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Age Equivalence in Feeling-of-Knowing Experiences

^a Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

Rebecca Allen-Burge, University of Alabama, Department of Psychology and The Applied Gerontology Program, Box 870348, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0348 E-mail: raburge{at}sw.ua.edu.

Decision Editor: Toni C. Antonucci, PhD

	Abstract

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Three studies investigated potential age-related differences in the reliance of healthy young and older adults on trace-access and inferential mechanisms in making feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments. In Experiment 1 young and older adults attempted to retrieve referents of rare-word definitions presented in a self-paced questionnaire. Recall failures were followed by FOK ratings and a report of partial knowledge of referent characteristics. Gamma coefficients revealed age equivalence in FOK accuracy, and the number of recall attempts and FOK ratings did not vary by age. Older adults reported fewer partial characteristics and made more commission errors, which suggests reliance on inferential mechanisms in addition to direct recall of target information. Experiments 2 and 3 examined age-related differences in reliance on trace-access or inferential processes via the influence of type of information primed prior to speeded recall attempt. Contrary to hypothesis, the influence of prime type did not vary by age. Reliance on trace-access and inferential mechanisms of FOK does not appear to vary by age. Individuals can be forced to rely on trace-access mechanisms for speeded FOK judgments.

THE feeling of knowing (FOK) has been defined as the feeling that one has some information in memory that is not directly retrievable at a given time (Hart 1965, Hart 1966, Hart 1967) and more generally as the belief that a piece of information can be retrieved from memory (Schunn, Reder, Nhouyvanisvong, Richards, and Stroffolino 1997). FOK is usually distinguished from the related tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon in which recall is perceived as imminent (A. S. Brown 1991; R. Brown and McNeill 1966). Two issues pervade research conducted over the past two decades regarding the FOK experience: (a) the mechanisms underlying FOK and (b) methodological approaches to producing and measuring FOK judgments and their accuracy. There is evidence that at least two broadly defined mechanisms may underlie FOK: (a) trace-access mechanisms involving direct activation of target information, such as the first letter of a to-be-remembered word and (b) inferential mechanisms involving activation of material other than the referent itself, such as familiarity with the topic area (Nelson, Gerler, and Narens 1984). Such inferences may be based on normative item difficulty (Nelson, Leonesio, Landwehr, and Narens 1986), cue or topic familiarity (Connor, Balota, and Neely 1992; Metcalfe, Schwartz, and Joaquim 1993; Schwartz and Metcalfe 1992), the summative activation of related information (Koriat 1993, Koriat 1994, Koriat 1995; Schwartz and Smith 1997), and plausibility (Reder 1982; Reder and Ritter 1992; Schunn et al. 1997). Theories supporting either or both of these broadly defined mechanisms of FOK affect the choice of the methods used to measure FOK judgments and their accuracy.

Two distinct methods (Schunn et al. 1997; Schwartz and Smith 1997) for the study of the FOK experience are judgments made after memory recall failures and rapid-strategy-choice decisions before recall. Early FOK studies relied on absolute, dichotomous ratings of FOK after memory retrieval failure (A. L. Brown and Lawton 1977; Hart 1965, Hart 1967) or relative FOK judgments between items (Nelson and Narens 1980). In a study typifying FOK research following memory retrieval failure in young adults, Connor and colleagues 1992 used rare-word definitions as stimuli for the production of no-recall states and FOKs. After reading a rare-word definition, participants were asked to retrieve the referent (i.e., word) or, if they could not retrieve the referent, indicate their degree of FOK on a Likert scale. In the first experiment, each block of definitions was followed by a lexical decision task in which the referents to the definitions were embedded within a list of distractor words and nonwords. In the second experiment, a lexical decision task in which the referents to the definitions were embedded was presented 1 week prior to the rare-word definitions. These authors found that participants responded more rapidly to "target words" even when the lexical decisions preceded the rare-word definitions by l week (i.e., prior to the recall task). They concluded that topic familiarity contributed to FOK ratings made by young adults.

