Memory for Repeated Events

重复经历如何影响人类记忆是认知科学中的一个基本问题，适用于教育、培训和法律方面的问题。因为事件和背景往往会随着时间的推移而变化，所以重复的经历很少与以前的经历相同，而是包含了以前经历的元素。科学已经证实，以前对某事的经历通常会影响对其后来发生的变体的记忆。有时这种影响是有益的，有时对后来的记忆是有害的。虽然一些包含重复经历的事件比完全新的事件更容易被记住，但其他一些事件的记忆实际上比新事件更差。这个项目旨在更好地理解为什么一些以前的经历有助于记忆那些经历的后来的变体，而另一些似乎反而干扰了它。这项研究对制定有效的学习计划和培训系统以及教育实践具有重要意义。影响先前经历的后来变体是否会比新的经历更好或更差的一个因素是，重复的元素是否会让人想起以前的经历。如果发生提醒，重复的事件比新的事件记忆更好；如果提醒失败，重复的事件实际上比新的事件记忆更差。到目前为止，关于重复经历如何影响记忆的大部分科学成果都是基于测试成绩的，测试成绩涉及对提示做出反应的受控记忆尝试。然而，在日常生活中，提醒往往是由正在进行的经验中的线索自发产生的，而不是通过测试明确地促使人记住。这个项目将利用对早期和后期事件之间关系的实验操作来确定是什么引发自发提醒，自发提醒与刻意尝试记忆有何不同，以及这两种类型的提醒如何影响后来的记忆。这项研究将增加对人类记忆过程的运作的理解，以及这些过程对后来记忆的影响。

How repeated experiences affect human memory is a fundamental question in cognitive science that is applicable to issues in education, training, and law. Because events and contexts tend to change over time, repeated experiences are rarely identical to prior experiences, but instead contain elements of earlier experiences. Science has established that a prior experience with something will generally affect memory for a later variant of its occurrence. Sometimes this effect is beneficial and sometimes it is detrimental to later memory. Whereas some events that contain repeated elements of prior experiences are remembered better than events that are completely new, others are actually remembered more poorly than events that are new. This project aims to better understand why some previous experiences facilitate memory for later variants of those experiences and others instead seem to interfere with it. The research has relevance to the development of effective learning programs and training systems, as well as to educational practice. One factor shown to impact whether a later variant of an earlier experience will be remembered better or worse than a new experience is whether the repeated elements remind the person of the earlier experience or not. If reminding occurs, the repeated event is remembered better than a new event; if reminding fails, the repeated event is actually remembered worse than a new event. Much of what science has established thus far about how repeated experiences affect memory is based on test performance, which involves controlled attempts to remember in response to prompts. Yet in everyday life, reminding is often brought on spontaneously by cues in ongoing experience, without a test explicitly prompting the person to remember. This project will employ experimental manipulations of the relations between earlier and later events to determine what elicits spontaneous reminding, how spontaneous reminding differs from deliberate attempts to remember, and how these two types of reminding affect later memory. This research will increase understanding of the operation of human memory processes across ongoing experience, and the impact that these processes have on later memory.