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The Journal of General Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgen20
Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults a
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Elyse Brauch Lehman , Margaret Bovasso , Leslie a
A. Grout & Lisa K. Happ
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Department of Psychology , George Mason University , USA Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Elyse Brauch Lehman , Margaret Bovasso , Leslie A. Grout & Lisa K. Happ (1992) Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults, The Journal of General Psychology, 119:1, 15-27, DOI: 10.1080/00221309.1992.9921154 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1992.9921154
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The Journal of General Psychology, 119(1), 15-27
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Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults ELYSE BRAUCH LEHMAN MARGARET BOVASSO LESLIE A. GROUT LISA K. HAPP Department of Psychology George Mason University
ABSTRACT. Children (7 to 10 years), young adults (17 to 24 years), and older adults (55 to 77 years) were asked to learn three lists of words that were of mixed modality (half the words were visual, and half the words were auditory). With one list the subjects were asked a semantic orienting question; with another, a nonsemantic orienting question; and with a third, no orienting question. Half the subjects in each age group were also asked to remember the presentation modality of each word. Older adults remembered less information about modality than children and young adults did, and the variation in the type of orienting question-or the lack of oneaffected modality identification. However, there was no Orienting Task x Age interaction for modality identification. The results of this study suggest that encoding modality information does not take place automatically-in any age group-but that explanations focusing on encoding strategies and effort are not likely to account for older adults’ difficulties in remembering presentation modality.
MOUNTING EVIDENCE SUPPORTS the existence of age differences in adults’ memory for presentation modality. Lehman and Mellinger (1984, 1986) found that older adults remember less information than young adults about whether words are seen or heard, and McIntyre and Craik (1987) reported similar results about adults’ memory for meaningful, real-life facts that are read or heard. These findings are part of a larger area of research-memory for sources-that has recently received considerable attention because of the proposed impact of source monitoring on daily functioning. Sources of memories may be internal, such as intentions or imagination, or external, such as scenes viewed, a book read, or a lecture heard. Discrimination among these sources
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may take three forms (Hashtroudi, Johnson, & Chrosnaik, 1989): (a) between externally derived and internally generated information in memory (Did I actually mail the letter or did I just think about doing it), (b) between two internally generated sources (Did I just think about it or did I actually say it?), (c) or between two externally derived sources (Did I read this fact in a book or did someone tell me about it?). Such discrimination, called, respectively, reality monitoring (Johnson & Raye, 1981), internal source monitoring, and external source monitoring (Hashtroudi et al., 1989), plays a key role in a person’s ability to distinguish between the real and the imagined and between new information and existing beliefs (Cohen & Faulkner, 1989; Gopnik & Graf, 1988). Therefore, it is important to document and understand deficits in source memory among the elderly. In this study, we attempted to further our understanding of how information about presentation modality (external source monitoring) is processed by the elderly and by the young. Specifically, we investigated whether, across a person’s life span, presentation modality is encoded automatically, that is, with minimal demands on a limited central processing capacity, as Lehman (1982) suggested. Much has been written about source forgetting (when a person cannot remember whether he or she actually turned off the light or only planned to do s@ (Cohen & Faulkner, 1989), but a person often remembers the context in which information was presented, even when it appears that little attention was specifically directed to that context. For example, although a person is not able to recall a fact when taking a test, the person remembers that he or she read the information in a book, rather than heard it in lecture. The person may even be able to visualize the side of the page where the information was located and the form of the table in which the information appeared. This kind of experience suggests that at least some components of input mode processing occur with little effort. Lehman’s (1982) work was an extension of the model proposed by Hasher and Zacks (1979), who distinguished between “automatic” memory
Portions of this article were presented at the April 1987 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Arlington, VA. We would like to thank all those who participated in these studies, as well as the following directors who made it possible f o r us to work through their programs: Sarah Booth, Camp Mason, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, Sue Thompson, Health and Exercise Program f o r Older Adults, George Mason University, Fairjiax, VA, and Sandra Armstrong, Fairfa County Summer Recreation Program at Rolling Valley Elementary School, Springfield, VA. We are also grateful to the many colleagues and friends who helped us locate participants, especially Donna Ronsaville, Lucy VanWickler, and John and Theresa Brauch, and to h e y Blake for her assistance in the design of materials. Address correspondence to Elyse B. Lehman Department of Psychology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairjiax, VA 22030.
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processes, which claim minimal attention, and more strategy-dependent, or “effortful,” memory processes that require maximal attention. According to Hasher and Zacks, automatic encoding does not interfere with other simultaneous processing, and it is not affected by intention to learn or by age, whereas effortful processing is affected by these criteria. Hasher and Zacks also maintained that certain fundamental attributes, such as frequency of occurrence, spatial location, and temporal order, are handled by automatic, rather than effortful memory processes. As for frequency, space, and time, the results of research about automatic processing of modality have been somewhat mixed. Memory for modality satisfied one of Hasher and Zacks’s (1979) criteria for automatic encodingequal learning under incidental and intentional conditions-for children and for both young and older adults (Bray & Batchelder, 1972; Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984). In addition, memory for modality occurred at a high level, even in young children (Lehman & Hanzel, 1981), and there was no trade-off for either young or older adults between memory for words and memory for modality in Lehman and Mellinger’s (1984) study or for children in Lehman’s (1982) study. However, Bray and Batchelder (1972) and Madigan and Doherty (1972) found that young adults’ memory for words decreased when they were asked to remember presentation modality. Also problematic is the decrement in older adults’ modality memory reported by Lehman and Mellinger (1984, 1986). These findings suggest that alternative procedures to the usual incidentaYintentiona1 instructions paradigm may be useful, both for resolving the automatic/effortful issue and for investigating how older adults process information about presentation modality. In this study we used an orienting task methodology, which would provide better control over subjects’ encoding strategies than would a simple comparison between the performance of subjects who knew that a modality identification test would be given subsequently and the performance of subjects who did not. Research has shown that across the life span, more words are remembered after a semantic orienting task (e.g., asking whether a target word has a particular meaning) than after a nonsemantic orienting task (e.g., asking whether a target word rhymes with a given word) (Emmerich, 1979; Eysenck, 1974; Geis & Hall, 1976; Mason, 1979). It has also been shown that orienting tasks influence young adults’ memory for frequency of occurrence, an attribute that is often unaffectedby the usual incidental/intentional comparison (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Maki & Ostby, 1987; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986; Rose & Rowe, 1976; Rowe, 1974). The results of these studies indicate fairly consistently that frequency judgments are more accurate for a semantic orienting task than for a nonsemantic orienting task and are often interpreted as evidence against the notion that frequency information is automatically processed.
