnane and Phelps’s (1994) procedure in that the rear-ranged contexts were context combinations not used during study,whereas Murnane & Phelps tested items in an intact context that adifferent item was presented in at study.

If an effect of context only occurs for the original or studiedcontext condition and this effect is seen in remember and notfamiliarity-based responses, it would lend support to Macken’s(2002) view that context effects arise due to specific associations

Context Condition ComparisonsSame Old vs

NewSame Old vsDifferent Old

Different Old vs New

Murnane &Phelps (1994)Simple context = = =Murnane et al.

(1999)Simple context =Rich Context >

Macken(2002, Exp. 3)

Remember > > =Know (IRK) = = =

Grupposo et al.(2007)

Remember > > =Know (IRK) = = =

Figure 2. A schematic showing the comparisons of discrimination betweenthe context conditions examined by Murnane and Phelps (1994), Murnane etal. (1999), Macken (2002, Experiment 3), and Gruppuso et al. (2007).

mr alAeslaFsetaR tiHRates

Same Old vs New

Same Old vsDifferent Old



Murnane &Phelps (1994)Simple context > = > >Murnane et al.

(1999)Simple context > >Rich Context > >

Macken(2002, Exp. 3)

Remember > > = >Know < < = >

Know (IRK) = = = >Grupposo et al.

(2007)Remember > > > >

Know < < = >Know (IRK) = = = >

Figure 1. A schematic showing the direction of the differences in the hit andfalse-alarm rates for old, remember, know, and corrected know (independenceremember/know, IRK) responses between the different comparisons of thecontext conditions examined by Murnane and Phelps (1994), Murnane et al.(1999), Macken (2002, Experiment 3), and Gruppuso et al. (2007).

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between items and their study context. Word frequency was alsomanipulated in Experiment 1. Studies of verbal associative mem-ory have generally found better recall performance for high fre-quency (HF) compared to low frequency (LF) words (e.g., Clark,1992; Clark & Burchett, 1994; Gregg, 1976; Kinsbourne &George, 1974; see Gillund & Shiffrin, 1984, for a review). Thus,

the finding that context effects are greater for HF than for LFwords would also be consistent with Macken’s (2002) proposalthat context effects are based on the encoding and retrieval of specific item-context associations.

Method

Subjects. Participants in each experiment were enrolled inIntroductory Psychology and received course credit for participa-tion. There were 32 students in Experiment 1.

Stimuli and Apparatus. In all experiments, presentation andresponse recording were controlled by IBM-compatible laboratorycomputers equipped with 17-in., flat screen color monitors. Wordsin Experiment 1 were randomly selected without replacement foreach subject session from Glanzer and Adams’s (1990) pool of 248high-frequency words (mean frequency of 177.3 per million, ac-cording to the Kucera & Francis, 1967, norms) and 248 low-frequency words (mean Kucera-Francis frequency of 11.2).

Context elements consisted of four different possibilities foreach of foreground color, background color, and screen position.The background colors were yellow, pink, purple, and orange; andforeground colors were blue, green, red, and magenta. Screenlocations were the top right-hand, top left-hand, bottom right-hand,and bottom left-hand corners of the monitor. Thus, there were 64unique combinations of the different context elements. The ele-ments for the new context condition at test were white text on ablack background in a center screen position.

Procedure. The experimental session consisted of six study/ test cycles. Subjects initiated each study list by pressing one of theresponse keys. Following Murnane and Phelps’s (1993, 1994)procedure, words were presented in pairs in order to reduce thetendency for participants to associate the current study item with aprevious study item as such a rehearsal strategy might attenuate theeffects of context by associating words from different contexts.There were 24 random word pairs in each study list. Half of thepairs consisted of two high frequency (HF) nouns and half weretwo low frequency (LF) nouns. Words were not repeated acrosscycles. Each word pair in a list was presented in its own contextconsisting of a unique combination of a foreground color, back-ground color, and screen position. The first and last four wordpairs were not tested and served as buffers for the effects of primacy and recency. Pairs were presented for 3 s with a 500 msinterval between presentations in which the screen was blank.Participants were instructed to try to relate or associate the wordsof each pair, as this is an effective strategy for remembering theindividual words. The study instructions emphasized memory forthe word pairs but did mention that the words would be shown indifferent colors and screen locations.

The study list was followed by a signal shown for 5 s indicatingthe start of the test phase. The test list consisted of 32 single words.One word from each of the 16 critical study pairs (excluding thefirst and last four word pairs) was tested. These 16 targets weredrawn randomly from study pairs with the constraint that they

were equally divided between the first and second members of thestudy pairs. One-half of the targets were HF words and one-half were LF words. In addition, there were 8 LF and 8 HF new words.

Half of the targets from each list were tested in their studycontext (same-old context condition) and the remaining half weretested in a new context condition. New context conditions were of

two forms. The first was a new context consisting of contextelements that were not presented in the study phase. The secondtype of new context was a rearranged context condition thatconsisted of new combinations of old context elements used atstudy. A unique new combination of old context elements wasused for each item tested in this condition. Half of the new contextpresentations were of each form. An equal number of HF and LFtargets were tested in the same and new test contexts. Half of thenew words were tested in one of the learning contexts of an oldword that was not tested in its study context. The remaining newwords were tested either in the new or a rearranged-new context.The presentation order of the events in the study and test lists wasdetermined randomly for each subject.

Participants made their recognition decisions for each test wordusing Tulving’s (1985) remember-know response procedure usinginstructions adopted from Rajaram (1993). These instructionsasked subjects to make an old/new discrimination for each testprobe. If their decision was old, they were also asked to give thebasis of their decision by indicating if they recollected any detailor details of the prior experience of the word in the study list(remember response), or if their decision was based on a strongsense of familiarity in the absence of recollection (know response).There was a 1 s blank interval between a response and the pre-sentation of the next test. Participants used the Z key, the commakey, and the slash key on the lower row of the keyboard to maketheir respective new, old-know, and old-remember decisions. Theywere asked to make their decisions as accurately as possible.

Results and Discussion

Analyses were conducted on the proportions of overall oldresponses and remember responses, and estimates of familiaritybased on IRK-transformed know responses (hereafter termed fa-miliarity estimates). The proportion of know responses are re-ported but were not analyzed as these responses are dependent onthe level of remember responding. To assess discrimination of overall recognition performance, signal detection theory estimatesof d Ј (discrimination) and c (criterion placement) were calculated. 2

Following Macken (2002), discrimination of remember responseswas assessed by calculating estimates of q, a measure of sensitivity

2 The single-point estimates of both d Ј and c were calculated based on anequal variance detection model. In calculating the estimates of d Ј and cfor each participant in each condition, hit rates of 1 were replaced by1 Ϫ (1/2n) and false-alarm rates of 0 were replaced by 1/2 n where N isthe maximum number of hits and false alarms that the participant couldmake in that condition (Macmillan & Creelman, 1991).




based on a single high threshold model. 3 Signal detection theorymeasures of d Ј and c were used to assess the discrimination andbias of the estimates of familiarity. The .05 level of significancewas used to interpret all analyses.

The mean proportions of old, remember, and know responses,and IRK estimates of familiarity for LF and HF words in each

context condition are summarized in Table 1. A mirror effect forword frequency (cf. Glanzer & Adams, 1985) is seen in the higherhit and lower false-alarm rates for LF compared to HF words.Effects of context are seen in terms of higher proportions of oldresponses in the old context conditions compared to the newcontext condition. A 2 (old vs. new test probe) ϫ 2 (LF vs. HF) ϫ3 (old, rearranged, and new context) analysis of variance(ANOVA) based on the overall proportion of old responses re-vealed that the hit rate exceeded the false-alarm rate, F (2, 31) ϭ372.3, MSE ϭ .117, partial eta 2

ϭ .923, p Ͻ .001. The main effectof word frequency was not reliable, F (2, 31) ϭ 2.49, MSE ϭ .013, partial eta 2

ϭ .074, p ϭ .125, but the Frequency ϫ Test Probeinteraction was significant, F (2, 31) ϭ 9.98, MSE ϭ .015, partialeta 2

ϭ .244, p ϭ .004. This interaction reflects a mirror effectpattern for word frequency. The overall hit rate was significantlygreater for LF (.86) than for HF (.81) words, t (31) ϭ 3.45, p ϭ

.002. The overall false-alarm rate was also less for LF (.15) thanfor HF (.17) words, but this difference was not reliable, t (31) ϭ1.24, p ϭ .224.

