INSTANTIATION, INTERFERENCE, AND THE CHANGE OF STANDARD EFFECT - CONTEXT FUNCTIONS IN RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY

Experiment 1 manipulated the personality test scores and reactions of context students (high vs. low) both at encoding and retrieval 1 week later. A change of standard effect was replicated for memory of the target's scores but not his reactions. Behavioral reactions or expressions appear to be more strongly instantiated in terms of a concept activated by the Time 1 context than are numerical scores themselves. Experiments 2 and 3 showed evidence of retroactive interference, in the form of response competition, as an additional influence of context on reconstructive memory. Experiment 2 used a situation in which an a priori standard was assumed. Experiment 3 used the original E. T. Higgins and L. Lurie (1983) materials but changed Time 2 context so that the information could not possibly be used as a standard. Both studies showed that Ss still biased their memory of the target in a manner that assimilated memory of the target's decisions toward the numbers presented at Time 2.