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We asked elementary school children, college students, and older adults to learn three lists of words that were of mixed modality (half the words were visual, and half were auditory). For one list, the subjects were asked a semantic orienting question about the words; for another list, a nonsemantic orienting question; and for a third list, no orienting question. Half the subjects in each age group were told that a modality test would follow. If modality information is processed automatically by all age groups, then across the life span, memory for words-but not for modality-should be affected by a variation in orienting activity (cf. Fisk & Schneider, 1984). If, however, processing input mode involves effort, then memory for both words and modality should be affected by a variation in the orienting task. Based on the orienting task research described previously, we expected that in this study, memory for both words and modality would be better after semantic than after nonsemantic orienting activities. Of particular interest to us was the possibility of an interaction between the effect of the orienting task and age on modality identification. Such an interaction-or the lack of one-would provide information about how much similarity exists in the processing of presentation modality across the life span.
Method Subjects Twenty-four subjects in each of the following age groups participated in the study: children 7 to 10 years old ( M = 9.1 years, 15 boys and 9 girls); young adults 17 to 24 years old ( M = 20.6 years, 11 men and 13 women); and older adults 55 to 77 years old ( M = 65.6 years, 9 men and 15 women). Most of the participants were recruited from programs affiliated with a state university-a summer camp for children, introductory psychology classes, and a health and exercise program for older adults-but some of the older adults were recruited through family and friends. Half the subjects at each age level were randomly assigned to a modality incidental condition, and half were assigned to a modality intentional condition. All the subjects were screened for general memory with the Digit Span subtest of either the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (1974) or the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (1981). The means of the scaled scores were 11.42 (range = 7 to 17), 10.0 (range = 7 to 14) , and 10.0 (range = 7 to 14) for children, young adults, and older adults, respectively, F ( 2 , 69) = 2.55, ns. All the older adults were active, healthy community residents whose level of education ranged from 1 1 to 20 years (M = 14.7).
Materials One hundred three concrete nouns were selected from first- and second-grade readers and divided into three categories: a practice list of 3 words, three to-
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be-learned lists of 20 words each, and a group of 40 distractor words that were added to the 60 to-be-learned words to make up the final recognition test. For the practice list and the to-be-learned lists, the visually presented words were displayed in orator-size type on 3 x 5 in. cards, and the auditorily presented words were read aloud by the experimenter while a blank 3 x 5 in. card was turned over. For the final recognition test, all the words were displayed in orator-size type on 3 x 5 in. cards and read aloud by the experimenter. Half the words on each to-be-learned list were visual and half were auditory. Visual and auditory words were randomly mixed within each list, but no more than three words in the same modality appeared in succession. -0 sets of each list were prepared. Although the same nouns appeared in the same order for a given list, the presentation modality of the words on a list differed between sets. Thus, across subjects, any given word was seen and heard equally often. Words were presented singly for 2 s, followed by a 5-s interstimulus interval during which the subject classified the word according to the orienting question. One semantic orienting question was prepared for each list. The questions, which were modifications of those used by Craik and Rabinowitz (1985), were: “Is it taller or shorter than a person?’ “Is it heavier or lighter than a chair?’ “Is it longer or shorter than a ski?’ The nonsemantic orienting question used with each list was: “Does the word have one syllable or more than one syllable?’ Words on a list were selected so that half could be answered one way (“taller”) and half the other way (“shorter”). The correctness of the classification was not an issue in this study. The classification of each word was designed to be easy, even though Craik and Tblving (1975) found no difference in retention as a function of positive or negative answer. Procedure
The subjects were tested individually, first on the Digit Span subtest, then with the orienting task procedure. The orienting task procedure involved a combination of the methods used by Owings and Baumeister (1979) and Craik and Rabinowitz (1985) and an extension that allowed modality memory to be tested during the final recognition test. As in the Owings and Baumeister research, all the subjects were asked to remember three lists of words for later recall. For each subject, one list was encoded to the semantic level before word recall was tested (semantic orienting), a second list was encoded to the nonsemantic level, followed by recall of that list (nonsemantic orienting), and a third list was presented with no question, also followed by word recall (no orienting). The subjects were given as much time as they needed for the spoken recall of the words. A partial Latin square arrangement ensured that, across subjects, each type of encoding and each word list occurred equally
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often in each of the three ordinal positions. Although informing subjects of the upcoming word recall test is a different procedure from the more usual incidental learning paradigm, the levels effect occurs regardless of the procedure used (Craik & Tulving, 1975). Word learning was also intentional in the Craik and Rabinowitz study. For those lists that had an orienting question, the question was read to the subject before any words were presented. At this point, the semantic questions were clarified (e.g., if the subject asked how large the chair was), and the subjects were allowed to practice counting syllables. Then, as each word on a list was presented, the subjects answered the question in the 5-s interstimulus interval. This procedure, which was used by Craik and Rabinowitz (1985), is often preferred over Owings and Baumeister’s (1979) method of having the orienting question follow the presentation of each word because the latter method may lead subjects to do more semantic encoding of all words, thus attenuating any effect of encoding on recall (Ghatala, Carbonari, & Bobele, 1980). Half the subjects in each age group were told that a test of modality would follow (modality intentional group). During practice in recalling words, this group was asked to identify which words had been seen and which had been heard. The other subjects were not given any information about the modality test (modality incidental group); they only practiced recalling words. Following the third recall period, all the subjects took a final recognition test on all the words and their modalities. The subjects were asked to indicate whether each word had been seen before, heard before, or was brand new (had not been presented previously). The subjects completed the task at their own pace. After responses had been recorded for all 100 words, the subjects were asked to make forced-choice modality decisions about all words that had been incorrectly labeled “brand new.”
Results Modality identification and word recall data were analyzed with a 3 x 2 x 3 X 2 (Age x Modality Instructions X Encoding Activity x Presentation Modality) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Gender was not included as a variable in the ANOVA because t tests produced no statistically significant differences between men’s and women’s scores on any of the measures. Two analyses were conducted on the modality identification data-one on the conditional proportions given word recognition for visual and auditory target words, and one on the proportions for all target words. Both analyses produced identical results. Because older adults had a higher false alarm rate (incorrect “old” judgments) than children or young adults did (.123, .050, and .049, respectively), only the conditional proportions will be reported; the
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conditional proportions alone control for this age-related difference in response bias. Modality identijicution. The effects of encoding activity and age on modality identification (made conditional on word recognition) are presented separately for auditory and visual words (see Figure l). The four-factor ANOVA described previously produced two statistically significant main effects, age, and presentation modality, F(2, 66) = 7.32, p < .01; and F ( l , 66) = 7.71, p < .01, respectively. Modality identification was high for children and young adults (Ms= .79 and .78, respectively), with older adults’ performance significantly lower in a Newman-Keuls analysis at the .05 level (M = .66). Modality identification was also higher for words that had been seen than for words that had been heard (Ms= .79 and .69). Although there was no overall effect of encoding activity, the four-factor ANOVA did produce a statistically significant interaction between encoding activity and presentation modality, F(2, 132) = 9.98, p < .01. The results of simple effects analyses indicated that there were reliable effects of encoding activity on modality identification for each modality considered separately, F(2, 132) = 7.92, p < .01 for auditory words; and F(2, 132) = 4.76, p < .05 for visual words. The effects were quite different for the two modalities (see Figure 1). For auditory words, modality identification was lowest when
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CHILDREN YOUNG OLOER ADULTS ADULTS
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FIGURE 1. Effects of orienting task on modality identification for children, young adults, and older adults.
