Does context recollection depend on the base-rate of contextual features?

Abstract

Episodic recollection is defined by the re-experiencing of contextual and target details of a past event. The base-rate dependency hypothesis assumes that the retrieval of one contextual feature from an integrated episodic trace cues the retrieval of another associated feature, and that the more often a particular configuration of features occurs, the more effective this mutual cueing will be. Alternatively, the conditional probability of one feature given another feature may be neglected in memory for contextual features since they are not directly bound to one another. Three conjoint recognition experiments investigated whether memory for context is sensitive to the base-rates of features. Participants studied frequent versus infrequent configurations of features and, during the test, they were asked to recognise one of these features with (vs. without) another feature reinstated. The results showed that the context recollection parameter, representing the re-experience of contextual features in the dual-recollection model, was higher for frequent than infrequent feature configurations only when the binding of feature information was made easier and the differences in the base-rates were extreme, otherwise no difference was found. Similarly, base-rates of features influenced response guessing only in the condition with salient differences in base-rates. The Bayes factor analyses showed that the evidence from two of our experiments favoured the base-rate neglect hypothesis over the base-rate dependency hypothesis; the opposite result was obtained in the third experiment, but only when high base-rate disproportion and facilitated feature binding conditions were used.

Keywords: Base-rate neglect; Conjoint recognition paradigm; Context memory; Deep distortions; Dual-recollection theory.

Fig. 1

A circle diagram illustrating the proportions of contextual features presented at the study phase of Experiment 1. Green areas depict words in Colour 1, blue areas in Colour 2, lattices represent words in large font, and vertical lines represent words in small font

Fig. 2

A part of the multinomial dual-recollection model used in Experiment 1 (based on Brainerd et al. , Fig. 1). Colour1?, Colour2?, and Colour1 or Colour2? refer to probe questions. RC is a context recollection parameter, RT is a target recollection parameter, F is a familiarity parameter, and b is a response bias parameter. Subscripts indicate the kind of target determined by the font size and colour

Fig. 3

Mean corrected-for-guessing acceptance rates for accurate colour recognition for configurations of contextual features in Experiment 1. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals. Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of items in the condition

Fig. 4

Mean false alarm rates in Experiment 1. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals

Fig. 5

Procedure of Experiment 2. During study, the information about the colour, object, and place were provided, and colour information was represented as a word or a font. During the conjoint recognition test, the object or object-and-place were used as the cues, and the participants were asked about the colour information

Fig. 6

Mean corrected-for-guessing acceptance rates for accurate colour recognition for frequent versus infrequent configurations of features in Experiment 2. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals

Fig. 7

False alarm rates in Experiment 2. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals

Fig. 8

Mean corrected-for-guessing acceptance rates for accurate colour recognition for frequent versus infrequent configurations of features in Experiment 3. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals

Fig. 9

False alarm rates in Experiment 3. Error bars represent 95% credible intervals