In contrast, Reder conceptualized FOK as a means of guiding rapid response strategy selection (Reder 1982, Reder 1987, Reder 1988). She suggested that rapid judgments based on plausible inference may be just as accurate as decisions based on direct recall and that reliance on plausibility strategies increases as the quality of verbatim memory decreases. Thus, speeded decisions regarding the availability of information in memory are, in essence, decisions based on rapidly arising FOK from either direct recall or inferential mechanisms (Reder and Ritter 1992). Reder and Ritter conducted two experiments using novel information in which they concluded that FOK results from familiarity with items in the question, not with direct recall of the answer. They presented young adults with arithmetic problems, some of which were paired with the answer and presented multiple times. They then presented problems without answers in which the operators had been switched and gave participants a short time in which to decide if they wanted to attempt to recall the answer or to calculate it. Participants were likely to choose to recall when presented familiar problems in which the operator had been switched. It appeared that they were misled into thinking they knew the answer to novel problems because of high FOK arising from familiarity with problem components.

Alternatively, Schunn and colleagues 1997 suggested that people attempt recall first depending on how recently they encountered the information to be remembered. If FOK judgments are based on rapid recall of information because of recent use of recall processes, participants should not choose to retrieve answers to infrequently answered experimental problems. If, however, FOK relies more heavily on familiarity and inferential processes, simple exposure to infrequently answered problems should increase the probability of a participant's selecting recall as a response strategy. Results from two experiments conducted by Schunn and colleagues supported the familiarity hypothesis of FOK as a means of strategy selection.

Reder 1982 suggestion that reliance on inferential processes based on plausibility increases as the quality of verbatim memory decreases has implications for the experience and expression of FOK across the adult age range. Early recall-failure studies typically found age invariance in the accuracy of FOK judgments (Butterfield, Nelson, and Peck 1988; Lachman, Lachman, and Thronesbery 1979). Healthy adult cognitive aging, however, is accompanied by slowing of information processing speed and diminishing ability to retrieve information (Smith 1996). Inferential mechanisms involving plausibility or prior knowledge have been shown to lead older adults to errors of inference regarding what they know (e.g., Dywan and Jacoby 1990). Even among young adults, speeded retrieval decisions may lead to inaccurate metamnemonic judgments (Benjamin, Bjork, and Schwartz 1998). Thus, FOK judgments measured by rapid-strategy-selection decisions, as suggested by Reder and her colleagues, may reveal age-related differences in reliance on inferential mechanisms underlying FOK.

In these experiments we used both recall-failure and speeded-strategy-selection methods to investigate whether younger and older adults differed in FOK. We hypothesized that older adults would report more extensive FOK, particularly using speeded-strategy-selection measures, because older adults' hypothesized greater reliance on inferential strategies as a result of slower speed of processing. In Experiment 1 we used the more common method of having participants make FOK judgments on a Likert scale after recall failure. In Experiments 2 and 3 we examined FOK as a rapid means of strategy selection (recall vs recognition).

	Experiment 1

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
In Experiment 1 we extended Brown and McNeill 1966 tip-of-the-tongue state method to examine possible age-related differences in mechanisms underlying FOK experiences. We used rare-word definitions and a self-paced paper-and-pencil format. Following recall failure, we obtained information regarding the participants' knowledge of the first letter of the referent, the number of syllables of the referent, or words similar in meaning or sound to the referent. A finding that FOK ratings are similar across age but that older adults report fewer partial characteristics of referents (e.g., Burke, Worthley, and Martin 1988) would suggest that older adults base FOK ratings on ancillary information as well as trace-access mechanisms. Alternatively, similar Goodman-Kruskal gamma coefficients (Nelson 1984) for younger and older adults between FOK ratings and report of partial characteristics would suggest age equivalence in the degree to which older and younger adults use target retrieval in making FOK judgments.

	Methods

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Participants
Participants were 45 young adults aged 18–21 years () and 45 older adults aged 62–79 (). Young adults were recruited from a volunteer pool of college students maintained by the Psychology Department at Washington University; older adults were from a pool of healthy volunteers from the community recruited through media announcements to participate in a variety of unspecified research projects. Individuals were paid $5 for participation. The older adults were more educated (M = 15.02 years, SD = 2.26) than were the younger adults (M = 13.84 years, SD = 0.97), t(88) = 3.21, p < .01.

Materials
The 50 rare-word definitions were chosen from pools developed by Yaniv and Meyer 1987 and Burke, MacKay, Worthley, and Wade 1991 and were printed on alternating opaque pink and yellow pages. Each definition was associated with three pages in the questionnaire. The definition and the FOK rating scale were printed on the first page. The second page contained structured questions regarding partial information of the word individuals had in mind as the referent. The third page contained a two-alternative forced-choice recognition test. The foils for this recognition task were the most frequently chosen incorrect response for the definitions as determined by Connor 1992 and Connor and colleagues 1992.