The ANOVA also revealed a significant main effect of context,F (2, 31) ϭ 16.86, MSE ϭ .012, partial eta 2

ϭ .352, p Ͻ .001.Context did not interact with test probe, F (2, 62) ϭ 1.47, MSE ϭ.012, partial eta 2

ϭ .045, p ϭ .237, or word frequency, F (2, 62) Ͻ1. The Test Probe ϫ Word Frequency ϫ Context interaction wasalso not significant, F (2, 62) Ͻ 1. Paired sample t tests based onthe proportion of old responses collapsed across word frequencyshowed that the hit rate was greater in the same-old (.87) compared

to the new (.78) context condition, t (31)ϭ

4.57, pϽ

.001, andgreater in the rearranged-old (.86) compared to the new context,t (31) ϭ 3.47, p ϭ .001. The false-alarm rate was also greater in thesame-old (.17) compared to the new (.12) context condition,t (31) ϭ 3.59, p ϭ .001, and greater in the rearranged-old (.18)compared to the new context, t (31) ϭ 2.65, p ϭ .013. The hit andfalse-alarm rates did not differ between the old and rearrangedcontext conditions ( t s Ͻ 1).

The corresponding ANOVA based on the proportion of remem-ber responses revealed significant effects of test probe, F (2, 31) ϭ138.7, MSE ϭ .182, partial eta 2

ϭ .817, p Ͻ .001, word fre-quency, F (2, 32) ϭ 8.35, MSE ϭ .018, partial eta 2

ϭ .212, p ϭ

.007, and their interaction, F (2, 32) ϭ 14.57, MSE ϭ .010, partialeta 2

ϭ .320, p ϭ .001. The overall proportion of correct rememberresponses was higher for LF (.59) than for HF (.52) words, t (31) ϭ3.37, p ϭ .002, but did not differ for incorrect responses to LF(.04) and HF (.04) words.

The main effect of context was also significant, F (2, 31) ϭ 7.32, MSE ϭ .012, partial eta 2

ϭ .191, p ϭ .001, as was the context bytest probe interaction, F (2, 31) ϭ 6.15, MSE ϭ .011, partial eta 2

ϭ

.166, p ϭ .004. No other interaction approached significance.The proportion of hits for remember responses collapsed overword frequency was greater in the same-old (.60) compared tothe new (.50) context condition, t (31) ϭ 3.45, p ϭ .002, andgreater in the rearranged-old (.56) than in the new context,t (31) ϭ 3.45, p ϭ .023, but did not differ reliably between the

same-old and rearranged-old contexts, t (31) ϭ 1.89, p ϭ .068,although there was a trend favoring the same-old context con-dition. The false-alarm rates for the remember responses did notdiffer between the same-old (.04), rearranged-old (.05), andnew (.04) context conditions.

The same ANOVA based on the proportion of IRK familiarity

responses revealed main effects of test probe, F (1, 31) ϭ 130.7, MSE ϭ .151, partial eta 2

ϭ .808, p Ͻ .001, and context, F (2,31) ϭ 8.32, MSE ϭ .046, partial eta 2

ϭ .212, p ϭ .001. Estimatedfamiliarity was greater for hits in the same-old context (.66) thanin the new context (.49), t (31) ϭ 3.54, p ϭ .001. The differencebetween the rearranged-old context (.59) and new context condi-tions did not reach significance, t (31) ϭ 1.85, p ϭ .074. Thefamiliarity estimates did not differ between the same-old andrearranged context conditions, t (31) ϭ 0.61, p ϭ .548. Estimatedfamiliarity was also greater for false alarms in the same-old con-text (.14) than in the new context (.09), t (31) ϭ 3.54, p ϭ .001, andin the rearranged-old context (.15) compared to the new context,t (31) ϭ 2.58, p ϭ .015, but did not differ between the same-oldand rearranged context conditions, t (31) ϭ 1.32, p ϭ .195. Themain effect of frequency and all interactions between these vari-ables were not reliable.

Mean signal detection theory estimates of discrimination ( d Ј)and criterion placement ( c) based on the overall hit and false-alarmrates for HF and LF words in the same-old, rearranged-old, andnew context conditions are given in Table 2. A 2 (word fre-quency) ϫ 3 (context condition) ANOVA based on estimates of d Јrevealed only a main effect of word frequency, F (2, 31) ϭ 9.28, MSE ϭ 1.07, partial eta 2

ϭ .230, p ϭ .005. Overall discriminationwas greater for LF than for HF words. The same analysis based onestimates of c showed only a main effect of context, F (2, 31) ϭ15.56, MSE ϭ .176, partial eta 2

ϭ .334, p Ͻ .001. Collapsed overfrequency, criterion placement was significantly more liberal in thesame-old (.40), t (31) ϭ 5.25, p Ͻ .001, and in the rearranged-old(.55), t (31) ϭ 4.15, p Ͻ .001, contexts relative to the new context(.98), and did not differ reliably between the same-old andrearranged-old context conditions, t (31) ϭ .19, p ϭ .851.

Mean estimates of q, the high-threshold measure of discriminationfor remember responses, and estimates of d Ј and c for familiarityresponses are given in Table 3. An ANOVA based on the estimates of q produced main effectsof frequency, F (2, 31) ϭ 10.13, MSE ϭ .028, partial eta 2

ϭ .246, p ϭ .003, and context, F (2, 31) ϭ 6.97, MSE ϭ.025, partial eta 2

ϭ .184, p ϭ .002, with no significant interaction(F Ͻ 1). Discrimination was greater for LF (.57) than HF (.49) words.The discrimination of remember responses was greater in the same-old (.58) compared to the new (.47) context condition, t (31) ϭ 3.54,

p ϭ .001. Discrimination was also greater in the rearranged-old (.54)compared to the new context condition, and this difference borderedon significance, t (31) ϭ 2.03, p ϭ .051. The difference between thesame andrearranged context conditions was not reliable, t (31) ϭ 1.76, p ϭ .088.

3 If remember responses reflect recognition decisions based on recollec-tion, then it is reasonable to assume that remember responses are based ona discrete, threshold process. As such, measures of discrimination based on asingle high threshold detection model, such as q ϭ (HR – FA)/(1 Ϫ FA), areappropriate. The false-alarm rate represents the response bias associatedwith this measure of sensitivity.

1416 HOCKLEY



Finally, an ANOVA based on the d Ј estimates of familiarity-based responses showed no effects of frequency, context, or theirinteraction (all F s less than 1.08). The same analysis based onestimates of c for familiarity-based responses revealed a maineffect of context, F (2, 31) ϭ 8.86, MSE ϭ .643, partial eta 2

ϭ

.222, p Ͻ .001. The main effect of frequency, F (2, 31) Ͻ 1, and theContext ϫ Frequency interaction, F (2, 31) Ͻ 1, were not signif-icant. Criterion placement was more liberal in the same-old,t (31) ϭ 4.45, p Ͻ .001, and in the rearranged-old context, t (31) ϭ

2.76, p ϭ .01, compared to the new context condition, and did notdiffer between the two old contexts, t (31) ϭ 1.07, p ϭ .293.

