Hierarchical Regulation of Involuntary Memory: Invo lvement into Activity, Lop Effects, and the Fate of Background Stimuli

Abstract

Background. Activity psychology as a metatheory competes with cognitive psychology in the explorative and predictive power. Phenotypical similarity of the results obtained by these two approaches in the research on involuntary memory requires a special analysis, which can be carried out by testing the applicability of the conceptual apparatus of both theories (with the highest relevance of the level of processing framework) in multifactorial studies. Objective. The study was aimed at a direct experimental examination of the severity of involuntary memorization as an outcome of performing tasks with different requirements to the level of processing: perceptual, semantic, and self-referential. Sample. Eight hundred twenty-five volunteer students participated in the study, 598 females (72.5%) and 227 males (27.5%). Methods. A set of 15 visually overlapping dyads “picture-numeral” was presented. Each participant was randomly assigned to perform one of six tasks either focusing on pictures or numerals, and requiring either perceptual, semantic, or self-referential processing of targets. At test, the participants attempted to recall all the presented stimuli. Results. P.I. Zinchenko’s thesis that activity determines involuntary encoding in the way that target stimuli are remembered much better than material perceived as a peripheral context was empirically replicated. The study revealed the inversion of typical LOP effect for the target material consisting in the decrease of subsequent recall in condition of deeper processing. However, there was a standard LOP effect for background pictorial material in numeral-targeted tasks. To examine the tendency to conjunct overlapping pictures and numerals into entire objects during task performance, we inspected the pairing of background and target stimuli at recall. The background pairing index predicted recall of target stimuli, increasing the percentage of explained dispersion from shadow to deep processing. In case of control for this index, the sum remembering of pictures and numerals returned back to the standard LOP-effect. Conclusion. The major contribution of activity to involuntary memorization was statistically confirmed. We explained the observed inversion of the standard LOP-effect for targeted numerical stimuli in terms of A.N. Leontiev’s thesis on the fundamental functional mobility of structural units of activity. We examined a tendency to actively combine target and background stimuli into integral operational units, making the initially background material relevant to the goal of action. Statistical control of this tendency reversed the inversion of the LOP-effect so that the sum recalls gradually increased as processing deepened. Thus, we got arguments in favor of the greater explanatory power of the activity approach compared to the standard cognitive approach. The potential of A.N. Leontiev’s theory was employed for the productive assimilation of particular conceptual schemes developed by cognitive psychology and clarifying their place in the multilevel determination of involuntary mnemonic effects generated by activity.

Keywords

• a.n. leontiev
• activity approach
• involuntary memory
• p.i. zinchenko
• cognitive psychology
• craik-lockhart theory
• levels of processing theory
• conceptual replication