Procedure
Participants were tested in small groups of no more than 4 individuals but worked at their own pace. The experimenter read aloud one definition as an example. Participants were told to write their answer in the space provided or to indicate DK if they did not know the answer. If individuals recalled the answer, they skipped to the next definition. If they did not recall the answer, they rated their FOK on a 7-point scale with 7 indicating high FOK. They then guessed the first letter of the word, how many syllables were in the word, and where the stress fell in the word. Responses to these items were coded as correct or incorrect. Then participants listed words that sounded like the target and words that meant the same as the target. The number of such words plus the number of correct dichotomous partial reports represented the total number of correct partial characteristics for each definition. Finally, participants completed the two-choice forced-choice recognition of the answer to the definition

The experimenter encouraged participants to guess if they were unsure of a response so that cautious reporting bias and the effect of individual variations in reporting thresholds would be minimized (Hart 1966). If participants guessed, they were told to answer all of the questions regarding partial information of the referent.

	Results and Discussion

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
There was no difference between young and older adults in the total number of recall attempts; thus, older adults did not respond to the recall task in a more cautious manner than young adults (Table 1 ). There was also no difference between the two age groups in the number of unrecalled items that were subsequently recognized, perhaps indicating a similar level of task difficulty and/or knowledge of the material for young and older adults. Finally, there were no differences between the two age groups in FOK ratings. Gamma coefficients between FOK ratings and the subsequent number of correct recognitions indicated that younger and older adults were equal in their FOK accuracy (gamma = .16, adjusted standard error [ASE] = .09; gamma = .15, ASE = .10). These gamma coefficients, however, were much lower than reported in previous research (Butterfield et al. 1988), indicating a tenuous relationship between subjective FOK ratings after recall failure and subsequent recognition performance in both age groups.

Table 1 reveals that older adults committed more errors (incorrect recalls) than younger adults, , p < .05. Therefore, young adults answered more of their recall attempts correctly (67%) than did older adults (55%), although this difference in accuracy did not reach statistical significance. Additionally, young adults reported more partial characteristics of the unrecalled targets than did older adults, , p < .05. Because the older adults had more years of education than the young adults, we examined the correlations between the dependent variables and education; generally they were small, ranging from -.01 to .24. When we repeated the analyses reported in Table 1 using education as a covariate, the results did not differ.

A methodological problem with FOK research relying on between-subjects designs and subjective ratings of FOK magnitude is that FOK judgments are sensitive to interpersonal variation in the threshold for claiming to know to-be-remembered information (Carroll and Nelson 1993; Nelson and Narens 1980). The equivocal results of Experiment 1, including the report of fewer partial characteristics of target words and more commission errors by older adults but gamma coefficients equally low in younger and older adults, led to a shift in methodology. In Experiments 2 and 3, FOK was conceptualized as rapid strategy selection (Reder 1982; Reder and Ritter 1992). Specifically, in these experiments a subjectively high level of FOK would be reflected by a participant's choosing a recall rather than recognition strategy in a rapid-strategy-selection paradigm (Reder and Ritter 1992; Schunn et al. 1997).

	Experiment 2

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
In this experiment we tested younger and older adults' reliance on question familiarity (an inferential mechanism) and target retrievability (a trace-access mechanism) in making speeded FOK judgments. Participants were asked to make rapid decisions about whether they knew the referent to a rare-word definition after having read aloud a word list containing referents, words from the definitions, and irrelevant words. As illustrated in Fig. 1, a rare-word definition might be building in which Muslims worship Allah. The referent is mosque, the word from the definition, or question term, is Muslims, and the irrelevant word is lobster. FOK was defined as the number of times the participant chose to recall the referent (rather than recognize it) when subsequently given the definition. Prior exposure to referents or question terms should increase FOK and, therefore, the number of times recall was chosen as the response strategy in comparison with prior exposure to irrelevant words.

View larger version (17K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Procedural flow of computerized game show task used in Experiments 2 and 3.