The results of Experiment 1 show the mirror effect pattern forword frequency as the hit rate was greater and the false-alarm ratelower for LF compared to HF words. Consequently, overall dis-crimination was significantly greater for LF words. This effect waslargely seen in terms of remember responses for hits and knowresponses for false alarms replicating past findings (Joordens &Hockley, 2000; Reder et al., 2000). The effects of word frequency

Table 1 Mean Proportions of Old, Remember, and Know Responses and Independence Remember/Know(IRK) Estimates of Familiarity for Low (LF) and High (HF) Frequency Words in the Same Old, Rearranged Old, and New Context Conditions of Experiment 1

Context Response

False alarms Hits

LF HF LF HF

M SE M SE M SE M SE

Same-old Old .16 .03 .18 .03 .89 .02 .85 .03Remember .03 .01 .05 .02 .64 .05 .57 .04Know .12 .02 .13 .02 .26 .04 .28 .03IRK .13 .02 .15 .02 .67 .05 .65 .04

Rearranged Old .17 .03 .20 .03 .90 .02 .82 .03Remember .05 .02 .05 .02 .60 .05 .52 .05Know .12 .02 .15 .02 .30 .05 .30 .04IRK .13 .02 .17 .02 .61 .07 .57 .06

New Old .12 .03 .13 .02 .80 .03 .75 .04Remember .04 .02 .03 .01 .54 .05 .46 .05Know .08 .02 .10 .02 .26 .04 .29 .04IRK .09 .02 .10 .02 .47 .06 .51 .06

Table 2 Mean Estimates of Discrimination (d Ј) and Criterion Placement (c) for the Different Context Conditions of Each Experiment

Experiment Context condition

d Ј c

M SE M SE

Experiment 1 Same-old (HF) 2.39 .22 Ϫ 0.03 .08Rearranged-old (HF) 2.26 .19 Ϫ 0.06 .11New (HF) 2.46 .22 0.30 .12Same-old (LF) 2.82 .23 Ϫ 0.14 .07Rearranged-old (LF) 2.96 .23 Ϫ 0.14 .11New (LF) 2.70 .27 0.23 .08

Experiment 2 Same-old 1.56 .13 Ϫ 0.40 .07Different-old 1.49 .13 Ϫ 0.36 .09

New 1.46 .13 0.44 .08Experiment 3 Unique-old 2.24 .19 Ϫ 0.66 .13Repeated-old 1.85 .20 Ϫ 0.66 .11New 1.49 .19 Ϫ 0.03 .10

Experiment 4A Same-old 1.28 .16 Ϫ 0.20 .08Similar 1.32 .16 Ϫ 0.13 .08New 1.19 .13 0.15 .10

Experiment 5A Same-old 2.73 .23 Ϫ 0.27 .16Different-old 2.71 .27 Ϫ 0.26 .15New 2.72 .20 0.08 .14

Experiment 5B Same-old 2.53 .18 Ϫ 0.55 .11Different-old 2.15 .20 Ϫ 0.54 .13New 2.22 .20 0.38 .15

Note. The estimates for Experiment 1 are shown separately for high (HF) and low (LF) frequency words.




and environmental context were statistically independent. To theextent that the HF advantage for verbal associative memory (e.g.,Clark, 1992; Clark & Burchett, 1994; Gregg, 1976; Kinsbourne &George, 1974) extends to word-context associations, this result

does not support the prediction that the effects of context would begreater for HF than for LF words. The results for word frequencyare, however, consistent with the finding that context effects areunaffected by the memory strength of the target item (Dougal &Rotello, 1999).

The results of Experiment 1 also replicated Murnane andPhelps’s (1993, 1994, 1995) overall effects of environmental con-text—both the hit and false-alarm rates were higher for testspresented in an old study context compared to a new test context.The signal detection analyses based on the overall results showedthere was no difference in discrimination between old and newitems tested in old and new contexts. Conceptually, the results of Experiment 1 provide a replication of Murnane and Phelps’sfinding that different-old contexts produce similar effects as thesame-old context in that both an old-different context and a newrearrangement of old context elements are types of old contextsthat were not shown with the test item.

As shown in Figures 1 and 2, Macken (2002, Experiment 3) andGruppuso et al. (2007) obtained a different pattern of results fromMurnane and Phelps (1994) when remember and familiarity-basedresponses are considered. Macken and Gruppuso et al. found thatthe proportion of remember responses was greater for items testedin their same-old context compared to a new context, whereasremember responses did not differ between the different-old andnew context conditions. Familiarity estimates were not influencedby context. In contrast, in Experiment 1 the proportion of remem-

ber responses and the familiarity estimates were both greater in theold and rearranged-old context conditions compared to the newcontext condition. Moreover, the discrimination of remember re-sponses was greater in both old context conditions compared to the

new condition and did not significantly differ between the two oldcontext conditions.One possible reason for this discrepancy could be that Macken

(2002) presented single words at study, whereas in Experiment 1pairs of words were shown following Murnane and Phelps’s(1994) procedure. Presenting pairs of words with instructions toassociate the two words of each pair may limit subjects’ ability toassociate the words with their study context. A second possiblereason for this discrepancy is that in both Experiment 1 and inMurnane and Phelps’s 1994 experiment, subjects completed aseries of study–test cycles, whereas participants in Macken’s ex-periment were only tested with one study–test cycle. Multiplestudy–test cycles based on the same context manipulations mayreduce subjects’ ability to encode or retrieve associations betweentargets and contexts. In the following experiments, only singlewords were shown during the study phase, and there was only onestudy–test cycle.

Experiment 2

Similar to Gruppuso et al. (2007), pictures of real-world sceneswere used as the global context in Experiment 2. Pictures are moretightly integrated stimuli than the context elements used in Exper-iment 1 and, presumably, should provide a richer and more mean-ingful basis for associating the item to its context and, thus,provide a stronger basis for supporting recollection. Each study

Table 3 Mean Estimates of Discrimination q Based on Remember Responses, and Estimates of d Ј and c Based on IRK Familiarity Estimates for Each Context Condition of Each Experiment

Experiment Context condition

q d Ј c

M SE M SE M SE

Experiment 1 Same-old (HF) .53 .05 1.85 .22 0.42 .12Rearranged-old (HF) .50 .05 1.44 .29 0.49 .18New (HF) .45 .05 1.78 .31 0.90 .17Same-old (LF) .62 .05 2.03 .27 0.38 .13Rearranged-old (LF) .58 .05 1.86 .38 0.61 .19New (LF) .50 .07 1.68 .34 1.16 .15

Experiment 2 Same-old .45 .05 1.05 .28 0.22 .13Different-old .39 .05 1.02 .22 0.23 .15New .28 .04 1.18 .19 0.99 .11

Experiment 3 Unique-old .57 .06 1.57 .34 Ϫ 0.08 .22Repeated-old .49 .06 1.42 .30 Ϫ 0.06 .19New .32 .05 1.32 .23 0.34 .11

Experiment 4A Same-old .42 .05 0.78 .15 0.30 .09Similar .39 .06 0.98 .23 0.47 .11New .25 .05 1.15 .19 0.67 .11

Experiment 5A Same-old .77 .05 1.49 .45 0.59 .27Different-old .76 .05 1.35 .38 0.66 .23New .69 .05 1.44 .32 0.60 .21

Experiment 5B Same-old .79 .04 1.84 .49 0.24 .22Different-old .63 .07 1.37 .34 0.45 .22New .44 .06 1.22 .21 0.52 .15

Note . The estimates for Experiment 1 are shown separately for high (HF) and low (LF) frequency words.IRK ϭ independence remember/know.

1418 HOCKLEY



word was presented in the center of a different picture. At test, oldwords were shown in their same-old context, in a different-oldcontext that had been shown with another study item, or in a newcontext. New words were shown in an old or new context.

Method

Subjects. Thirty-two students participated in Experiment 2. Apparatus and Stimuli. The words were selected from a pool

of 120 common two-syllable nouns derived from the MRC Psy-cholinguistic Database (http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/mrcdatabase/ uwa_mrc.htm). The words had ratings of 250 to 350 in concrete-ness, imagability, and familiarity, and 30 to 100 for wordfrequency. A set of 58 pictures was used as the study contexts. Thepictures were different scenes of natural landscapes, seascapes,buildings, and the like. An attempt was made to select pictures thatwere not highly similar to each other. They did not contain imagesof people or any verbal content (e.g., signs, etc.). The picturesfilled the computer screen. Words were presented in the center of the pictures in black, bold, 32-point Times New Roman font in awhite text box. The new context condition at test was a whitebackground with the probe presented in red, bold, 32-point TimesNew Roman font. The experimental program was written usingSuper Lab Pro (Version 2.0) software.

The test list consisted of 96 presentations of which 48 were oldand 48 were new tests.

Procedure. The experimental session consisted of one studylist and one test list. Subjects initiated the study list by pressing oneof the response keys. The study list consisted of 58 words pre-sented against 58 different pictures. The first and last five presen-tations of each study list served as buffers for primacy and recencyeffects and were not tested. Words were presented for 3 s with a 1 sinterval between presentations in which the screen was blank. At

the conclusion of the study list, a message appeared on the screenthat instructed subjects to “Please call the experimenter”, at whichpoint they were given the instructions concerning the remember-know response procedure.

