Award Date

5-1-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Committee Member

Colleen Parks

Second Committee Member

David Copeland

Third Committee Member

Joel Snyder

Fourth Committee Member

Lisa Bendixen

Number of Pages

55

Abstract

Predictions play an important role in our everyday lives. We make predictions (whether conscious or unconscious) about what we will encounter. However, we will also experience discrepancies between predictions and observed outcomes (i.e., prediction error; PE). There are inconsistencies in the literature regarding how PE affects memory. Several studies find that PE facilitates memory (e.g., Greve et al., 2019), while others find that it harms memory (Kim et al., 2013). The aim of the present study was to determine which conditions may lead to PE facilitating memory and which conditions may lead to worse memory. We tested two PE models, The Predictive Interactive Multiple Memory Signals model (PIMMS) and The Schema Linked Interactions between Medial Prefrontal and Medial Temporal Lobe model (SLIMM). PIMMS argues the larger PEs will result in better memory compared to small PEs. In experiment 1, we tested this assumption by manipulating the frequency of PE. The High Certainty condition had few PEs while the Low Certainty condition contained many PEs. We predicted that PE would facilitate memory in the High certainty condition compared to no PE. We did not predict a difference in memory between PE and no PE in the Low certainty condition. However, we found memory was worse for PE items compared to no PE items, in the Low Certainty condition only. In experiment 2, we manipulated the strength of PE such that PE was either, high, moderate or low. SLIMM predicts a U-shape function such that High PE and Low PE should both be facilitated. However, we found no significant difference between the three levels of PE. Thus, our predictions based on PIMMS and SLIMM were not supported.

Keywords

familiarity; Prediction; Prediction error; recognition memory; recollection

Disciplines

Cognitive Psychology

File Format

pdf

File Size

1061 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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