	Methods

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Participants
Young adults aged 19–32 years () were recruited from a student volunteer pool maintained in the Psychology Department at Washington University; older adults aged 61–79 years () were obtained from a volunteer pool of older adults recruited from the community through media announcements seeking people to participate in a variety of unspecified research projects. All participants were required to have at least a 10th-grade education, English as their first language, and no report or evidence of impairment in verbal ability (i.e., self-reported reading disability or very low score on the Wechsler Adults Intelligence Scale-Revised [WAIS-R] Information subtest; Wechsler 1981). All participants were required to demonstrate ability to learn the game show task (see Procedure section) as evidenced by at least half their trials resulting in a strategy selection in less than 15 s. One young adult and 2 older adults were eliminated on this basis. Each participant was paid _$5 and competed within their age group for a free dinner for two at a local restaurant.

The mean ages of the young and older adults were 23.41 () and 70.98 () years, respectively. The older adults were significantly less educated () than the young adults (), , p < .01. More important, however, was the similarity of the WAIS-R Information raw scores, , p > .05. The mean values were 23.76 () and 23.11 () for the young and older groups, respectively. The WAIS-R Information subtest was chosen rather than the Vocabulary subtest as a measure of verbal knowledge because of time constraints, ease of administration, and the high correlation between the Information and Vocabulary subtests across the adult age range in the WAIS-R standardization sample (, Wechsler 1981).

Materials
As in Experiment 1, the 105 rare-word definitions used in this study were chosen from pools developed by Yaniv and Meyer 1987 and Burke and colleagues 1991. Question terms were based on the opinions of four independent judges who chose the most salient word from each definition (77% agreement; definitions and question terms available from the authors on request). We chose irrelevant words to match question terms and referents in approximate length and frequency in printed American English. There was, however, a significant difference in word frequency among the three prime types, , p < .01; the mean word frequency was 1.89 words per million () for referents, 6.50 words per million () for irrelevant words, and 16.81 words per million () for terms from the questions (Kucera and Francis 1967).

We used 15 of the 105 definitions as practice trials to acquaint participants with the task. The remaining 90 definitions and their three primes were separated into three groups of 30. Counterbalancing the prime type across the three groups of definitions produced six lists of 90 words each. In each list, therefore, 30 of the words were referents for 30 definitions, 30 words were question terms for another 30 definitions, and 30 words were irrelevant words for the remaining 30 definitions. The six lists were equated for proportion of proper nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, verbs, and adjectives included (Burke et al. 1988).

Procedure
After administering the WAIS-R Information subtest, the experimenter used the game show paradigm (Fig. 1) to explain the method and system of rewarding rapid and accurate performance (Reder and Ritter 1992; Schunn et al. 1997). The 105-item word list was printed on a sheet of paper; participants were asked to read it aloud twice so that the experimenter could assess their normal reading speed. The rare-word definitions were then presented on the screen of a Compu-Add 286 microcomputer. The order of the first 15 practice trials was the same for each person and included 5 items primed by the referent, 5 by a word from the question, and 5 by an irrelevant word. The order of the remaining 90 items was randomized for each person. The experimenter sat by the participant to record the accuracy of the individual's verbal responses.

Participants were told to decide rapidly (within 15 s) whether to attempt to recall the referent to the definition or to choose it in a forced-choice recognition format. The experimenter encouraged participants to respond as rapidly as possible to measure adequately the influence of question familiarity rather than actual recall. Participants indicated their choice by pressing one of two keys on the computer keyboard. They executed their strategy by speaking their answer into a voice-key microphone and then initiated the next trial by pressing the Enter key.

To encourage people to rely on FOK and discourage cautiousness, the experimenter awarded correct answers 20 points if the participant used the recall strategy but only 5 points if the participants used the recognition strategy. No points were given for wrong answers. Participants received feedback after every 15th trial regarding speed relative to the preceding 15 trials (i.e., faster, slower, or the same) and their cumulative point total. Participants were told that they were competing with others in their age range for a dinner for two at a local restaurant.

In the forced-choice recognition option, we paired the referent words with a foil to give the participant two alternatives. Foils were the most frequently reported incorrect response to the definition (Connor et al. 1992) and were similar to the referents in meaning and frequency ( words per million, ). For example, the foil paired with mosque was pagoda.

Following completion of the 90 rare-word definitions, individuals completed a computerized forced-choice recognition memory test for the 30 irrelevant words from the priming list so that we could assess their recollection of the priming list as well as the lists' familiarity. Participants chose which of two words presented on the computer they had seen in the initial word list by pressing one of two keys on the computer keyboard. The irrelevant words were paired with a foil from the same part of speech and occurring with similar frequency (; Kucera and Francis 1967).