One-quarter of the old tests were presented with their samestudy list context, one quarter with a different-old study list con-text, and the remaining half in the new context. Half of the new testprobes were presented in an old study context and half in the newcontext. A given study context picture was only shown with onetest probe. The order of test presentations was randomized for eachparticipant. The presentation rate of the test list was subject-pacedwith a 1 s blank interval between a response and the presentationof the next test display.


The mean proportions of old, remember, and know responsesand IRK estimates of familiarity for old and new test items in eachcontext condition are presented in Table 4. One-way ANOVAswere used to examine the effect of context on hit rates. There wasa significant effect of context on the overall proportion of oldresponses, F (2, 62) ϭ 31.34, MSE ϭ .016, partial eta 2

ϭ .503, p Ͻ.001, the proportion of remember responses, F (2, 62) ϭ 11.63, MSE ϭ .026, partial eta 2

ϭ .273, p Ͻ .001, and the proportion of familiarity estimates, F (2, 62) ϭ 8.70, MSE ϭ .049, partial eta 2

ϭ

.078, p Ͻ .001. Paired sample t tests showed that the proportion of

old responses was significantly greater in the same-old, t (31) ϭ

6.90, p Ͻ .001, and the different-old context, t (31) ϭ 6.33, p Ͻ

.001, compared to the new context, and was statistically equivalentin both types of old contexts, t (31) ϭ .839, p ϭ .408. Similarly, theproportion of remember responses was also reliably greater in thesame-old, t (31) ϭ 5.06, p Ͻ .001, and the different-old context,t (31) ϭ 3.21, p ϭ .003, relative to the new context, and equivalentin both of the old contexts, t (31) ϭ 1.34, p ϭ .191. Similarly, theestimates of familiarity were greater in the same-old, t (31) ϭ 4.04, p Ͻ .001, and the different-old context, t (31) ϭ 3.93, p Ͻ .001,relative to the new context, but did not differ between the same and

different-old contexts, t (31)ϭ

.856, pϭ

.911. The false-alarmrates for overall old responses, t (31) ϭ 8.14, p Ͻ .001, rememberresponses, t (31) ϭ 3.46, p ϭ .002, and familiarity estimates,t (31) ϭ 6.04, p Ͻ .001, were also greater in an old contextcompared to the new context.

The mean signal detection theory estimates of d Ј and c based onoverall old responses are given in Table 2. Context did not have asignificant effect on d Ј, F (2, 62) ϭ 0.15, MSE ϭ .478, partialeta 2

ϭ .005, p ϭ .862, but did reliably affect estimates of thedecision criterion, F (2, 62) ϭ 58.01, MSE ϭ .124, partial eta 2

ϭ

.652, p Ͻ .001. Criterion placement was more liberal in thesame-old, t (31) ϭ 9.20, p Ͻ .001, and a different-old context,t (31) ϭ 8.27, p Ͻ .001, compared to the new context condition,and did not differ reliably between the two old contexts, t (31) ϭ.442, p ϭ .662.

Finally, estimates of q based on remember responses and d Ј andc based on familiarity estimates are given in Table 3. The effect of context condition on the estimates of q was significant, F (2, 62) ϭ6.33, MSE ϭ .035, partial eta 2

ϭ .170, p ϭ .003. Discriminationwas greater in the same-old context than the new context condi-tion, t (31) ϭ 3.83, p ϭ .001, and greater in the different-oldcontext compared to the new context condition, t (31) ϭ 2.11, p ϭ.043. The difference in discrimination between the two old contextconditions was not reliable, t (31) ϭ 1.26, p ϭ .219. Context didnot reliably influence estimates of d Ј based on familiarity, F (2,62) Ͻ 1, but did affect the corresponding estimates of c, F (2, 62) ϭ

Table 4 Mean Proportions of Old, Remember, and Know Responses inthe Same-Old, Different-Old, and New Context Conditions of Experiment 2

Context Recognition

False alarms Hits

M SE M SE

Same-old Old .83 .02Remember .52 .04Know .31 .05IRK .59 .05

Different-old Old .36 .02 .81 .03Remember .13 .02 .47 .05Know .23 .02 .34 .05IRK .26 .02 .58 .05

New Old .17 .02 .61 .03Remember .07 .02 .33 .03Know .10 .02 .27 .03IRK .11 .02 .39 .04

Note . IRK ϭ independence remember/know.






t (31) ϭ 4.82, p Ͻ .001, and repeated-old context, t (31) ϭ 4.88, p Ͻ .001, compared to the new context condition, and did notdiffer reliably between the two old conditions, t (31) ϭ .88, p ϭ

.388. The false-alarm rate was greater in the repeated-old contextcompared to the new context condition, t (31) ϭ 2.56, p ϭ .015, butdid not differ significantly between the single-old and new context,

t (31)ϭ

1.68, pϭ

.104, nor between the single-old and repeated-old contexts, t (31) ϭ 1.11, p ϭ .274.Estimates of familiarity were greater for hits than false alarms,

F (1, 31) ϭ 88.56, MSE ϭ .079, partial eta 2ϭ .741, p Ͻ .001. The

main effect of context was also reliable, F (2, 62) ϭ 4.16, MSE ϭ.054, partial eta 2

ϭ .118, p ϭ .020. The Test Probe ϫ Contextinteraction was not significant ( F Ͻ 1). The familiarity-based hitrate was greater in the single-old context and in the repeated-oldcontext compared to the new context condition, but these differ-ences were not reliable, t (31) ϭ 1.62, p ϭ .116, and t (31) ϭ 1.72, p ϭ .095, respectively. The difference between the two oldconditions was also not significant, t (31) ϭ .17, p ϭ .863. Thefalse-alarm rate was reliably greater in the single-old contextt (31) ϭ 2.61, p ϭ .014, and in the repeated-old context, t (31) ϭ

2.84, p ϭ .008, compared to the new context condition, but didnot differ between the two types of old contexts, t (31) ϭ 0.44, p ϭ .663.

The mean estimates of d Ј and c for overall old responses aregiven in Table 2. Context had a significant effect on d Ј, F (2, 62) ϭ7.47, MSE ϭ .607, partial eta 2

ϭ .194, p ϭ .001, and on estimatesof criterion placement, F (2, 64) ϭ 29.09, MSE ϭ .145, partialeta 2

ϭ .484, p Ͻ .001. Discrimination was greater in the once-presented old context compared to the new context condition,t (31) ϭ 4.54, p Ͻ .001, but did not differ reliably between therepeated-old context compared to the new condition, t (31) ϭ 1.87, p ϭ .072, and between the once-presented old context compared tothe repeated-old context, t (31) ϭ 1.77, p ϭ .087. Criterion place-

ment was more liberal in the once-presented, t (31)ϭ

6.05, pϽ

.001, and the repeated-old context, t (31) ϭ 6.47, p Ͻ .001, com-pared to the new context condition but did not differ significantlybetween the two old contexts, t (31) ϭ .023, p ϭ .981.

Mean estimates of q for remember responses and d Ј and c forfamiliarity estimates are given in Table 3. Context had a reliableeffect on the discrimination of remember responses, F (2, 62) ϭ

13.07, MSE ϭ .040, partial eta 2ϭ .297, p ϭ .001. Discrimination

was greater in the single-old context, t (31) ϭ 5.26, p Ͻ .001, andin the repeated-old context, t (31) ϭ 3.52, p ϭ .001, compared tothe new context, but did not reliably differ between the two oldcontext conditions, t (31) ϭ 1.51, p ϭ .140. Context did not reliablyinfluence d Ј based on familiarity, F (2, 62) Ͻ 1. The correspondingestimates of c were more liberal in the unique- and repeated-oldcontexts compared to the new context condition, but this differenceonly approached significance, F (2, 62) ϭ 2.96, MSE ϭ .604, partial eta 2

ϭ .087, p ϭ .059.Experiment 3 replicated the standard effects of context in that

the hit and false-alarm rates were higher for probes tested in an oldcontext compared to a new context. More interestingly, the resultsof Experiment 3 also showed that similar results were found interms of the patterns of hit and false-alarm rates for items tested inan old context presented 20 times at study compared to itemsshown in a unique context.