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nonsemantic encoding activities were performed, and there was no difference between the semantic orienting and no orienting conditions ( M s = .63, .73, and .72, respectively), Newman-Keuls at .05 level. For visual words, on the other hand, modality identification was lowest when semantic orienting activities were performed, and there was no difference between the nonsemantic orienting and no orienting conditions ( M s = .75, .82, and .81, respectively), Newman-Keuls at .05 level. Because of the presence of differential modality biases in the three age groups, a 3 x 3 (Age x Encoding Activity) ANOVA was conducted on the d’ scores separately for each presentation modality. Because both adult groups showed a slight visual bias (young adults, 59%; older adults, 5 8 % ) , and children showed a slight auditory bias (56%), there was a possibility that, for auditory words, modality identification might be artificially lowered for the adult groups and boosted for the children. The results of the ANOVAs were identical, however, to those reported previously for conditional proportions. Older adults remembered less information about modality than children and young adults did. The means were, respectively, 2.59,3.77, and 3.94 for auditory words, F(2, 69) = 4.31, p < .05; and 3.18, 4.24, and 4.51 for visual words, F(2, 69) = 5.86, p < .01. Also, for auditory presentation, modality identification was lowest with nonsemantic orienting activities, whereas for visual presentation, semantic orienting activities produced the lowest performance. The means for no orienting, semantic orienting, and nonsemantic orienting were, respectively, auditory, 3.57, 3.66, and 3.07, F(2, 138) = 7.39, p < .01; and visual, 4.14, 3.60, and 4.18, F ( 2 , 138) = 5.81, p < .01. Neither interaction between age and encoding activity was statistically significant. Word recall and its relationship lo modality identijication. Both age and encoding activity affected word recall (see Figure 2). These main effects were statistically significant in the four-factor ANOVA described previously, F(2, 66) = 21.71, p < .01; and F(2, 132) = 21.62, p < .01, respectively. The data for age indicated that young adults recalled the most words ( M = 9.92), followed by older adults ( M = 7.49) and then children ( M = 6.58). A Newman-Keuls analysis at the .05 level indicated that all differences were statistically significant and that word recall was significantly lower for the nonsemantic orienting task than for either the no orienting task or a semantic orienting task ( M s = 6.75, 8.71, and 8.53, respectively). This finding was reminiscent of the studies of Craik and Rabinowitz (1985) and Owings and Baumeister (1979). No other main effects or interactions were statistically significant. Modality identification was higher for visually presented words that had been recalled than for visually presented words that had not ( M s = .8 1 and .74). The difference was statistically significant in a 3 x 2 x 3 X 2 (Age X
Lehman, Bovasso, Grout, & Happ
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Modality Instructions x Encoding Activity x RecalleaNot Recalled) ANOVA, F( 1, 66) = 9.41, p < .01. No other factors interacted with it. Whether or not auditorily presented words had been recalled had no effect on the subjects’ identifying the modality of these words in the final recognition test (Ms = .70 and .69, respectively). In the auditory ANOVA, neither the main effect of recalledhot recalled nor any interactions with it were statistically significant. This differential effect of modality has also been reported in previous studies (Hintzman, Block, & Inskeep, 1972; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984).
Discussion Modality memory is clearly affected by age. In the present experiment, as has been reported previously (Lehman & Mellinger, 1984, 1986; McIntyre & Craik, 1987), older adults remembered less information about presentation modality than did young adults. Also confirmed in this experiment were previous findings of (a) equal modality identification under (modality) incidental and (modality) intentional instructions (Bray & Batchelder, 1972; Lehman, 1982;Lehman & Mellinger, 1984), (b) no reduction in word recall when participants were asked to learn the presentation modality of each word (Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984), and (c) similarly high levels of modality identification in children
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and young adults (Lehman & Hanzel, 1981). These three results held for all orienting tasks, although the no orienting task was critical because it most closely matched previous studies in procedure, which was the main reason for its inclusion in the present study. The two new questions asked were: (a) “Is modality memory affected by orienting tasks?” and (b) “Does orienting task interact with age to determine the amount of modality information remembered?” Answers to these questions provide evidence for resolving the automaticity issue and for understanding the decline in memory for presentation mode that occurs with age. Clearly, the answer to the first question is yes. In the present experiment, the orienting task had an effect on the amount of modality information the subjects remembered. For auditory words, modality memory was better with semantic encoding activities than with nonsemantic encoding activities, whereas for visual words, modality memory was better with nonsemantic encoding activities than with semantic encoding activities. Based on research involving the frequency attribute, we had predicted that memory for both words and modality would be better after semantic than after nonsemantic orienting activities. Craik (cf. Craik & Simon, 1980) suggested that, at least for young adults, with a semantic orienting task, each item is encoded semantically in a distinctive, contextually specific manner (i.e., associating item and context). By and large, this prediction has been confirmed in studies of frequency estimation (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Maki & Ostby, 1987; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986; Rose & Rowe, 1976; Rowe, 1974). In the present study, the order of orienting task effects on modality memory was as we expected for auditory words, but not for visual words. These results could not be attributed to any bias to report visual or auditory, because the biases varied with age group. Nor were the results a function of the order in which lists were presented, because this factor had no effect on modality identification, F < 1. There are three possible explanations. The first assumes that, as in the studies on frequency estimation, semantic processing has a beneficial effect on the retention of modality information. Given this assumption, our results make sense if, in the visual condition, subjects are already storing context with item information. Then a semantic orienting task may not improve modality identification because it does not change the ongoing encoding. In the auditory condition, however, if subjects store item and context information separately, then an orienting task that associates these two kinds of information (i.e., the semantic orienting task) may lead to a higher level of modality identification. This interpretation is supported by the finding in the present study and in earlier studies (cf. Hintzman et al., 1972; Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984) that modality memory for visual words is higher when the words have been recalled previously than when the words have not been recalled previously. The relationship be-
