Assignment: Most Important Goals For Parents

Contextual detail retrieval by value The primary analyses of Experiment 3 determined how

the value of an item and the recognition response given by the participant (e.g., Definitely Old, Remember, etc.) affected memory for contextual details. This measure of contextual detail retrieval included Completely Unsure

responses in the proportion, thus it reflects the proportion of items where the participant successfully retrieved the color or point-value. When examining word-value, high- value (M = .16, SD = .10) and low-value (M = .14, SD = .11) items had similar probabilities of correct point-value retrieval, t(43) = 0.88, p = .384, d = 0.13. Likewise, high- value (M = .13, SD = .11) and low-value (M = .14, SD = .11) items had similar probabilities of correct color retrieval, t (43) = �0.48, p = .637, d = �0.07. Thus, value was not found to affect memory for contextual details.

Because participants had the option of indicating that they were completely unsure of what the contextual details were for words they recognized, we compared the rates of these responses for different item values. When examining point-value retrieval, the proportion of Com- pletely Unsure responses did not significantly differ between high-value (M = .36, SD = .27) and low-value (M = .40, SD = .30) items, t(43) = �1.73, p = .091, d = �0.27. Likewise, for color retrieval, there was no significant differ- ence in the proportion of Completely Unsure responses for high-value (M = .48, SD = .31) versus low-value (M = .51, SD = .32) items, t(43) = �1.41, p = .167, d = �0.21. These results further support that memory for contextual details was not substantially influenced by item value alone.

Finally, we examined whether contextual detail retrie- val associated with word recollection or familiarity was influenced by value. Fig. 4 displays the results of these 2 � 2 analyses. A 2 (value) � 2 (recollected or familiar) repeated measures ANOVA for point-value retrieval indi- cated that there was no significant interaction between value and type of memory, F(1,39) = 2.02, p = .164, g2 = .05. A significant main effect of response was observed such that point-value retrieval was more likely after recol- lected (M = .20, SD = .10) than familiar items (M = .07, SD = .08), F(1,39) = 56.65, p < .001, g2 = .59. The main effect of value on point-value retrieval was not significant, F (1,39) < 0.01, p = .962, g2 < .01. In contrast, a 2 � 2 ANOVA for color retrieval detected a significant interaction between value and memory type, F(1,39) = 10.97, p = .002, g2 = .22. This interaction occurred primarily

202 J.P. Hennessee et al. / Journal of Memory and Language 94 (2017) 195–205

because color retrieval was more likely for remembered low-value words (M = .24, SD = .23) than remembered high-value words (M = .16, SD = .18), t(41) = �2.72, p = .010, d = �0.43. Additionally, high-value words given one of the three familiar responses (Maybe Old, Probably Old, or Definitely Old; M = .09, SD = .13) were associated with significantly more color retrieval than familiar low- value words (M = .05, SD = .08), t(41) = 2.52, p = .016, d = 0.43. These results suggest that for familiar items, some aspects of the episode may be encoded better for valuable items, though correct point-value and color retrieval asso- ciated with feelings of familiarity was very poor and not reliably above chance (p > .218).

Perhaps surprisingly, recollection for low-value items resulted in substantially more retrieval of the associated color than for high-value items. Because high-value items were much more likely to be recollected and recognized than low-value items, it is possible that recollection that is driven by value is based on recollection of internally- generated thoughts associated with the item, and that low-value items are more likely to be recollected when other details of the experience are associated with the item. These results suggest that the effect of value on enhanced recollection does not occur through enhance- ment of binding of the item to nonessential contextual fea- tures. Rather, value enhances memory for the item, perhaps by increasing attention to item semantics.