In the next cognitive brown bag, 3/21, 12:00-1:20, Tobin 521B, Quili Ma (PBS) will present: “Testing recognition models with joint single-item and forced-choice recognition.” The abstract follows.

Two models of recognition memory: the double-high threshold (2HT) and the unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) models were compared with the forced-choice experiment. Participants studied a list of words. In the test phase, they first responded “studied” or “not studied” to single word recognition for a few trials and then indicated the “studied” word in 2AFC trials. A 2AFC word pair contained a target and a lure which had both been previously given the same response. So one of the words was incorrectly recognized. The 2HT model predicted that forced-choice trials’ accuracy should increase from the single-recognition trials because between the two words, one had no memory evidence retrieved and the other word was very likely to be a detection result which had infallible information. On the contrary, the UV model predicted lower accuracy of the forced-choice trials because the target had to be compared with a lure which had very strong evidence of being studied. The empirical data turned out to support the UV model’s prediction.