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tween word recall and modality identification is not present for auditory words. This differentialimprovement has been difficult to account for and has been regarded as almost an anomaly. Considered along with the effects of orienting tasks on modality identification in the two modalities, however, modality differences appear to be real and to have an important effect on how contextual information and semantic information are associated in memory. Rather than dealing with general modality differences, the second and third explanations for our results focus on the specific nonsemantic tasks used. The second explanation, which still assumes that deeperhroader semantic processing will benefit modality memory, is that the nonsemantic task used in our study (counting syllables) required greater attention to the words when they were presented visually than when they were presented auditorily. Thus, deeper processing than was originally intended may have been inadvertently produced in this condition. Rose and Row (1976) gave a similar explanation to account for their failure to find superior performance on a frequency judgment task with semantic orienting activity when the nonsemantic orienting activity involved generating rhymes. The third explanation for our results is based on the assumption that semantic processing may not necessarily benefit the retention of modality information. As F. I. M. Craik (personal communication, January 10, 1989) suggested, an orienting task that induces more modality-specific information might be expected to improve modality identification. For example, if counting syllables produced more relevant visual processing, then modality identification would be higher with the nonsemantic orienting task for visually presented words, but not for auditorily presented words. (This was the pattern of our results in the present study.) Whatever the explanation for our results, our finding that orienting tasks affected modality memory conflicts with Hasher and Zacks’s (1979) proposal that the processing of certain aspects of context is unaffected by subjects’ encoding strategies. If, as has been suggested by investigators of the effects of orienting tasks on frequency coding (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986), insensitivity to strategy manipulation is a hallmark of automaticity, then one interpretation of these results is that the encoding of information about presentation modality does not occur automatically. Others advise caution in accepting such a broad interpretation. In discussing some of the difficulties involved in interpreting effects of orienting tasks on frequency judgments, Hintzman (1988) suggested that even though judgments of frequency may be affected by orienting activity, the information on which the frequency estimates are based may still be encoded automatically. Similarly, also in studies of frequency judgments, Naveh-Benjamin and Jonides (1986) pointed out that because many processes are involved in encoding and retrieving such information, it would be inappropriate to conclude
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from studies of the effects of orienting tasks that all components of processing are not automatic. Perhaps the safest solution is to conclude from the results of the present experiment that at least some aspects of modality coding are not at the automatic end of the automatic/effortful continuum; that is, there is some effort involved in the processing of modality information. The answer to the second question, whether an interaction between orienting task and age was a factor in determining modality memory, is no. Although the orienting task had an effect on the amount of modality information a subject remembered, this effect was the same for children, young adults, and older adults, indicating that older adults encode modality in the same way that children and young adults do. Additionally, the absence of an interaction between orienting task and age for modality identification suggests that explanations focusing on encoding strategies and effort are not likely to account for the decrement in older adults’ ability to remember input mode. Apparently, older adults do not require more effort than young adults to encode information about presentation modality. REFERENCES Bray, N. W., & Batchelder, W. H. (1972). Effects of instructions and retention interval on memory for presentation mode. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, I I , 367-374. Cohen, G., & Faulkner, D. (1989). Age differences in source forgetting: Effects on reality monitoring and on eyewitness testimony. Psychology and Aging, 4 , 10-17. Craik, F. I. M., & Rabinowitz, J. C. (1985). The effects of presentation rate and encoding task on age-related memory deficits. Journal of Gerontology, 40, 309315. Craik, F. I. M . , & Simon, E. (1980). Age differences in memory: The roles of attention and depth of processing. In L. W. Poon, J. L. Fozard, L. S. Cermak, D. Arenberg, & L. W. Thompson (Eds.), New directions in memory and aging (pp. 95-1 12). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Craik, F. I. M., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 268-294. Emmerich, H. J. (1979). The effect of orienting activity on memory for pictures and words in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 28, 499515. Eysenck, M. W. (1974). Age differences in incidental learning. Developmental Psychology, 10, 936-941. Fisk, A. D., & Schneider, W. (1984). Memory as a function of attention, level of processing, and automatization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 181-1 97. Geis, M. F., & Hall, D. M. (1976). Encoding and incidental memory in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 22, 58-66. Ghatala, E. S., Carbonari, J. P., & Bobele, L. Z. (1980). Developmental changes in incidental memory as a function of processing level, congruity, and repetition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 29, 74-87.
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Gopnik, A., & Graf, P. (1988). Knowing how you know: Young children's ability to identify and remember the sources of their beliefs. Child Development, 59, 1366-1 37 1. Greene, R. L. (1984). Incidental learning of event frequency. Memory and Cognition, 12, 90-95. Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 356-388. Hashtroudi, S., Johnson, M. K., & Chrosniak, L. D. (1989). Aging and source monitoring. Psychology and Aging, 4 , 106-1 12. Hintzman, D. L. (1988). Judgments of frequency and recognition memory in a multiple-trace memory model. Psychological Review, 95, 528-55 I . Hintzman, D. L., Block, R. A., & Inskeep, N. R. (1972). Memory for mode of input. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 741-749. Johnson, M. K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality monitoring. Psychological Review, 88. 67-85. Lehman, E. B. (1982). Memory for modality: Evidence for an automatic process. Memory and Cognition, 10, 554-564. Lehman, E. B., & Hanzel, S. H. (1981). A developmental study of memory for presentation modality. Journal of General Psychology, 105, 155-164. Lehman, E. B., & Mellinger, J. C. (1984). Effects of aging on memory for presentation modality. Developmental Psychology, 20, 1210-1217. Lehman, E. B., & Mellinger, J. C. (1986). Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women. Psychology and Aging, 1 , 178-179. Madigan, S., & Doherty, L. (1972). Retention of item attributes in free recall. Psychonomic Science, 27, 233-235. Maki, R. H., & Ostby, R. S . (1987). Effects of level of processing and rehearsal on frequency judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 151-163. Mason, S. E. (1979). Effects of orienting tasks on the recall and recognition performance of subjects differing in age. Developmental Psychology, 15, 467-469. McIntyre, J. S., & Craik, F. I. M. (1987). Age differences in memory for item and source information. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41, 175-192. Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Jonides, J. (1986). On the automaticity of frequency coding: Effects of competing task load, encoding strategy, and intention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 378-386. Owings, R. A., & Baumeister, A. A. (1979). Levels of processing, encoding swtegies, and memory development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 28, 100-1 18. Rose, R. J., & Rowe, E. J. (1976). Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2 , 142-152. Rowe, E. J. (1974). Depth of processing in a frequency judgment task. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 638-643. Wechsler, D. (1974). Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation. Wechsler, D. (198 1). Manual for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation.