In contrast to the previous experiments, the unique contextmanipulation in Experiment 3 produced a significant difference in

overall discrimination, as d Ј was greater in the once-presentedcontext condition compared to the new condition. This result is incontrast to the results of Experiment 2, which did not show adifference in d Ј between the once-presented and new contextconditions. Whether this aspect of the results of Experiment 3 isspurious or due to the relatively fewer number of items presented

in a unique context in Experiment 3 compared to Experiment 2 isnot clear. Nevertheless, the important conclusion from Experiment3 is that repeated contexts produced largely similar increases in thehit and false-alarm rates as did once-repeated contexts and theseincreases were seen in the proportion of remember responses.

One possible reason that there was relatively little differencebetween the once-presented and repeated context conditions of Experiment 3 might be that subjects did not have a very vivid oraccurate memory for the picture contexts and thus failed to fullyappreciate the distinction between once-presented and repeatedcontexts. If memory for the pictures is largely incidental, thenmemory for the pictures could be quite general or incomplete. Thispossibility was examined in Experiments 4A and 4B.

Experiment 4A

In Experiment 4A the effect of the similarity of old and newcontexts on item recognition was investigated. New test contextsthat are similar, but not identical, to old contexts should provide adegree of familiarity but be less able to support the retrieval of specific item-context associations. If participants are encodingonly a few dominant details of the context, or a gist-like represen-tation of the picture, then a new context that is similar to an oldcontext in terms of dominant features or theme should have asimilar effect on recognition as an old context. To manipulatecontext similarity, pictures from six different categories (e.g., theCosta Rican central rain forest) were collected. The pictures in

each different category shared a theme, and the physical similarityof the pictures was greater within than between the differentcategories.

Method

Subjects. Thirty-three students participated. Apparatus and Stimuli. The word pool was the same as used in

Experiments 2 and 3. A new set of 90 pictures was assembled.There were 15 pictures from each of six different categories:buildings, public gardens, rain forest, sunsets, seascapes, and theGrand Canyon. The pictures of each category were representativeof the category, but were also discriminable from each other. Anadditional four pictures unrelated to the six categories were usedfor the buffer items.

Procedure. The study list consisted of the presentation of 58words randomly selected from the word pool. The first two and lasttwo presentations were used to control primacy and recency effectsand were not tested. The critical 54 presentations consisted of different words shown with nine pictures from each of the sixdifferent picture categories. The words and pictures were shownfor 3 s with no interstimulus interval.

The test list consisted of 54 old and 54 new item presentations.Eighteen old words were shown with the same picture they werepresented with at study and 18 new words were shown with apicture presented at study (old context condition). Eighteen other




old and new words were shown with a different new picture takenfrom the same six categories that the study pictures were takenfrom (similar context condition), and 18 old and new words wereshown in the new context condition used in Experiments 2 and 3.The order of the critical study and test presentations was randomlydetermined for each participant. The test list was subject-paced

with a subsequent test item appearing 1 s after a response.


The proportions of old, remember, and know responses, andestimates of familiarity for old and new tests in each contextcondition are shown in Table 6. A 2 (old vs. new tests) ϫ 3 (oldvs. similar vs. new) ANOVA based on the overall proportion of old responses confirmed main effects of test probe, F (1, 32) ϭ

128.1, MSE ϭ .062, partial eta 2ϭ .800, p Ͻ .001, and context,

F (2, 64) ϭ 9.65, MSE ϭ .015, partial eta 2ϭ .232, p Ͻ .001. The

interaction between these variables was not significant ( F Ͻ 1).Paired sample t tests showed that the hit rate was greater in boththe old context, t (32) ϭ 2.68, p ϭ .012, and the similar context,

t (32) ϭ 2.60, p ϭ .014, compared to the new context condition. Hitrates in the old and similar context conditions did not significantlydiffer, t (32) ϭ .310, p ϭ .756. The false-alarm rate was reliablygreater in an old compared to a new context, t (32) ϭ 2.89, p ϭ

.007. The false-alarm rate in the similar context condition did notdiffer significantly from the false-alarm rates in the old, t (32) ϭ.962, p ϭ .342, and the new, t (32) ϭ 1.577, p ϭ .125, contextconditions.

The same ANOVA based on the proportion of remember re-sponses yielded main effects of test probe, F (1, 32) ϭ 74.8, MSE ϭ .070, partial eta 2

ϭ .700, p Ͻ .001, and context condition,F (2, 64) ϭ 7.97, MSE ϭ .013, partial eta 2

ϭ .199, p ϭ .001, andtheir interaction, F (2, 64) ϭ 9.52, MSE ϭ .011, partial eta 2

ϭ

.229, p Ͻ .001. The proportion of remember responses was greaterin both the old context, t (32) ϭ 3.93, p Ͻ .001, and the similarcontext conditions, t (32) ϭ 3.44, p ϭ .002, compared to the newcontext, whereas there was no reliable difference between the oldand similar context conditions, t (32) ϭ 1.19, p ϭ .243. The falsealarms classified as remembered did not differ between the contextconditions.

Estimates of familiarity were greater for hits than false alarms,F (1, 32) ϭ 70.19, MSE ϭ .054, partial eta 2

ϭ .687, p Ͻ .001, andvaried with context, F (2, 64) ϭ 3.385, MSE ϭ .025, partial eta 2

ϭ

.096, p ϭ .040. These variables did not interact ( F Ͻ 1). The

familiarity-based hit rates did not differ significantly between theold and new context conditions, t (32) ϭ 1.09, p ϭ .284, betweenthe similar and new context conditions, t (32) ϭ .66, p ϭ .514, orbetween the old and similar context conditions, t (32) ϭ .69, p ϭ

.492. The false-alarm rate was reliably greater in the old contextcondition than in the new condition, t (32) ϭ 3.58, p ϭ .001, but

did not differ reliably between the similar and new contexts,t (32) ϭ 1.85, p ϭ .073, or between the old and similar contextconditions, t (32) ϭ .981, p ϭ .334.

The mean estimates of d Ј and c for overall old responses aregiven in Table 2. Context did not have a significant effect on d Ј,F (2, 64) Ͻ 1, but did reliably affect estimates of criterion place-ment, F (2, 64) ϭ 11.74, MSE ϭ .097, partial eta 2

ϭ .268, p Ͻ

.001. Criterion placement was more liberal in the old context,t (32) ϭ 4.06, p Ͻ .001, and the similar context condition, t (32) ϭ3.54, p ϭ .001, compared to the new context condition, but did notdiffer reliably between the old and similar contexts, t (32) ϭ 1.23, p ϭ .226.

Finally, the mean estimates of q for remember responses and d Ј

and c for familiarity estimates are given in Table 3. The discrim-ination of remember responses varied with context, F (2, 64) ϭ

8.03, MSE ϭ .032, partial eta 2ϭ .201, p ϭ .001. Discrimination

was greater in the old context, t (32) ϭ 3.46, p ϭ .002, and in thesimilar context, t (32) ϭ 2.68, p ϭ .012, compared to the newcontext, and did not reliably differ between the old and similarcontexts, t (32) ϭ 1.09, p ϭ .284. Context did not reliably affectestimates of d Ј based on familiarity, F (2, 64) ϭ 1.20, MSE ϭ .908, partial eta 2

ϭ .036, p ϭ .31, but did influence the correspondingestimates of c, F (2, 64) ϭ 5.12, MSE ϭ .212, partial eta 2

ϭ .138, p ϭ .009. Criterion placement was more liberal in the same-oldcontext compared to the new context condition, t (32) ϭ 2.88, p ϭ.007. There were no reliable differences between the same-oldcontext and a similar context, t (32) ϭ 1.65, p ϭ .110, or betweenthe similar and the new context conditions, t (32) ϭ 1.75, p ϭ .089.

