title: Motivated to retrieve: how often are you willing to go back to the well when the well is dry?
abstract: Despite the necessity of the decision to terminate memory search in many real-world memory tasks, little experimental work has investigated the underlying processes. In this study, the authors investigated termination decisions in free recall by providing participants an open-ended retrieval interval and requiring them to press a stop button when they had finished retrieving. Three variables important to assessing one's willingness to search memory were examined: (a) the time spent searching memory after the last successful retrieval before choosing to quit (the exit latency); (b) task difficulty; and (c) individual differences in motivation, as measured by Webster and Kruglanski's (1994) Need for Closure Scale. A strong negative correlation was found between individual differences in motivation and participants' exit latencies. This negative correlation was present only when the retrieval task started out as relatively difficult.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA. mdougherty@psyc.umd.edu
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dougherty
authors.forename: J Isaiah
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Harbison
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D009042:Motivation; D012016:Reference Values; D013997:Time Factors; D014706:Verbal Learning