Information accumulation on the item versus source test of source monitoring: Insights from diffusion modeling
- PMID: 39363118
- PMCID: PMC12141409
- DOI: 10.3758/s13421-024-01636-2
Information accumulation on the item versus source test of source monitoring: Insights from diffusion modeling
Abstract
Source monitoring involves attributing previous experiences (e.g., studied words as items) to their origins (e.g., screen positions as sources). The present study aimed toward a better understanding of temporal aspects of item and source processing. Participants made source decisions for recognized items either in succession (i.e., the standard format) or in separate test blocks providing independent measures of item and source decision speed. Comparable speeds of item and source decision across the test formats would suggest a full separation between item and source processing, whereas different speeds would imply their (partial) temporal overlap. To test these alternatives, we used the drift rate parameter of the diffusion model (Ratcliff, Psychological Review, 85, 59-108, 1978). We examined whether the drift rates, together with the other parameters, assessed separately for the item and source decision varied as a function of the test format. Threshold separation and nondecision time differed between the test formats, but item and source decision speeds represented by drift rates did not change significantly. Thus, despite facilitation on the source decision when the item decision was immediately followed by a test for source memory than when item and source were tested in separate blocks, findings did not suggest that source information already begins accumulating in the item test in the standard format. We discuss the temporal sequence of item and source processing in light of different assumptions about the contribution of familiarity and recollection.
Keywords: Diffusion model; Item memory; Source memory; Source monitoring; Temporal sequence.
© 2024. The Author(s).
Conflict of interest statement
Declarations. Conflicts of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. Ethics approval: All procedures performed in the study were carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, the guidelines of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), and the guidelines of the University of Mannheim ethics committee. Consent to participate: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Consent to publish: The authors affirm that participants provided informed consent for publication of the anonymized data.
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