Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

An important component of episodic memory is the ability to bind together objects and their constituent features. Past research suggests that this binding process might be influenced by prior expectations about the relationship between objects and their features, as well as the contexts in which they are encoded. Yet it remains unclear how robust an effect these factors have in influencing memory for task-relevant and irrelevant features during recognition and recall. The current study explored how encoding context and congruency interact to shape memory. Recognition and recall were assessed following memorization and visual search for objects embedded in expectation-congruent or incongruent locations. While overall congruent locations were better remembered, incongruent locations were better recalled following visual search compared to memorization. Further, memory confidence may play an important role in individuals' ability to recall incongruent information. These findings highlight the contributions prior expectations and task demands make in shaping object-feature memory.