Received April 17, I991
The Journal of General Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgen20
Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults a
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Elyse Brauch Lehman , Margaret Bovasso , Leslie a
A. Grout & Lisa K. Happ
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Department of Psychology , George Mason University , USA Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Elyse Brauch Lehman , Margaret Bovasso , Leslie A. Grout & Lisa K. Happ (1992) Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults, The Journal of General Psychology, 119:1, 15-27, DOI: 10.1080/00221309.1992.9921154 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1992.9921154
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The Journal of General Psychology, 119(1), 15-27
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Orienting Task Effects on Memory for Presentation Modality in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults ELYSE BRAUCH LEHMAN MARGARET BOVASSO LESLIE A. GROUT LISA K. HAPP Department of Psychology George Mason University
ABSTRACT. Children (7 to 10 years), young adults (17 to 24 years), and older adults (55 to 77 years) were asked to learn three lists of words that were of mixed modality (half the words were visual, and half the words were auditory). With one list the subjects were asked a semantic orienting question; with another, a nonsemantic orienting question; and with a third, no orienting question. Half the subjects in each age group were also asked to remember the presentation modality of each word. Older adults remembered less information about modality than children and young adults did, and the variation in the type of orienting question-or the lack of oneaffected modality identification. However, there was no Orienting Task x Age interaction for modality identification. The results of this study suggest that encoding modality information does not take place automatically-in any age group-but that explanations focusing on encoding strategies and effort are not likely to account for older adults’ difficulties in remembering presentation modality.
MOUNTING EVIDENCE SUPPORTS the existence of age differences in adults’ memory for presentation modality. Lehman and Mellinger (1984, 1986) found that older adults remember less information than young adults about whether words are seen or heard, and McIntyre and Craik (1987) reported similar results about adults’ memory for meaningful, real-life facts that are read or heard. These findings are part of a larger area of research-memory for sources-that has recently received considerable attention because of the proposed impact of source monitoring on daily functioning. Sources of memories may be internal, such as intentions or imagination, or external, such as scenes viewed, a book read, or a lecture heard. Discrimination among these sources
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may take three forms (Hashtroudi, Johnson, & Chrosnaik, 1989): (a) between externally derived and internally generated information in memory (Did I actually mail the letter or did I just think about doing it), (b) between two internally generated sources (Did I just think about it or did I actually say it?), (c) or between two externally derived sources (Did I read this fact in a book or did someone tell me about it?). Such discrimination, called, respectively, reality monitoring (Johnson & Raye, 1981), internal source monitoring, and external source monitoring (Hashtroudi et al., 1989), plays a key role in a person’s ability to distinguish between the real and the imagined and between new information and existing beliefs (Cohen & Faulkner, 1989; Gopnik & Graf, 1988). Therefore, it is important to document and understand deficits in source memory among the elderly. In this study, we attempted to further our understanding of how information about presentation modality (external source monitoring) is processed by the elderly and by the young. Specifically, we investigated whether, across a person’s life span, presentation modality is encoded automatically, that is, with minimal demands on a limited central processing capacity, as Lehman (1982) suggested. Much has been written about source forgetting (when a person cannot remember whether he or she actually turned off the light or only planned to do s@ (Cohen & Faulkner, 1989), but a person often remembers the context in which information was presented, even when it appears that little attention was specifically directed to that context. For example, although a person is not able to recall a fact when taking a test, the person remembers that he or she read the information in a book, rather than heard it in lecture. The person may even be able to visualize the side of the page where the information was located and the form of the table in which the information appeared. This kind of experience suggests that at least some components of input mode processing occur with little effort. Lehman’s (1982) work was an extension of the model proposed by Hasher and Zacks (1979), who distinguished between “automatic” memory
Portions of this article were presented at the April 1987 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Arlington, VA. We would like to thank all those who participated in these studies, as well as the following directors who made it possible f o r us to work through their programs: Sarah Booth, Camp Mason, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, Sue Thompson, Health and Exercise Program f o r Older Adults, George Mason University, Fairjiax, VA, and Sandra Armstrong, Fairfa County Summer Recreation Program at Rolling Valley Elementary School, Springfield, VA. We are also grateful to the many colleagues and friends who helped us locate participants, especially Donna Ronsaville, Lucy VanWickler, and John and Theresa Brauch, and to h e y Blake for her assistance in the design of materials. Address correspondence to Elyse B. Lehman Department of Psychology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairjiax, VA 22030.
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processes, which claim minimal attention, and more strategy-dependent, or “effortful,” memory processes that require maximal attention. According to Hasher and Zacks, automatic encoding does not interfere with other simultaneous processing, and it is not affected by intention to learn or by age, whereas effortful processing is affected by these criteria. Hasher and Zacks also maintained that certain fundamental attributes, such as frequency of occurrence, spatial location, and temporal order, are handled by automatic, rather than effortful memory processes. As for frequency, space, and time, the results of research about automatic processing of modality have been somewhat mixed. Memory for modality satisfied one of Hasher and Zacks’s (1979) criteria for automatic encodingequal learning under incidental and intentional conditions-for children and for both young and older adults (Bray & Batchelder, 1972; Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984). In addition, memory for modality occurred at a high level, even in young children (Lehman & Hanzel, 1981), and there was no trade-off for either young or older adults between memory for words and memory for modality in Lehman and Mellinger’s (1984) study or for children in Lehman’s (1982) study. However, Bray and Batchelder (1972) and Madigan and Doherty (1972) found that young adults’ memory for words decreased when they were asked to remember presentation modality. Also problematic is the decrement in older adults’ modality memory reported by Lehman and Mellinger (1984, 1986). These findings suggest that alternative procedures to the usual incidentaYintentiona1 instructions paradigm may be useful, both for resolving the automatic/effortful issue and for investigating how older adults process information about presentation modality. In this study we used an orienting task methodology, which would provide better control over subjects’ encoding strategies than would a simple comparison between the performance of subjects who knew that a modality identification test would be given subsequently and the performance of subjects who did not. Research has shown that across the life span, more words are remembered after a semantic orienting task (e.g., asking whether a target word has a particular meaning) than after a nonsemantic orienting task (e.g., asking whether a target word rhymes with a given word) (Emmerich, 1979; Eysenck, 1974; Geis & Hall, 1976; Mason, 1979). It has also been shown that orienting tasks influence young adults’ memory for frequency of occurrence, an attribute that is often unaffectedby the usual incidental/intentional comparison (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Maki & Ostby, 1987; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986; Rose & Rowe, 1976; Rowe, 1974). The results of these studies indicate fairly consistently that frequency judgments are more accurate for a semantic orienting task than for a nonsemantic orienting task and are often interpreted as evidence against the notion that frequency information is automatically processed.
