Thomas K. Srull’s research while affiliated with University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and other places

We conducted two experiments to examine the effects of an ordered recall strategy (i.e., recall everything about one target before attempting to recall information about a different target) on person memory. In the first experiment, subjects received information about two individuals with the goal of either forming separate impressions of each individual, or of forming an overall impression of the dyad. As expected, an ordered recall strategy resulted in poorer memory for the person recalled second when an overall impression was formed, but not when separate impressions were formed. In the second experiment, subjects received information about a single individual with the goal of either forming impressions of the individual on as many traits as seemed relevant, or an overall impression of the individual. Consistent with the first experiment, subjects in the unitary impression condition recalled fewer behaviors for the second trait prompt than for the first trait prompt. We discuss the implications of these results for memory-based social judgments, and for the way mental representations of others are formed.

Evidence is presented suggesting that a speaker who makes positive self-descriptions will be perceived differently as a function of the conversation context of his or her remarks. Subjects read a transcript of a conversation between two persons; one of whom made positive self-statements about his (Replication 1) or her (Replication 2) intellectual prowess. Impressions of the target were positive when these statements were made in response to specific questions or were made in the context of positive self-statements by the other. However, when the target simply took advantage of the topic of the conversation to make positive statements about the self, impressions of the target were much more negative. These effects were greater for subjects high in public self-consciousness, and this finding is used to argue that such subjects are more sensitive to the implicit rules of social interaction.

We conducted three experiments to examine the effects of information about a speaker's status on memory for the assertiveness of his or her remarks. Subjects either read (Experiments 1 and 2) or listened to a conversation (Experiment 3) and were later tested for their memory of the target speaker's remarks with either a recognition (Experiment 1) or a recall procedure (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments the target speaker's ostensible status was manipulated. In Experiment 1, subjects who believed the speaker was high in status were less able later to distinguish between remarks from the conversation and assertive paraphrases of those remarks. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but only when the status information was provided before subjects read the conversation and not when the information was provided after the conversation had been read. Experiment 2's results eliminate a reconstructive memory interpretation and suggest that information about a speaker's status affects the encoding of remarks. Experiment 3 examined this effect in a more ecologically representative context.

We conducted three experiments to examine the effects of information about a speaker's status on memory for the assertiveness of his or her remarks. Subjects either read (Experiments 1 and 2) or listened to a conversation (Experiment 3) and were later tested for their memory of the target speaker's remarks with either a recognition (Experiment l) or a recall procedure (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments the target speaker's ostensible status was manipulated. In Experiment 1, subjects who believed the speaker was high in status were less able later to distinguish between remarks from the conversation and assertive paraphrases of those remarks. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but only when the status information was provided before subjects read the conversation and not when the information was provided after the conversation had been read. Experiment 2's results eliminate a reconstructive memory interpretation and suggest that information about a speaker's status affects the encoding of remarks. Experiment 3 examined this effect in a more ecologically representative context.

Two general types of information about a person are considered in this article: One pertains to specific behaviors a person has manifested, and the other refers to more abstract personality dispositions or behavioral tendencies. A theoretical model of person memory that incorporates both types of information is developed. The model accounts for a large number of factors that are known to affect the recall of social information, the making of interpersonal judgments, and the relation between what is recalled and the judgments that are made. A major strength of the model is its applicability to a wide range of person memory and judgment phenomena that are observed in several different experimental paradigms.

This article reports the results of three experiments that examine memory interference in an advertising context. In Experiment 1, consumer memory for a brand's advertising was inhibited as a result of subsequent exposure to ads for other products in that manufacturer's product line and ads for competing brands in the product class. Experiment 2 demonstrates analogous proactive interference effects. The results of Experiment 3 indicate that the presence of advertising for competitive brands changes the relationship between ad repetition and consumer memory. Repetition had a positive effect on recall only when there was little or no advertising for similar products.

One aspect of person perception research that has been problematic for many theories is that there is often little correspondence between judgments that are made of a person and specific facts that can be recalled about that person. A model is presented that suggests this type of low correspondence is to be expected whenever evaluations of the person are spontaneously formed at the time relevant information is acquired. However, a relatively strong correspondence between the judgments that are made and the facts that can be recalled is expected when such evaluations are not spontaneously made at the time of information acquisition. The present paper reports several phenomena that are consistent with the model presented including: a much higher correspondence between recall and judgment under comprehension set than impression set conditions, judgment primacy effects for impression set subjects but judgment recency effects for comprehension set subjects, and a strong relationship between judgments and spew recall order for comprehension sets subjects but not impression set subjects. The implications of these and other phenomena are discussed in terms of how mental representations of another person are formed, and how the nature of such representations may systematically differ as a function of initial processing objectives.