Method of Analysis
The FOK would be indicated by selection of recall as the strategy choice; selection of recognition as the strategy choice would indicate that the participant had low-level FOK (Table 2 ). The selection of recall as the response strategy used as a measure of FOK is not process pure, however, because actual recall of the referent to the rare-word definition would also lead to the choice of recall as the strategy selection. Therefore, additional dependent measures indicating a high level of FOK were identified. These included (a) recall choice latency, with more rapid latencies indicating stronger FOK, (b) recall speech latency, with slower speech latencies indicating greater reliance on inferential mechanisms rather than trace-access mechanisms of FOK, (c) accuracy of the strategy choice, indicated by a mathematical comparison of the number of hits, false alarms, and recognition choices with the nonparametric sensitivity measure A' (Pastore and Scheirer 1974), and (d) hits, or the latency to choose recall followed by subsequent correct recall of the rare-word definition. All these dependent measures conceptualize FOK experiences as driving decisions regarding response strategy. A high level of FOK would lead to a choice of recall as the response strategy.

Significant List x Prime Type interactions were observed for a number of analyses conducted in this experiment. This interaction involving the list control variable, however, merely indicates that the nature of the stimulus materials in studies of FOK influences the responses of participants. Because each stimulus word rotated across the three priming conditions for all participants, these effects do not compromise the interpretation of the results. None of the three-way interactions involving age, list, and prime type approached significance. Thus, these interactions are not reported in any detail. Rare-word definitions and stimulus lists including question terms are available from the authors on request.

	Results

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Strategy Choice
The means and standard deviations of the number of times the young and older adults chose to recall the referent of the rare-word definition rather than to recognize it are shown in Table 3 for the three types of priming conditions. The results of the mixed ANOVA revealed a main effect of prime type, , p < .05, but no main effect of age, , and no Age x Prime Type interaction, . Post hoc analyses indicated that participants chose to recall the answer more frequently when they had been primed by the referent rather than by either a word from the question or an irrelevant word; there was no difference between the latter two conditions.

As is usually the case with speeded measures, there was a significant effect of age, , p < .05. As shown in Table 3 , the older adults were slower. More important, however, was the significant effect of prime type, , p < .05. Post hoc comparisons showed that people responded faster in their decision to recall if they had been primed with the referent for the definition than if they had been primed by either a word from the definition or an irrelevant word. Latencies for the latter two conditions were not significantly different. The interaction of age with prime type was not significant, .

Recall Speech Latency
We also anticipated that prior exposure to referents would decrease the speech latency when the word was recalled (i.e., priming). Prior exposure to a word from the question, however, would increase the speech latency if the person "mistakenly" chose to recall the word on the basis of familiarity rather than trace access. Hence, median speech latencies for trials on which the person chose to recall the word were examined in the mixed model ANOVA. The speech latencies for recall were quite fast. In addition to the 1 older adult who never chose recall, 1 older adult never produced speech latencies in response to question term primes. Neither the main effect for age, , nor for prime type, , were significant, nor was the Age x Prime Type interaction, . Means and standard deviations for the young and older adults in the three prime type conditions are shown in Table 3 .

Accuracy of Strategy Choice
We also subjected A', the nonparametric equivalent of the sensitivity measure d' (Pastore and Scheirer 1974), to the mixed model ANOVA to evaluate the influence of prime type on accuracy of strategy choice (see Table 2 ). Means and standard deviations are shown in Table 3 . In addition to the 1 older adult who never chose recall, 2 older adults did not respond correctly to stimuli within each type of prime. There was a significant effect of prime type, , p < .05, but no effect of age, , and no Age x Prime Type interaction, . Post hoc tests revealed that answers were more accurate when the person had been primed with the referent than with either the question term or the irrelevant word; the latter two conditions were not significantly different from each other.

Hits
We also analyzed the latencies of decisions to recall that were followed by successful retrievals (Table 3 ). Once again, data for 3 older adults were not included because the individuals either never chose recall or never correctly recalled the referent within each prime type. There were significant main effects of age, , p < .05, and prime type, , p < .05. There was also a significant Age x Prime Type interaction, , p < .05. , p < .01, we observed faster latencies after priming with referents than after priming in either of the other two conditions. Priming with terms from the questions also resulted in faster choice latencies for young adults than priming with irrelevant words. For older adults, however, priming with question terms was not associated with faster latencies than priming with irrelevant words. Rather, older adults had almost equal response latencies for referent and irrelevant word primes.

