Current Research
My current research ranges from basic theoretical questions (what are the mechanisms of encoding, retrieval, and forgetting?) to issues of application and function (how do people use what they retrieve? how does memory function under real-world conditions?). I'm always happy to talk with students interested in getting involved as research assistants or with dissertation projects and Msc/PhD studentships.
One memory or many?
Memory seems to take different forms: familiarity without a sense of
time or place; recollection of specific details; memory for single
items or events; memory for association or context; knowledge of skill
and procedure.
Do qualitatively different processes govern these different forms of
memory? Converging evidence from a variety of domains suggest
that there is a "toolbox" of memory processes that people use in
different ways according to the demands of the situation. The
goal is to develop quantitative models of these processes that may
bring us closer to a unified understanding of how memory works across
different retrieval tasks (item recognition, associative recognition,
recall, etc.).
Retrieval-induced forgetting. Remembering some things makes us forget other things. The function of this phenomenon and the mechanisms responsible for it remain open to debate. My particular interest is in resolving the apparent conflict between classical interference theories and more recent theories of retrieval inhibition.
Metacognition and decision-making. People have theories about how their memory works. They have rules, some conscious and some unconscious, that dictate how information retrieved from memory is translated into judgments and choices. These decision-making processes can be quite sophisticated, and understanding them may enable us to train people to use their memory more accurately. On the other hand, some rules ("heuristics") are simplistic and often lead to memory illusions and false memories. I am particulalry interested in developing quantitative models of the decision-making process within the framework of signal detection theory.
Emotion and memory. Recent work has examined 1) the way that mood and emotional stimuli can facilitate false memories; 2) the role of mood in shaping cognitive processing styles, which can have both positive and negative influences on memory; 3) the effects of physiological arousal on encoding, retrieval, and long-term consolidation.
Conscious experience.
Recent years have seen a growing interest in the subjective qualities
of memory: confidence, remembering vs. knowing, judgments of
learning. Because a personal sense of the past is reconstructed
from fragmentary memories, we often rely on the conscious experience
that accompanies these memories to guide how we interpret and use
them. Reports of conscious experience are intuitively compelling:
On the witness stand, a witness who claims absolute confidence is taken
more seriously than one who equivocates even when the objective
evidence is equal in both cases. The goal is to develop models
that relate phenomenology to theoretical retrieval processes and bring
us closer to a unified understanding of the disparate forms of
conscious experience.
Publications (Peer-reviewed Journals)
Verde, M. F. (in press). Retrieval-induced forgetting and inhibition: A critical review. In B. H. Ross (Ed.),
The Psychology of Learning and Motivation,Vol. 56,. (pdf)
Verde, M. F., & Perfect, T. J. (2011). Retrieval-induced forgetting in recognition is absent under time pressure. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 1166–1171. (pdf)
Verde, M. F. (2010). Conjunction errors in recognition: Emergent structure and metacognitive control. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 476-488. (pdf)
Verde, M. F., Stone, L. K., Hatch, H. S., & Schnall, S. (2010). Distinguishing between mnemonic and attributional sources of familiarity: Positive emotion bias as a case study. Memory & Cognition, 38, 142-153. (pdf)
Verde, M. F. (2009). The list-strength effect in recall: Relative-strength competition and retrieval inhibition may both contribute to forgetting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 35, 205-220. (pdf)
Rotello, C. M., Masson, M. E. J., & Verde, M. F. (2008). Type I error rates and power analysis for single-point sensitivity measures. Perception & Psychophysics, 70, 389-401. (pdf)
Verde, M.
F., & Rotello, C. M. (2007). Memory
strength and the decision process in recognition memory.
Memory & Cognition, 35, 254-262. (pdf)
Verde, M.
F., Macmillan, N. A., & Rotello, C. M. (2006). Measures of
sensitivity based on a single hit rate and false-alarm rate: The accuracy,
precision, and robustness of d′,
Az, and A′. Perception &
Psychophysics, 68, 643-654. (pdf)
Macmillan, N. A., Rotello, C. M., & Verde, M. F. (2005). On the importance of models in interpreting remember-know experiments: Comments on Gardiner et al.'s (2002) meta-analysis. Memory, 13, 607-621. (pdf)
Verde,
M. F., Murphy, G. L.,
& Ross, B. H. (2005). Influence
of multiple categories on the prediction of unknown properties.
Memory
& Cognition, 33, 479-487. (pdf)
Verde,
M. F. (2004). Associative
interference
in recognition memory: A
dual-process account. Memory
& Cognition, 32, 1273-1283.
(pdf)
Verde, M. F.
(2004). The
retrieval practice effect in
associative recognition. Memory
& Cognition, 32, 1265-1272.
(pdf)
Verde, M. F., &
Rotello,
C. M. (2004). Strong memories
obscure weak memories in associative recognition.
Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review, 11,
1062-1066.
(pdf)
Verde, M. F., & Rotello,
C. M. (2004). ROC curves show
that the
revelation effect is not a single phenomenon. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11,
560-566.
(pdf)
Verde, M.
F., & Rotello,
C. M. (2003). Does
familiarity change in
the revelation effect? Journal
of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory and Cognition, 29,
739-746. (pdf)
Research Funding
Economic and Social Research Council: Decision-making in recognition: A multi-dimensional SDT approach. £91,505 (RES-000-22-3208) (Period 2009-10).
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