Title:
Memory Self-Modification as a Function of Confidence during Reconsolidation
Memory Self-Modification as a Function of Confidence during Reconsolidation
Author(s)
Yaun, Jeffrey W.
Advisor(s)
Verhaeghen, Paul
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Abstract
Students are often surprised to find that the grade they receive on an exam does not comport with the confidence they felt about their answers. What use, then, is confidence if it does not necessarily indicate accuracy? Better understanding of this question may not lie in approaching from a perspective of accuracy, but in the consistency of recall. Does confidence influence what is recalled, and does the act of recall itself provide enough of an opportunity to change what is recalled? What does this indicate about reconsolidation, the proposed process of reactivating and updating memory? This study examined these questions by providing participants with a pair of videos and a set of questions about their content, along with confidence judgements about their answers. After 4-day gap periods, participants twice recorded free-recall sessions about one of the two videos, then answered the original questions again. Results indicated that initial confidence is a strong predictor of subsequent recall and the consistency of recall, but failed to be a predictor for accuracy of recall. The predicted interaction of recall with confidence to predict consistency also failed to be statistically significant. Confidence may therefore play a greater role in the consistency of recall than in objective accuracy. The lack of a recall effect on accuracy or consistency may also indicate a more gradual process for changes in memory traces than predicted by reconsolidation theory.
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Date Issued
2023-07-31
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