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We asked elementary school children, college students, and older adults to learn three lists of words that were of mixed modality (half the words were visual, and half were auditory). For one list, the subjects were asked a semantic orienting question about the words; for another list, a nonsemantic orienting question; and for a third list, no orienting question. Half the subjects in each age group were told that a modality test would follow. If modality information is processed automatically by all age groups, then across the life span, memory for words-but not for modality-should be affected by a variation in orienting activity (cf. Fisk & Schneider, 1984). If, however, processing input mode involves effort, then memory for both words and modality should be affected by a variation in the orienting task. Based on the orienting task research described previously, we expected that in this study, memory for both words and modality would be better after semantic than after nonsemantic orienting activities. Of particular interest to us was the possibility of an interaction between the effect of the orienting task and age on modality identification. Such an interaction-or the lack of one-would provide information about how much similarity exists in the processing of presentation modality across the life span.
Method Subjects Twenty-four subjects in each of the following age groups participated in the study: children 7 to 10 years old ( M = 9.1 years, 15 boys and 9 girls); young adults 17 to 24 years old ( M = 20.6 years, 11 men and 13 women); and older adults 55 to 77 years old ( M = 65.6 years, 9 men and 15 women). Most of the participants were recruited from programs affiliated with a state university-a summer camp for children, introductory psychology classes, and a health and exercise program for older adults-but some of the older adults were recruited through family and friends. Half the subjects at each age level were randomly assigned to a modality incidental condition, and half were assigned to a modality intentional condition. All the subjects were screened for general memory with the Digit Span subtest of either the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (1974) or the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (1981). The means of the scaled scores were 11.42 (range = 7 to 17), 10.0 (range = 7 to 14) , and 10.0 (range = 7 to 14) for children, young adults, and older adults, respectively, F ( 2 , 69) = 2.55, ns. All the older adults were active, healthy community residents whose level of education ranged from 1 1 to 20 years (M = 14.7).
Materials One hundred three concrete nouns were selected from first- and second-grade readers and divided into three categories: a practice list of 3 words, three to-
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be-learned lists of 20 words each, and a group of 40 distractor words that were added to the 60 to-be-learned words to make up the final recognition test. For the practice list and the to-be-learned lists, the visually presented words were displayed in orator-size type on 3 x 5 in. cards, and the auditorily presented words were read aloud by the experimenter while a blank 3 x 5 in. card was turned over. For the final recognition test, all the words were displayed in orator-size type on 3 x 5 in. cards and read aloud by the experimenter. Half the words on each to-be-learned list were visual and half were auditory. Visual and auditory words were randomly mixed within each list, but no more than three words in the same modality appeared in succession. -0 sets of each list were prepared. Although the same nouns appeared in the same order for a given list, the presentation modality of the words on a list differed between sets. Thus, across subjects, any given word was seen and heard equally often. Words were presented singly for 2 s, followed by a 5-s interstimulus interval during which the subject classified the word according to the orienting question. One semantic orienting question was prepared for each list. The questions, which were modifications of those used by Craik and Rabinowitz (1985), were: “Is it taller or shorter than a person?’ “Is it heavier or lighter than a chair?’ “Is it longer or shorter than a ski?’ The nonsemantic orienting question used with each list was: “Does the word have one syllable or more than one syllable?’ Words on a list were selected so that half could be answered one way (“taller”) and half the other way (“shorter”). The correctness of the classification was not an issue in this study. The classification of each word was designed to be easy, even though Craik and Tblving (1975) found no difference in retention as a function of positive or negative answer. Procedure
The subjects were tested individually, first on the Digit Span subtest, then with the orienting task procedure. The orienting task procedure involved a combination of the methods used by Owings and Baumeister (1979) and Craik and Rabinowitz (1985) and an extension that allowed modality memory to be tested during the final recognition test. As in the Owings and Baumeister research, all the subjects were asked to remember three lists of words for later recall. For each subject, one list was encoded to the semantic level before word recall was tested (semantic orienting), a second list was encoded to the nonsemantic level, followed by recall of that list (nonsemantic orienting), and a third list was presented with no question, also followed by word recall (no orienting). The subjects were given as much time as they needed for the spoken recall of the words. A partial Latin square arrangement ensured that, across subjects, each type of encoding and each word list occurred equally
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often in each of the three ordinal positions. Although informing subjects of the upcoming word recall test is a different procedure from the more usual incidental learning paradigm, the levels effect occurs regardless of the procedure used (Craik & Tulving, 1975). Word learning was also intentional in the Craik and Rabinowitz study. For those lists that had an orienting question, the question was read to the subject before any words were presented. At this point, the semantic questions were clarified (e.g., if the subject asked how large the chair was), and the subjects were allowed to practice counting syllables. Then, as each word on a list was presented, the subjects answered the question in the 5-s interstimulus interval. This procedure, which was used by Craik and Rabinowitz (1985), is often preferred over Owings and Baumeister’s (1979) method of having the orienting question follow the presentation of each word because the latter method may lead subjects to do more semantic encoding of all words, thus attenuating any effect of encoding on recall (Ghatala, Carbonari, & Bobele, 1980). Half the subjects in each age group were told that a test of modality would follow (modality intentional group). During practice in recalling words, this group was asked to identify which words had been seen and which had been heard. The other subjects were not given any information about the modality test (modality incidental group); they only practiced recalling words. Following the third recall period, all the subjects took a final recognition test on all the words and their modalities. The subjects were asked to indicate whether each word had been seen before, heard before, or was brand new (had not been presented previously). The subjects completed the task at their own pace. After responses had been recorded for all 100 words, the subjects were asked to make forced-choice modality decisions about all words that had been incorrectly labeled “brand new.”
Results Modality identification and word recall data were analyzed with a 3 x 2 x 3 X 2 (Age x Modality Instructions X Encoding Activity x Presentation Modality) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Gender was not included as a variable in the ANOVA because t tests produced no statistically significant differences between men’s and women’s scores on any of the measures. Two analyses were conducted on the modality identification data-one on the conditional proportions given word recognition for visual and auditory target words, and one on the proportions for all target words. Both analyses produced identical results. Because older adults had a higher false alarm rate (incorrect “old” judgments) than children or young adults did (.123, .050, and .049, respectively), only the conditional proportions will be reported; the
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conditional proportions alone control for this age-related difference in response bias. Modality identijicution. The effects of encoding activity and age on modality identification (made conditional on word recognition) are presented separately for auditory and visual words (see Figure l). The four-factor ANOVA described previously produced two statistically significant main effects, age, and presentation modality, F(2, 66) = 7.32, p < .01; and F ( l , 66) = 7.71, p < .01, respectively. Modality identification was high for children and young adults (Ms= .79 and .78, respectively), with older adults’ performance significantly lower in a Newman-Keuls analysis at the .05 level (M = .66). Modality identification was also higher for words that had been seen than for words that had been heard (Ms= .79 and .69). Although there was no overall effect of encoding activity, the four-factor ANOVA did produce a statistically significant interaction between encoding activity and presentation modality, F(2, 132) = 9.98, p < .01. The results of simple effects analyses indicated that there were reliable effects of encoding activity on modality identification for each modality considered separately, F(2, 132) = 7.92, p < .01 for auditory words; and F(2, 132) = 4.76, p < .05 for visual words. The effects were quite different for the two modalities (see Figure 1). For auditory words, modality identification was lowest when
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CHILDREN YOUNG OLOER ADULTS ADULTS
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FIGURE 1. Effects of orienting task on modality identification for children, young adults, and older adults.
