The Effect Of Part-list Cues On Associative Memory:Behavioral And ERPs Evidence

When presented with a part of previously learned items as retrieval cues in the test phase,participants performed worse on other items than when cues were not given,this phenomenon by part-list cues induced forgetting phenomenon was named part-list cuing effect.At present,the research on the part-list cuing effect focuses on item memory,however,we often represent an event or experience in the way of binding or association.Besides,the research is limited on the influencing factors in the test phase of associative memory,this part-list cuing effect can be extended to associative memory remains unknown.Therefore,through two behavioral experiments and one ERPs experiment,the present study explored the effect of part-list cueing on associative recognition.Experiment 1 combined the intact/recombined/new judgement task of associative recognition with the classical part-list cuing paradigm,and adopted the two-factor within-subjects design of 2（cuing:part-list cuing/no-part-list cuing）?3（pair type:old/recombined/new）.During the learning stage,participants were required to study face-scene pairs,then,after the presentation of part-list cues,participants were asked to discriminate between intact,recombined and new face-scene pairs.The result showed that part-list cues impaired the recognition accuracy of―intact‖and―recombined‖face-scene pairs;compared with no-part-list cuing,participants performed worse on the association discrimination index d’_associationand item discrimination index d’_item.On the basis of Experiment 1,Experiment 2 further combined with the Remember/Know/Guess task to explore the effect of part-list cuing on the processing component of―recollection‖and―familiarity‖of associative recognition.In the test phase,participants were asked to make―intact/recombined/new‖judgement to the face-scene pairs first,then,if a face-scene pair was classified as―intact‖or―recombined‖,participants were asked to further make remember/know/guess judgments to associate recollection and familiarity processes.The result of Experiment 2 showed that part-list cues impaired the recognition accuracy of―recombined‖face-scene pairs,compared with no-part-list cuing,participants also performed worse on the association discrimination index d’_associationand item discrimination index d’_item.The presentation of part-list cuing reduced the familiarity of association recognition,and the recollection and familiarity of item recognition.Experiment 3 further used the event-related potential technique,combined the series judgment paradigm of associative recognition with the classical part-list cuing paradigm to separately explore the mechanism of part-list cuing on the item and association recognition.In the test phase,the participants were required to make old/new judgments on the items（faces）first,and then make association recognition（scene forced selection）on the old items that were correctly judged.Behavioral data showed that:compared with the condition of no-part-list cuing,the recognition accuracy of the―old‖items（faces）was lower under the part-list cuing condition;the―new‖items（faces）had higher accuracy and shorter reaction time;ERPs data showed that the presentation of part-list cuing on the recognition of association and item in associative memory is mainly reflected in the familiarity component（FN400 old/new effect）:in the recognition of association,part-list cuing reduced the familiarity component,while in the recognition of items,the presentation of part-list cuing increased the familiarity component.Based on the results of the three experiments,the conclusions were as follows:（1）In associative recognition,presenting part of associative pairs as retrieval cues interfered with participants’recognition of other pairs,part-list cuing effect can be extended to associative memory;（2）The results of the behavior showed that part-list cuing was harmful to the recognition of association（familiarity）and item（recollection and familiarity）in associative memory;the results of ERPs further support the damaging effect of part-list cuing on association recognition（familiarity）in associative memory.