Experiment 4A provides a further replication of the contexteffect that is evidenced with higher hit and false-alarm rates whenitems are tested in an old compared to a new context. Moreinterestingly, new picture contexts that were physically and cate-gorically related to the old contexts produced a similar pattern of effects. This suggests that subjects do not have a very accurate orspecific memory for the picture contexts, as they treated similarnew contexts in much the same fashion as the same-old contexts.Even more striking is the fact that the effects of old and similar

Table 6

Mean Proportions of Old, Remember, and Know Responses and IRK Estimates of Familiarity in the New, Similar, and Old Context Conditions of Experiment 4A

Response

False alarms Hits

New Similar Old New Similar Old

M SE M SE M SE M SE M SE M SE

Old .28 .04 .33 .04 .35 .03 .66 .03 .75 .03 .76 .04Remember .13 .02 .13 .03 .13 .02 .36 .03 .49 .04 .51 .04Know .15 .03 .20 .03 .22 .02 .29 .03 .26 .03 .25 .03IRK .18 .03 .24 .03 .26 .03 .47 .04 .51 .04 .53 .05


1422 HOCKLEY



contexts were both seen in increases in the proportion of rememberresponses. Thus, new contexts not seen at study, but similar to oldcontexts, elicited a similar proportion of remember responses asdid the old contexts.

The effects of context on recognition judgments represent anindirect measure of subjects’ memory for the contexts. Experiment

4B was designed to directly assess participants’ incidental memoryfor the old contexts used in Experiment 4A. In Experiment 4B,after the study phase, subjects were asked to discriminate betweenold context pictures, new pictures similar to the old context pic-tures, and new pictures unrelated to the old pictures.

Experiment 4B

This experiment examined participants’ incidental memory forthe picture contexts. The study phase of Experiment 4A wasrepeated with a different set of participants. Following study,participants were tested for their ability to discriminate betweenthe old context pictures, new pictures similar to the old contextpictures, and unrelated new pictures.

Method

Subjects. Twenty-five students participated. Apparatus and Stimuli. The stimuli were the same as in Ex-

periment 4A except that an additional 18 pictures unrelated to thecategorized pictures were added to the picture pool.

Procedure. The procedure was the same as in Experiment 4except for the following changes to the test procedure. The test listconsisted of the 54 pictures shown in the study phase and 54 newpictures. Thirty-six of the new pictures consisted of 6 pictures fromthe same six categories that were used for the study pictures, and18 pictures were new pictures that were not related to the sixpicture categories. For each picture, participants were asked tomake a yes/no recognition decision indicating whether or not thepicture had been presented during the study phase. The presenta-tion order of each test list was uniquely randomized for eachparticipant. Participants used the Z key to signify a new recogni-tion response and the question mark key to make an old responsefor each test. The participants were given the instructions for thetest after the study list was shown.


The purpose of Experiment 4B was to assess incidental memoryfor the picture contexts. The proportions of old responses to thenew, similar, and old pictures are shown in Table 7. Paired samplet tests showed that the proportion of old responses was signifi-

cantly greater for old pictures compared to new pictures, t (24) ϭ17.03, p Ͻ .001, and old pictures compared to similar pictures,t (24) ϭ 5.69, p Ͻ .001. The false-alarm rate was also greater forsimilar pictures than for new pictures, t (24) ϭ 11.67, p Ͻ .001.Overall discrimination as measured by d Ј was significantly greaterbetween old and new pictures ( M ϭ 1.79, SE ϭ .12) than between

old and similar pictures ( M ϭ

.29, SE ϭ

.05), t (24)ϭ

11.32, pϽ

.001. Estimates of c indicated a significantly more conservativecriterion placement for old versus unrelated new pictures ( M ϭ0.87, SE ϭ .10) than for old versus similar new ( M ϭ 0.11, SE ϭ.09) pictures, t (24) ϭ 11.32, p Ͻ .001.

The low false-alarm rate for new pictures shows that subjectscould discriminate the new pictures from the sets of categorizedpictures indicating that subjects had a reasonable appreciation of the different picture categories. Subjects also showed some abilityto discriminate between the old pictures and the similar, but new,pictures from these categories. However, the overall level of thisdiscrimination was very modest. It is reasonable to conclude thatmemory for the pictures was indeed incidental and that, whereassubjects’ memory for the old picture categories was quite good,their memory for the specific pictures shown at study was rela-tively poor.

The results of Experiment 4B suggest that subjects did notexplicitly try to associate the studied words with their specificpicture contexts. The purpose of Experiment 5 was to compare theeffects of context on recognition performance when subjects fo-cused their attention on the study words (Experiment 5A) versuswhen they were explicitly instructed to consider the study words inrelation to their specific context (Experiment 5B).

Experiments 5A and 5B

Experiments 5A and 5B were based on the procedure of Exper-iment 2 in which words were tested in their same-old studycontext, a different-old study context, or a new study context.

Method

Subjects. Eighteen different students participated in Experi-ments 5A and 5B.

Stimuli. The stimuli were the same as used in Experiment 2.Procedure. The procedure was the same as Experiment 2

except for one change in the study phase. In Experiment 5Asubjects were asked to rate how easy it was to generate a mentalimage of each study word. This task was intended to focus subjects’ attention on the study word. In contrast, subjects in Exper-iment 5B were asked to rate how easy it was to associate the study

word with its picture background. This task was similar to thatused by Gruppuso et al. (2007) and was intended to encourageassociations between the study words and their contexts. Subjectswere prompted immediately after each study presentation to maketheir respective ratings on a scale ranging from 1 ( not at all easy )to 7 (extremely easy ) using the numeric keypad on the keyboard.The next study presentation immediately followed each ratingresponse.


Subjects rated the study words as relatively easy to image ( M ϭ4.35, SE ϭ .14) and rated the ease of associating the words with

Table 7 Mean Proportions of Old Responses to New, Similar, and Old Pictures in Experiment 4B

False alarms Hits

New picture Similar picture Old picture

M SE M SE M SE

.07 .01 .41 .03 .51 .03




their contexts as moderate ( M ϭ 3.5, SE ϭ .23). The meanproportions of old, remember, and know responses and estimatesof familiarity for old and new test items in each context conditionfor each experiment are presented in Table 8. Each experiment wasanalyzed separately.

Experiment 5AOne-way ANOVAs were used to examine the effect of context

on hit rates. Context influenced the proportion of remember re-sponses, F (2, 34) ϭ 3.276, MSE ϭ .012, partial eta 2

ϭ .162, p ϭ

05, but did not significantly affect the overall proportion of oldresponses, F (2, 34) ϭ 1.06, MSE ϭ .008, partial eta 2

ϭ .059, p ϭ.357, or estimates of familiarity, F (2, 34) Ͻ 1. The proportion of remember responses was significantly greater in the same-old,t (17) ϭ 2.80, p ϭ .012, compared to the new context. Rememberresponses did not differ between the same-old and different-oldcontext conditions, t (17) ϭ .458, p ϭ .653. The difference in theproportion of remember responses in the different-old and newcontext conditions was also not significant, t (17) ϭ 1.751, p ϭ

.098. The false-alarm rates for overall old responses, t (17) ϭ 2.92, p ϭ .01, and remember responses, t (17) ϭ 2.84, p ϭ .011, weregreater in an old context compared to the new context, and the IRKfamiliarity estimates did not differ, t (17) Ͻ 1.

The mean signal detection theory estimates of d Ј and c based onoverall old responses are given in Table 2. Context did not have asignificant effect on d Ј, F (2, 34) Ͻ 1, but did reliably affectestimates of the decision criterion, F (2, 34) ϭ 3.86, MSE ϭ .176, partial eta 2

ϭ .185, p ϭ 031. Criterion placement was more liberalin the same-old, t (17) ϭ 2.72, p ϭ .02, and in the different-oldcontexts, t (17) ϭ 2.00, p ϭ .06, compared to the new contextcondition, and did not differ reliably between the two old contexts,t (17) Ͻ 1.

Estimates of q based on remember responses and d Ј and c basedon familiarity responses are given in Table 3. Discrimination of remember responses was greater in the same-old and different-oldcontext conditions compared to the new context condition, and this

difference approached significance, F (2, 34) ϭ 3.14, MSE ϭ .012, partial eta 2

ϭ .156, p ϭ .056. Context did not reliably influenceestimates of d Ј or criterion placement based on familiarity, F s Ͻ 1.