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The Jorirticrl of Grticrcil Psychology
nonsemantic encoding activities were performed, and there was no difference between the semantic orienting and no orienting conditions ( M s = .63, .73, and .72, respectively), Newman-Keuls at .05 level. For visual words, on the other hand, modality identification was lowest when semantic orienting activities were performed, and there was no difference between the nonsemantic orienting and no orienting conditions ( M s = .75, .82, and .81, respectively), Newman-Keuls at .05 level. Because of the presence of differential modality biases in the three age groups, a 3 x 3 (Age x Encoding Activity) ANOVA was conducted on the d’ scores separately for each presentation modality. Because both adult groups showed a slight visual bias (young adults, 59%; older adults, 5 8 % ) , and children showed a slight auditory bias (56%), there was a possibility that, for auditory words, modality identification might be artificially lowered for the adult groups and boosted for the children. The results of the ANOVAs were identical, however, to those reported previously for conditional proportions. Older adults remembered less information about modality than children and young adults did. The means were, respectively, 2.59,3.77, and 3.94 for auditory words, F(2, 69) = 4.31, p < .05; and 3.18, 4.24, and 4.51 for visual words, F(2, 69) = 5.86, p < .01. Also, for auditory presentation, modality identification was lowest with nonsemantic orienting activities, whereas for visual presentation, semantic orienting activities produced the lowest performance. The means for no orienting, semantic orienting, and nonsemantic orienting were, respectively, auditory, 3.57, 3.66, and 3.07, F(2, 138) = 7.39, p < .01; and visual, 4.14, 3.60, and 4.18, F ( 2 , 138) = 5.81, p < .01. Neither interaction between age and encoding activity was statistically significant. Word recall and its relationship lo modality identijication. Both age and encoding activity affected word recall (see Figure 2). These main effects were statistically significant in the four-factor ANOVA described previously, F(2, 66) = 21.71, p < .01; and F(2, 132) = 21.62, p < .01, respectively. The data for age indicated that young adults recalled the most words ( M = 9.92), followed by older adults ( M = 7.49) and then children ( M = 6.58). A Newman-Keuls analysis at the .05 level indicated that all differences were statistically significant and that word recall was significantly lower for the nonsemantic orienting task than for either the no orienting task or a semantic orienting task ( M s = 6.75, 8.71, and 8.53, respectively). This finding was reminiscent of the studies of Craik and Rabinowitz (1985) and Owings and Baumeister (1979). No other main effects or interactions were statistically significant. Modality identification was higher for visually presented words that had been recalled than for visually presented words that had not ( M s = .8 1 and .74). The difference was statistically significant in a 3 x 2 x 3 X 2 (Age X
Lehman, Bovasso, Grout, & Happ
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Modality Instructions x Encoding Activity x RecalleaNot Recalled) ANOVA, F( 1, 66) = 9.41, p < .01. No other factors interacted with it. Whether or not auditorily presented words had been recalled had no effect on the subjects’ identifying the modality of these words in the final recognition test (Ms = .70 and .69, respectively). In the auditory ANOVA, neither the main effect of recalledhot recalled nor any interactions with it were statistically significant. This differential effect of modality has also been reported in previous studies (Hintzman, Block, & Inskeep, 1972; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984).
Discussion Modality memory is clearly affected by age. In the present experiment, as has been reported previously (Lehman & Mellinger, 1984, 1986; McIntyre & Craik, 1987), older adults remembered less information about presentation modality than did young adults. Also confirmed in this experiment were previous findings of (a) equal modality identification under (modality) incidental and (modality) intentional instructions (Bray & Batchelder, 1972; Lehman, 1982;Lehman & Mellinger, 1984), (b) no reduction in word recall when participants were asked to learn the presentation modality of each word (Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984), and (c) similarly high levels of modality identification in children
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and young adults (Lehman & Hanzel, 1981). These three results held for all orienting tasks, although the no orienting task was critical because it most closely matched previous studies in procedure, which was the main reason for its inclusion in the present study. The two new questions asked were: (a) “Is modality memory affected by orienting tasks?” and (b) “Does orienting task interact with age to determine the amount of modality information remembered?” Answers to these questions provide evidence for resolving the automaticity issue and for understanding the decline in memory for presentation mode that occurs with age. Clearly, the answer to the first question is yes. In the present experiment, the orienting task had an effect on the amount of modality information the subjects remembered. For auditory words, modality memory was better with semantic encoding activities than with nonsemantic encoding activities, whereas for visual words, modality memory was better with nonsemantic encoding activities than with semantic encoding activities. Based on research involving the frequency attribute, we had predicted that memory for both words and modality would be better after semantic than after nonsemantic orienting activities. Craik (cf. Craik & Simon, 1980) suggested that, at least for young adults, with a semantic orienting task, each item is encoded semantically in a distinctive, contextually specific manner (i.e., associating item and context). By and large, this prediction has been confirmed in studies of frequency estimation (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Maki & Ostby, 1987; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986; Rose & Rowe, 1976; Rowe, 1974). In the present study, the order of orienting task effects on modality memory was as we expected for auditory words, but not for visual words. These results could not be attributed to any bias to report visual or auditory, because the biases varied with age group. Nor were the results a function of the order in which lists were presented, because this factor had no effect on modality identification, F < 1. There are three possible explanations. The first assumes that, as in the studies on frequency estimation, semantic processing has a beneficial effect on the retention of modality information. Given this assumption, our results make sense if, in the visual condition, subjects are already storing context with item information. Then a semantic orienting task may not improve modality identification because it does not change the ongoing encoding. In the auditory condition, however, if subjects store item and context information separately, then an orienting task that associates these two kinds of information (i.e., the semantic orienting task) may lead to a higher level of modality identification. This interpretation is supported by the finding in the present study and in earlier studies (cf. Hintzman et al., 1972; Lehman, 1982; Lehman & Mellinger, 1984) that modality memory for visual words is higher when the words have been recalled previously than when the words have not been recalled previously. The relationship be-