Recognition Memory for Irrelevant Words
As expected, young adults were more accurate in identifying irrelevant words that had been primed () than were older adults (), , p < .05, indicating that the young adults had a better ability to encode and retrieve information from memory. The number of correct recognitions of irrelevant words that had been primed, however, was not significantly correlated (-.26 to .30) with any of the dependent variables shown in Table 3 in either the young or older adults.

	Discussion

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Contrary to our hypothesis, younger and older adults usually responded to priming of target words and related information in a similar manner. Support was found for the theory that target retrievability—a trace-access mechanism—underlies rapid FOK judgments in both younger and older adults. Priming with referents increased the number of recall choices and subsequent hits, but priming with question terms had no effect on the number of recall choices. In general, referent primes were also the only type of prime that decreased choice latencies. Participants were slower to choose recognition than they were to choose recall, lending support to the idea that they were following directions and opting for the recognition strategy only once they had considered whether or not they could recall the referent.

The only support found for the idea that inferential processes underlie speeded FOK judgments, as measured by the influence of question-term primes, was the analysis of choice latencies resulting in a hit. Younger adults were faster in making the choice for recall and subsequently answering correctly when primed by either the referent or a question term than if they were primed with an irrelevant word. It appears that the younger adults relied on FOK judgments arising from both familiarity and target retrievability to make a decision to attempt recall. Older adults, contrary to our hypothesis, did not. In fact, older adults responded similarly to referent and irrelevant word primes. Perhaps older adults make different memory inferences on the basis of a high FOK. For younger adults a high FOK leads to the inference that the person knows and will recall the information. Older adults may not trust their ability to recall the information. They may, in fact, associate such an experience with failure to recall the information. Thus, older adults may associate attempts that are based on high FOK with lower memory self-efficacy and interpret FOK as a failure-to-retrieve cue. Replication of this potentially interesting pattern of results and exploration of the memory self-efficacy hypothesis is needed.

Unfortunately, the results of Experiment 2 are complicated by the extremely rapid speech response latencies. It is possible that the demand characteristics of the task encouraged participants to take sufficient time within the 15-s response window in choosing their strategy to recall a word as the referent to the definition (Widner, Smith, and Graziano 1996). If such were the case, they would not be relying on plausibility judgments at all in making their strategy choice decision but instead on direct recall. We conducted Experiment 3 to address this problem, to replicate the potentially interesting results regarding choice latencies resulting in a hit, and to explore the idea that there may be age differences in memory self-efficacy for speeded FOK.

	Experiment 3

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
In Experiment 3 we modified the instructions and method of the game show task to maximize the effect of plausible inference arising from familiarity on FOK responses. Specifically, the time given participants to make a decision as to whether to attempt recall or rely on recognition was reduced to 5 s, and speed of response was emphasized to participants. A measure of memory self-efficacy was included as a potential mediating variable. The reward system remained unchanged; the individual with the highest total score in the game within each age group won two free dinners.

	Methods

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Participants
Participant selection criteria remained the same. The 66 young adults had a mean age of 20.36 years (, ) and an average of 14.66 years of education (). They were recruited from general undergraduate courses in the Department of Psychology at The Pennsylvania State University and received course credit for participation. The 66 older adults were again solicited through the volunteer pool at Washington University. They had a mean age of 71.51 years () and an average of 14.39 years of education (). The older adults were paid $5 for participation. Young and older adults did not differ in years of education, . Older adults, however, demonstrated significantly greater verbal ability as measured by the WAIS-R Information subtest than did young adults, , p < .05. The mean raw score was 19.15 () for young adults and 21.53 () for older adults.

Materials
The materials used were the same as used in Experiment 2. To examine possible age-related differences in memory self-efficacy on FOK judgments, we administered the Memory Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (MSEQ; Berry, West, & Dennehey, 1989). This rationally constructed test describes 10 memory tasks for which individuals assess their memory abilities. Tasks include recall for word pairs, digits, pictures, telephone numbers, locations, and names. For each task the most difficult level is listed first, followed by four descending levels of task difficulty. Individuals indicate whether or not they can perform the task at each level of difficulty and their confidence in that rating. Internal consistency estimates range from .90 to .92, and criterion validity has been demonstrated in a comparison of MSEQ ratings with actual performance of laboratory and everyday memory tasks (Berry et al. 1989).

