Larry Jacoby: Psychonomic Society 2014 Annual Meeting Keynote Address

Looking Back: Noticing and Recollecting Change
Thursday, November 20, 2014, 8:00 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Larry Jacoby, Washington University in St. Louis

The “Looking Back” in my title has two meanings for the talk: First, I look back over my career, highlighting my research on dual-process models that distinguish between automatic vs. cognitively-controlled uses of memory. Second, I present current work in my lab focused on the phenomenon of people looking back over past experiences and the functions served by such looking back. Our recent research has shown that people sometimes fail to look back and so do not notice change in the environment, and even when change is noticed, they sometimes fail to recollect change later. Noticing and recollection of change is important in that doing so can transform proactive interference, debilitating effects of memory, into proactive facilitation, enabling effects of memory. The work on opposite effects of the past when change is both noticed and recollected or not echoes the earlier work on separating dual effects of memory by placing them in opposition.