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tween word recall and modality identification is not present for auditory words. This differentialimprovement has been difficult to account for and has been regarded as almost an anomaly. Considered along with the effects of orienting tasks on modality identification in the two modalities, however, modality differences appear to be real and to have an important effect on how contextual information and semantic information are associated in memory. Rather than dealing with general modality differences, the second and third explanations for our results focus on the specific nonsemantic tasks used. The second explanation, which still assumes that deeperhroader semantic processing will benefit modality memory, is that the nonsemantic task used in our study (counting syllables) required greater attention to the words when they were presented visually than when they were presented auditorily. Thus, deeper processing than was originally intended may have been inadvertently produced in this condition. Rose and Row (1976) gave a similar explanation to account for their failure to find superior performance on a frequency judgment task with semantic orienting activity when the nonsemantic orienting activity involved generating rhymes. The third explanation for our results is based on the assumption that semantic processing may not necessarily benefit the retention of modality information. As F. I. M. Craik (personal communication, January 10, 1989) suggested, an orienting task that induces more modality-specific information might be expected to improve modality identification. For example, if counting syllables produced more relevant visual processing, then modality identification would be higher with the nonsemantic orienting task for visually presented words, but not for auditorily presented words. (This was the pattern of our results in the present study.) Whatever the explanation for our results, our finding that orienting tasks affected modality memory conflicts with Hasher and Zacks’s (1979) proposal that the processing of certain aspects of context is unaffected by subjects’ encoding strategies. If, as has been suggested by investigators of the effects of orienting tasks on frequency coding (Fisk & Schneider, 1984; Greene, 1984; Naveh-Benjamin & Jonides, 1986), insensitivity to strategy manipulation is a hallmark of automaticity, then one interpretation of these results is that the encoding of information about presentation modality does not occur automatically. Others advise caution in accepting such a broad interpretation. In discussing some of the difficulties involved in interpreting effects of orienting tasks on frequency judgments, Hintzman (1988) suggested that even though judgments of frequency may be affected by orienting activity, the information on which the frequency estimates are based may still be encoded automatically. Similarly, also in studies of frequency judgments, Naveh-Benjamin and Jonides (1986) pointed out that because many processes are involved in encoding and retrieving such information, it would be inappropriate to conclude
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The Journal of General Psychology
from studies of the effects of orienting tasks that all components of processing are not automatic. Perhaps the safest solution is to conclude from the results of the present experiment that at least some aspects of modality coding are not at the automatic end of the automatic/effortful continuum; that is, there is some effort involved in the processing of modality information. The answer to the second question, whether an interaction between orienting task and age was a factor in determining modality memory, is no. Although the orienting task had an effect on the amount of modality information a subject remembered, this effect was the same for children, young adults, and older adults, indicating that older adults encode modality in the same way that children and young adults do. Additionally, the absence of an interaction between orienting task and age for modality identification suggests that explanations focusing on encoding strategies and effort are not likely to account for the decrement in older adults’ ability to remember input mode. Apparently, older adults do not require more effort than young adults to encode information about presentation modality. REFERENCES Bray, N. W., & Batchelder, W. H. (1972). Effects of instructions and retention interval on memory for presentation mode. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, I I , 367-374. Cohen, G., & Faulkner, D. (1989). Age differences in source forgetting: Effects on reality monitoring and on eyewitness testimony. Psychology and Aging, 4 , 10-17. Craik, F. I. M., & Rabinowitz, J. C. (1985). The effects of presentation rate and encoding task on age-related memory deficits. Journal of Gerontology, 40, 309315. Craik, F. I. M . , & Simon, E. (1980). Age differences in memory: The roles of attention and depth of processing. In L. W. Poon, J. L. Fozard, L. S. Cermak, D. Arenberg, & L. W. Thompson (Eds.), New directions in memory and aging (pp. 95-1 12). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Craik, F. I. M., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 268-294. Emmerich, H. J. (1979). The effect of orienting activity on memory for pictures and words in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 28, 499515. Eysenck, M. W. (1974). Age differences in incidental learning. Developmental Psychology, 10, 936-941. Fisk, A. D., & Schneider, W. (1984). Memory as a function of attention, level of processing, and automatization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 181-1 97. Geis, M. F., & Hall, D. M. (1976). Encoding and incidental memory in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 22, 58-66. Ghatala, E. S., Carbonari, J. P., & Bobele, L. Z. (1980). Developmental changes in incidental memory as a function of processing level, congruity, and repetition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 29, 74-87.
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Gopnik, A., & Graf, P. (1988). Knowing how you know: Young children's ability to identify and remember the sources of their beliefs. Child Development, 59, 1366-1 37 1. Greene, R. L. (1984). Incidental learning of event frequency. Memory and Cognition, 12, 90-95. Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 356-388. Hashtroudi, S., Johnson, M. K., & Chrosniak, L. D. (1989). Aging and source monitoring. Psychology and Aging, 4 , 106-1 12. Hintzman, D. L. (1988). Judgments of frequency and recognition memory in a multiple-trace memory model. Psychological Review, 95, 528-55 I . Hintzman, D. L., Block, R. A., & Inskeep, N. R. (1972). Memory for mode of input. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 741-749. Johnson, M. K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality monitoring. Psychological Review, 88. 67-85. Lehman, E. B. (1982). Memory for modality: Evidence for an automatic process. Memory and Cognition, 10, 554-564. Lehman, E. B., & Hanzel, S. H. (1981). A developmental study of memory for presentation modality. Journal of General Psychology, 105, 155-164. Lehman, E. B., & Mellinger, J. C. (1984). Effects of aging on memory for presentation modality. Developmental Psychology, 20, 1210-1217. Lehman, E. B., & Mellinger, J. C. (1986). Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women. Psychology and Aging, 1 , 178-179. Madigan, S., & Doherty, L. (1972). Retention of item attributes in free recall. Psychonomic Science, 27, 233-235. Maki, R. H., & Ostby, R. S . (1987). Effects of level of processing and rehearsal on frequency judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 151-163. Mason, S. E. (1979). Effects of orienting tasks on the recall and recognition performance of subjects differing in age. Developmental Psychology, 15, 467-469. McIntyre, J. S., & Craik, F. I. M. (1987). Age differences in memory for item and source information. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41, 175-192. Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Jonides, J. (1986). On the automaticity of frequency coding: Effects of competing task load, encoding strategy, and intention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 378-386. Owings, R. A., & Baumeister, A. A. (1979). Levels of processing, encoding swtegies, and memory development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 28, 100-1 18. Rose, R. J., & Rowe, E. J. (1976). Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2 , 142-152. Rowe, E. J. (1974). Depth of processing in a frequency judgment task. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 638-643. Wechsler, D. (1974). Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation. Wechsler, D. (198 1). Manual for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation.
Received April 17, I991