Equipment
The computer tasks were controlled by an IBM 8088 or a Compu-Add 286 microcomputer equipped to measure response latency to the nearest millisecond. Stimulus presentation was synchronized with the timer via software routines. A voice-key microphone interfaced with the computer measured naming latencies.

Procedure
The procedure followed that used in Experiment 2 with the addition of the MSEQ after the WAIS-R Information subtest at the beginning of the experimental session. Only 5 s, rather than 15 s, was allowed for the strategy choice. Once again, only participants who produced data in every condition were included in the analyses.

	Results

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Method of Analysis
As in Experiment 2, the design of the study required a 2 (age) x 6 (list) x 3 (prime type) mixed ANOVA. Again, effects involving list are not reported. The WAIS-R Information subtest score was significantly correlated with two of the dependent measures shown in Table 4 : number of recall choices ( for young and older adults, respectively) and recall choice latency ( for young and older adults, respectively). Therefore, the Information score was used as a covariate in the analyses of these two dependent variables.

Strategy Choice
The means and standard deviations of the number of times the younger and older adults chose to recall the referent of the rare-word definition rather than to recognize it are shown in Table 4 for the three types of priming conditions. The results of the mixed analysis of covariance revealed only a main effect of age, F(1,119) = 13.63, p < .05. The older adults were more likely to select recall than the younger adults. None of the other effects approached significance.

Recall Choice Latency
Nine younger adults and 3 older adults never chose recall; thus, no recall choice latency data were available for these individuals. An additional 6 individuals did not respond within the recall choice latency window for certain prime types, and data from these individuals were also excluded from these analyses. After removing the effects of verbal ability as measured by the WAIS-R Information subtest, we found that the median latencies for recall choices were still more rapid for younger adults than for older adults, , p < .05 (see Table 4 ). No other main effects or interactions were significant, all ps > .05. Notably, younger and older adults were slightly slower to choose recall in comparison with recognition as a response strategy ( ms, respectively).

Recall Speech Latency
The speech response latencies for recall were notably slower than in Experiment 2 (grand means of 896 vs 403 ms, respectively). In Experiment 3 neither the main effects of age nor of prime type were statistically significant. As can be seen from Table 4 , however, the Age x Prime Type interaction approached significance because of slow but widely variable response times among older adults to irrelevant word primes, F(2,212) = 2.70, p = .07. Once again, we did not include data for participants who never chose recall as a response strategy or did not produce speech latency data for all three prime types.

Accuracy of Strategy Choice
In Experiment 3 neither the main effects of age and prime type nor their interaction was statistically significant (all ps > .05). As can be seen from Table 3 and Table 4 , both younger and older adults were somewhat less accurate in their verbal responses to recall choices when forced to choose their response strategy more rapidly.

Hits
As in Experiment 2, an analysis was conducted on the latencies of decisions to retrieve that were followed by successful recall. Although there was a main effect of age, , p < .05, no other main effects or interactions were significant, nor did they approach significance. As expected, younger adults were more rapid responders ( ms, SD = 1,047) than were older adults ( ms, ).

Recognition Memory for Irrelevant Words
Once again, young adults were more accurate in identifying irrelevant words that had been primed () than were older adults (, , p < .05, indicating that young adults had a better ability to encode and retrieve information from memory. The speed of recognition of irrelevant words was significantly, but modestly, correlated with strategy choice latencies in younger adults () and strongly correlated in older people (), indicating that individuals who rapidly chose their response strategy tended to respond more rapidly on the recognition task. Additionally, the number of correct irrelevant word recognitions was correlated with younger adults' speech latency () and older adults' number of recall attempts () and strategy choice latency (). In general, individuals who remembered more of the priming list were more rapid responders. Older adults who remembered more of the priming list were more likely to attempt recall as a response strategy.