Experiment 5B

One-way ANOVAs revealed that context influenced the overallproportion of old responses, F (2, 34) ϭ 14.397, MSE ϭ .014, partial eta 2

ϭ .459, p Ͻ .001, the proportion of remember re-sponses, F (2, 34) ϭ 29.08, MSE ϭ .020, partial eta 2

ϭ .631, p Ͻ.001, but did not significantly affect the IRK estimates of famil-iarity, F (2, 34) Ͻ 1. Both the proportion of old and rememberresponses were significantly greater in the same-old than in thenew context t (17) ϭ 4.65, p Ͻ .001 and t (17) ϭ 7.51, p Ͻ .001,and also greater in the same-old than in a different-old context,t (17) ϭ 2.31, p ϭ .034 and t (17) ϭ 3.298, p ϭ .004. Both old andremember responses were also greater in the different-old than inthe new context condition, t (17) ϭ 3.27, p ϭ .005, and t (17) ϭ4.24, p ϭ .001, respectively.

The false-alarm rates for overall old responses, t (17) ϭ 4.02,

p ϭ .001, and remember responses, t (17) ϭ 2.68, p ϭ .016,were greater in an old context compared to the new context. Incontrast, the IRK familiarity estimates did not differ with con-text, t (17) Ͻ 1.

The mean signal detection theory estimates of d Ј and c based onoverall old responses are given in Table 2. Discrimination wasgreater in the same-old compared to the different and new contextconditions, but this difference was not significant, F (2, 34) ϭ

1.797, MSE .419, partial eta 2ϭ .096, p ϭ .181. Context did

reliably affect estimates of the decision criterion, F (2, 34) ϭ 29.99, MSE ϭ .174, partial eta 2

ϭ .638, p Ͻ .001. Criterion placementwas more liberal in the same-old, t (17) ϭ 5.62, p Ͻ .001, and adifferent-old context, t (17) ϭ 6.71, p Ͻ .001, compared to the newcontext condition, and did not differ reliably between the two oldtypes of context, t (17) Ͻ 1.

Estimates of q based on remember responses and d Ј and c basedon estimates of familiarity are given in Table 3. The effect of

Table 8 Mean Proportions of Old, Remember, and Know Responses and IRK Estimates of Familiarity in the Same-Old, Different-Old, and New-Context Conditions of Experiments 5A and 5B

Context Response

Experiment 5A Experiment 5B

False alarms Hits False alarms Hits

M SE M SE M SE M SE

Same-old Old .90 .03 .94 .02Remember .78 .05 .81 .03Know .12 .04 .13 .03IRK .51 .09 .60 .09

Different-old Old .20 .04 .89 .03 .26 .04 .87 .03Remember .05 .01 .77 .06 .12 .03 .67 .06Know .15 .03 .12 .04 .14 .02 .20 .05IRK .16 .03 .49 .08 .16 .03 .50 .08

New Old .12 .11 .86 .03 .13 .03 .73 .04Remember .02 .01 .69 .05 .04 .02 .46 .06Know .10 .02 .17 .04 .09 .02 .27 .05IRK .16 .03 .53 .07 .17 .03 .50 .05


1424 HOCKLEY



context condition on the estimates of q was significant, F (2, 34) ϭ26.90, MSE ϭ .020, partial eta 2

ϭ .613, p Ͻ .001. Discriminationwas greater in the same-old context than in the new contextcondition, t (17) ϭ 7.91, p Ͻ .001, greater in the same-old contextthan in the different-old context condition, t (31) ϭ 3.48, p ϭ .003,and greater in the different compared to the new context condition,

t (17)ϭ

3.61, pϭ

.002. Context did not reliably influence dis-crimination or criterion placement of the familiarity estimates,F s Ͻ 1.

The two orienting tasks used in Experiments 5A and 5B pro-duced results that differed in important respects. When subjects’attention was directed to the study words, the pattern of contexteffects replicated the principal findings from the previous experi-ments and those of Murnane and Phelps (1994). That is, the hit andfalse-alarm rates for old and remember responses were greater inan old context compared to the new context condition and did notsignificantly differ between the same-old and different-old contextconditions. In contrast, when subjects made explicit associationsbetween the study words and their individual contexts, the effectsof context were similar to those observed by Macken (2002) andGruppuso et al. (2007). The hit and false-alarm rates for both oldand remember responses were greater in the same-old contextcondition compared to both the different-old and the new contextconditions.

General Discussion

The results of Experiments 1 to 4A replicated the primaryeffects of environmental context on recognition memory reportedby Murnane and Phelps (1993, 1994, 1995). The overall hit andfalse-alarm rates were higher for items tested in an old contextcompared to a new context with little difference in overall dis-crimination between the old and new context conditions. Theseeffects were seen both when context was manipulated by varyingthe background and foreground colors and screen location of thestudy words, as Murnane and Phelps did, and when the words werepresented against pictures of real-world scenes. In addition,different-old contexts and contexts similar in appearance andtheme to old contexts had comparable effects on recognitionperformance as the same-old context. Finally, the differences be-tween the effects of unique study contexts and repeated contextswere very modest.

The results of Experiments 1 to 4A pose problems for Macken’s(2002) dual-processing account of global context effects. In Macken’sview, context effects are due to the encoding and retrieval of specific item-context associations. The results of the present studyshowed, as did Macken, that the increase in hit rate for items testedin their old study context was seen in the proportion of subjects’remember responses. Similar results, however, were also seen forcontexts that consisted of a new combination of old context ele-ments (Experiment 1), old picture contexts that were paired with adifferent study item (Experiment 2), and new picture contexts thatwere similar to old contexts (Experiment 4A). The effects of context in these conditions cannot be based on the retrieval of specific item-context associations because these contexts were notpaired with the test item at study. Furthermore, compared tounique-old contexts, repeating contexts with different study itemsdid not substantially change the effects of context at test, although

retrieving specific item-context associations should be substan-tially more difficult for repeated contexts.

It should be noted, however, that although rearranged, different,and similar old contexts produced largely similar statistical effectsas the same-old contexts shown at study, in each experiment theseeffects were somewhat more modest in absolute terms. This aspect

of the pattern of results suggests that specific associations betweenitems and their study context may play a role in the effects of context on recognition decisions, although this role was relativelymodest in the present experiments.

The results of Experiments 5A and 5B provide a possibleexplanation for the differences in the results of Experiments 1 to4A of the present study and Macken’s (2002) findings. In Exper-iment 5A subjects’ attention was directed to the study words. Thus,subjects in Experiment 5A had less opportunity and motivation toattend to the background picture and to make any explicit associ-ations between the study words and their context. The results of Experiment 5A were similar to the principal findings of Experi-ments 1 to 4A, suggesting that subjects in these experiments alsodid not pay particular attention to the background context. Thiswould explain why subjects had a relatively poor memory for thespecifics of the background pictures (Experiments 4B) and whythey would treat rearranged and different-old contexts (Experi-ments 1 and 2) and new contexts similar to old contexts (Experi-ment 4A) in a similar fashion as an old context. It also explainswhy similar effects were seen for unique and repeated contexts(Experiment 3).

In Experiment 5B, subjects’ were instructed to consider theassociation between the study word and the picture context. Theresults of this experiment were similar in nature to those found byGruppuso et al. (2007) and Macken (2002). Indeed, Experiment 5Bcan be considered a replication of Gruppuso et al., as both studiesused a similar orienting task at study that emphasized the associ-

ation between the study item and its context. When subjects makeassociations between the study item and its context, discriminationand remember responses are greater when targets are tested in theirsame-old context compared to different-old and new contexts.

The orienting task used by Gruppuso et al. (2007) and adoptedin Experiment 5B, however, is arguably a manipulation of localrather than global context. Orienting tasks that emphasize theprocessing of both the study item and the context would promotethe relational encoding of the item and its context. In essence, thisprocedure is a paired-associate learning task, and therefore itshould not be surprising that accuracy and reported levels of recollection would be greater for targets tested in their same-oldcontext rather than in a different-old or a new context. Indeed, it iswidely believed that recall or recollection plays an important rolein associative recognition (e.g., Cameron & Hockley, 2000; Hock-ley & Consoli, 1999; Rotello & Heit, 2000; Verde & Rotello,2004; Westerman, 2000; Yonelinas, 1997).

