Examination of the correlations among measures of performance on Sternberg's item-recognition task by 136 students showed a low correlation of. 38 between the slopes of the functions relating response latency to set size for positive and negative responses. The correlation between the mean latency of positive and negative responses was substantially higher (r =. 91) than that of the slopes. The low correlation between the slopes suggests a mechanism such as an adjustable response criterion that results in a tradeoff between response latency on positive and negative trials.
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