	General Discussion

TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 
Contrary to hypothesis, little evidence was found in these three experiments of age-related differences in reliance on trace-access or inferential mechanisms of FOK judgments. In Experiment 1, evidence for trace-access mechanisms was provided by the ability of individuals within both age groups to report partial characteristics of the target. Indirect evidence of inferential mechanisms was provided by the age-related difference in the amount of partial characteristics reported. Although there were no age-related differences in the level of FOK reported or the gamma coefficients between FOK ratings and subsequent recognition, older adults reported fewer partial characteristics of target words and produced more commission errors. Interpretation of these results is difficult, however, because of alternative explanations for the findings. For instance, it is possible that older adults in Experiment 1 used a different criterion for making FOK judgments than did younger adults. Specifically, older adults could have experienced less absolute activation of target-relevant or related information in memory but interpreted it to indicate the same level of FOK as younger adults experiencing greater absolute activation of memory information. Thus, the methodological limitations of this experiment led us to investigate speeded FOK decisions and possible age-related differences in reliance on trace-access (referent-primed) or inferential (question-term-primed) mechanisms underlying strategy selection.

The only evidence from the game show studies that supported age-related differences in the mechanisms underlying speeded FOK judgments was the decreased choice latency for hits in young adults following priming with question terms in Experiment 2. This effect was not replicated in Experiment 3, however, when the amount of time participants had to choose a strategy was decreased. Indeed, Experiments 2 and 3 provided little evidence of FOKs arising from plausible inference as measured by responses to question-term primes. It appears that, when given sufficient time and a high payoff for correct recall as in Experiment 2, people do not rely on judgments of plausibility; they rely on direct recall. The extremely rapid speech response latencies in Experiment 2 support this interpretation. When forced to make a strategy decision more rapidly, as in Experiment 3, participants had insufficient time for direct recall.

As shown in Experiment 3, it is unlikely that poorer memory self-efficacy influenced the responses of older adults faced with FOK based on familiarity in a situation that allows direct recall. Neither memory self-efficacy level nor strength was significantly associated with the dependent variables reflecting FOK judgments in Experiment 3. Nor does differential cautiousness seem to be at work. There was no difference between younger and older adults in the overall number of recall attempts in Experiment 2, and older adults attempted recall more frequently than younger adults in Experiment 3. Because people were supposed to choose recall only when they believed they knew the answer, finding no difference between age groups in the number of recall choices also lends support to the idea that there were no differences in the number of FOKs elicited. Thus, the stimuli did not appear to be differentially more suited to one age group in terms of knowledge of the answers.

Analysis of the choice latencies resulting in a hit in Experiment 2 and recall speech latency in Experiment 3 shows that older adults may respond differently than younger adults to irrelevant word primes in studies using this method to investigate speeded FOK decisions. In Experiment 2, older adults responded almost as rapidly to irrelevant word primes as to referent primes on trials in which their choice to retrieve resulted in a hit. Further investigation of this anomalous finding is needed.

Our findings are discrepant from those of Reder and Ritter 1992 and Schunn and colleagues 1997 with regard to the influence of inferential mechanisms on speeded FOK decisions. One possible explanation for this is the use of rare-word definitions in these studies in comparison with Reder and colleagues' use of novel stimuli. Although we measured and attempted to control statistically for age-related differences in education and verbal ability in these studies, it is often difficult to equate age groups with regard to prior exposure to and knowledge of rare-word definitions. Therefore, use of novel stimuli such as arithmetic problems may be preferable (e.g., Reder and Ritter 1992; Schunn et al. 1997) in studies of trace-access and inferential influences on speeded FOK decisions.

The task demands of the various methods used to study FOK states appear to drive reliance on which mechanisms of FOK judgments will be used (Widner et al. 1996). When participants are relatively well educated, encouraged to retrieve information, given enough time, and rewarded for attempting recall, trace-access mechanisms will be used regardless of the age of the person. Future studies of age-related differences in speeded FOK judgments should consider use of a decision window longer than 5 s but considerably shorter than 15 s along with the use of novel stimuli.

	Acknowledgments

 
Experiment 2 was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Portions of this manuscript were presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York. The research reported in this article was supported, in part, by a research grant from Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and Training Grants AG 00030 and MH 18904 from the National Institutes of Health. We thank Judith Kroll for use of laboratory space, Mark Burge for computer programming consultation, and David Balota and Sandra Hale for advice at all stages of this work. Jill Baker, Richard Epstein, Deborah Gerhart, Michelle Linz, Allison Potter, and Marianne Stokes assisted with data collection.

Received for publication March 18, 1999. Accepted for publication February 8, 2000.

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TOP Abstract Experiment 1 Methods Results and Discussion Experiment 2 Methods Results Discussion Experiment 3 Methods Results General Discussion References

 

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