It is not clear, however, why Macken (2002) would find asimilar pattern of results when he did not use such an orienting task at study. It is relevant to note in this regard that Tsivilis, Otten, andRugg (2001) also did not use an associative orienting task andobserved similar effects of context on old and remember re-sponses. Tsivilis et al. examined recognition for pictures of objectspresented in different locations against pictures of landscapes.Perhaps subjects in their experiment spontaneously made associ-ations between the visual objects and their picture contexts




because of the nature of the stimuli. It is less obvious whyMacken’s subjects would spontaneously make associations be-tween study words and contexts that consisted of a particularforeground and background color and screen location, whereassubjects in Experiment 1 of the present study did not. In Experi-ment 1, each study item was presented in a unique combination of

these context elements. In contrast, Macken used two differentstudy contexts and a third set of context elements at test. Repeatinga small number of contexts would allow the arbitrary contextelements to become better integrated, which would facilitate theencoding of associations between the study items and their con-texts. Nevertheless, it is not clear why subjects might spontane-ously adopt such an encoding strategy.

The context manipulation used by Murnane and Phelps (1994);Macken (2002), and Tsivilis et al. (2001) share similarities withthe manipulation of context in visual search tasks that have sup-ported the contextual cueing effect (e.g., Chun & Jiang, 1998,1999, 2003). In both tasks, a target appears in different spatiallocations in different contexts. In Chun and Jiang’s (1998) seminaldemonstration of contextual cueing, observers searched for a ro-tated T shown among rotated Ls. Over trials, a subset of the samesearch fields was repeated. Search times for the target in therepeated displays became faster compared to search time in newdisplays. The learning of target locations in repeated contexts wasimplicit; the observers were not aware that displays were repeated,and they did not have explicit memory for target locations. Similarresults have been found with arrays of two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes (Chua & Chun, 2003; Chun & Jiang, 1999).

Brockmole and Henderson (2006; Brockmole, Castelhano, &Henderson, 2006) extended the contextual cueing effect to search-ing for letter targets in naturalistic displays (3-D renderings of rooms and household areas). In contrast to visual search in artifi-cial displays, contextual cueing was greater when the global con-

text (the entire scene) was repeated compared to repetitions of local context (objects near the target). Furthermore, the learnedassociation between target location and context was explicit. Ob-servers recognized repeated naturalistic scenes more accuratelythan scenes presented only once, and they could better recall thetarget positions in the repeated scenes.

In both Macken’s (2002) and Tsivilis et al.’s (2001) manipula-tions of context, the location of the study items differed in thedifferent contexts. Thus, based on the studies of contextual cueingin visual search, subjects in Macken’s and Tsivilis et al.’s exper-iments may have acquired some form of memory for the associ-ation between the study item and its location in a given context.Tsivilis et al.’s manipulation of context is similar in respects toBrockmole and Henderson’s (2006) manipulation of context, andthus similar associations between the study item, context and targetlocation may have occurred. If Macken’s manipulation of contextis more similar to the richer contexts used by Brockmole andHenderson rather than the artificial displays used Chun & Jiang(1998), then Macken’s subjects may have also benefited fromassociations between the target and its context and location. Thedegree of relation between contextual cueing effects in visualsearch and context effects in recognition memory represent aninteresting question for future research.

Whereas the results of Experiment 5B are consistent with Mack-en’s (2002) and Gruppuso et al.’s (2007) dual processing accountof context effects, the results of Experiments 1 to 5A pose prob-

lems for the generality of this account and for the interpretation of remember responses that are used to support the dual process view.Murnane and Phelps’s (1993, 1994, 1995) familiarity-based globalmatching model of context effects provides a reasonable descrip-tion of the principal findings of these experiments. In this view, oldcontexts and new contexts that share matching aspects of the old

contexts provide a source of familiarity that is combined with thefamiliarity associated with the test probe. Thus, old and new itemstested in such contexts will have a higher overall level of famil-iarity than items tested in a new context, resulting in an increase inhits and false alarms with little difference in overall discrimination.

To account for the pattern of remember and know responses insuch a model, one needs to assume that subjects employ twodecision criteria that bisect the familiarity continuum (see Donald-son, 1996; Dunn, 2004; Hirshman & Master, 1997). Familiarityvalues below the lower criterion will be classified as new items,whereas familiarity values above the higher criterion produceremember responses. Intermediate values are given know re-sponses. Thus, according to this account, the increase in hit rate isseen in the proportion of remember responses because a greaterproportion of targets are above the second criterion when tested inan old context compared to a new context. Similarly, the increasein the false-alarm rate is seen in the proportion of know responsesbecause a greater proportion of distractors fall above the lowercriterion when tested in an old context. Xu and Bellezza (2001)and Rotello, Macmillan, Hicks, and Hautus (2006) provide quan-titative support for such an interpretation of remember-know re-sponses. They showed that variables that influence response biasaffect both old and remember responses and that signal detectionmodels provide a better overall description of these effects than dodual process models.

Wixted and Stretch (2004) have also proposed a model of remember-know judgments that is consistent with a signal detec-

tion theory framework. In their view the dimension of evidence isnot a single dimension of familiarity, but rather “an aggregatestrength variable that consists of a combined recollection andfamiliarity signal” (p. 617). As above, two criteria are assumed tobisect the aggregate strength dimension to distinguish rememberfrom know and know from new responses. The assumption thatrecollection can vary and that it is combined with familiarity isintuitively appealing in light of the present results. Rearranged anddifferent-old contexts and new contexts that are similar to oldcontexts would have an aggregate strength based on partial recol-lection and familiarity. If their total strength value is similar to theaggregate strength of targets in their old contexts, then all of thesecontext conditions would have similar effects on overall old/newrecognition performance and on the distribution of remember andknow responses.

An alternative to strength-based interpretations of the effects of environmental context on recognition memory is a response biasexplanation (Feenan & Snodgrass, 1990). In this view, rather thanassuming that an old context increases the familiarity or strength of the test probe, an old context (or a context perceived to be old) isassumed to lead subjects to adopt a more liberal recognitiondecision criterion. Context could provide subjects with a basis forchanging their criterion, and a more liberal criterion for old con-texts would result in an increase in hits and false alarms in the oldcontext condition without a change in overall discrimination. Thepattern of the estimates of criterion placement in each of the

1426 HOCKLEY



present experiments is generally consistent with such an account.It is typically very difficult to distinguish between strength-basedand criterion-shift accounts, as both views predict concordantincreases in hit and false-alarm rates without a change in overalldiscrimination. For the present results, however, strength-basedaccounts have the advantage of providing a more plausible expla-

nation of the increase in the proportion of old and rememberresponses in old contexts. It is generally assumed that subjectsadopt a more liberal response criterion in tasks or situations wherediscrimination is more difficult (e.g., Clarke, 1960; Healy & Jones,1973; Hockley & Niewiadomski, 2007; see Hicks & Marsh, 1998,for a discussion of this issue). Why then would subjects adopt amore liberal decision criterion for their old and remember re-sponses when items are tested in an old context, a condition thatwould seem to make recognition easier rather than more difficult?

As noted previously, the interpretation of remember and knowresponses is controversial. Whereas some researchers have pro-posed that these responses reflect qualitatively different bases of recognition memory decisions (e.g., Gardiner & Richardson-Klavehn, 2000; Joordens & Hockley, 2000; Reder et al., 2000;Yonelinas, 1994), others have argued that they reflect differentlevels of confidence on the same dimension of evidence (e.g.,Donaldson, 1996; Dunn, 2004; Hirshman & Master, 1997; Stretch& Wixted, 2004). In the present experiments, subjects gave similarhigh proportions of remember responses to target items shown intheir old study context and to test items presented in a newconfiguration of old context elements (Experiment 1), to itemsshown in an old but different study context (Experiments 2 and5A), and to items shown in a new context that was similar to an oldcontext (Experiment 4A). Old contexts and their variations gaverise to a greater phenomenological sense of remembering, but asense of remembering that was not wholly veridical with pastexperience. Thus, the present results are more consistent with

accounts that equate remember responses with a higher level of confidence (e.g., Dunn, 2004) or a higher strength value based onan aggregate of familiarity and recollection (e.g., Wixted &Stretch, 2004) rather than accounts that assume that rememberresponses are a separate basis of recognition (e.g., Gardiner &Parkin, 1990). At the very least, the present results provide afurther demonstration that there is a variable relationship betweensubjects’ claims of remembering and their actual past experience.

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Received August 21, 2007Revision received May 27, 2008

Accepted May 29, 2008 Ⅲ


Documents

Effects of Environmental Context on Recognition Memory and Claims of Remembering