Repetition and memory: Evidence for a multiple-trace hypothesis (original) (raw)
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Episodic accumulator models of memory assume the archives of memory contain a comprehensive record of past experiences that retains the identity of individual episodes, thereby allowing selective access to memory from different time periods and multiple dimensions of coding. Strength models, in contrast, assume a continuous accumulation of information that merges new information with information from prior earlier episodes to produce an undifferentiated record of past experience. Eight experiments used a multiple cycle, observation-test paradigm to examine these contrasting views of memory for event frequency when frequency is accumulated across lists, rather than within a single list. The results consistently supported the view that strength plays a role in frequency judgments, whether for proper names, common nouns, or pseudo-words. Frequency estimates were impaired for items shifted in event frequency from one cycle to the next; they were directly related to actual cumulative frequency; and, most importantly, they were higher for items repeated across observation cycles than for items presented only in one cycle. Data from a list interpolation manipulation also suggested that frequency information is very persistent. Overall, the results suggest that in addition to episodic memory for individualized episodes, there is an obligatory accumulation of information with little or no contextual compartmentalization, as expected from strength models of memory.
Memory for frequency: A comparison of two multiple-trace theories
Journal of experimental psychology, 1981
Two multiple-trace accounts of memory for frequency are compared: Estes's limited-capacity theory and Hintzman's unlimited-capacity theory. Two experiments were done to differentiate between them. The results supported three conclusions: (a) When the experimental materials are easily remembered (e.g., vacation scenes, or words presented at relatively slow rates), frequency discrimination performance exceeds the maximum values that the limited-capacity theory predicts, (b) Frequency discrimination suffers little or no retroactive interference when the interpolated materials are new items presented in the same general context, (c) Reaction times in a frequency discrimination task depend on the frequencies of both the chosen and the unchosen alternatives; in particular, the more similar the two frequencies, the longer the reaction time. Several constraints that these findings impose on theories of memory for frequency are discussed.
Frequency effects in recognition and recall
2020
Stimulus frequency, which is often evaluated using normative word frequency, is among the variables that have the most diverse and puzzling effects on memory. Word frequency can either facilitate or impair memory performance depending on the study and testing conditions. Understanding why and under what conditions frequency has positive or negative effects on performance is crucial for understanding basic properties about the human memory system. As a result, the study of word frequency has led to the development of multiple memory models. This chapter summarizes the current knowledge concerning word frequency effects on item recognition, associative recognition, free recall, cued recall, serial recall, and source memory. We also discuss how word frequency interacts with manipulations concerning presentation rate, list-composition, age of the participants, memory load, midazolam injections, response deadlines and remember-know judgements. This review of frequency effects in memory i...
Frequency Effects on Memory: A Resource-Limited Theory
2018
We present a review of frequency effects in memory, accompanied by a theory of memory, according to which the storage of new information in long-term memory (LTM) depletes a limited pool of working memory (WM) resources as an inverse function of item strength. We support the theory by showing that items with stronger representations in LTM (e.g. high frequency items) are easier to store, bind to context, and bind to one another; that WM resources are involved in storage and retrieval from LTM; that WM performance is better for stronger, more familiar stimuli. We present a novel analysis of preceding item strength, in which we show from nine existing studies that memory for an item is higher if during study it was preceded by a stronger item (e.g. a high frequency word). This effect is cumulative (the more prior items are of high frequency, the better), continuous (memory proportional to word frequency of preceding item), interacts with current item strength (larger for weaker items)...
The mechanism of the word-frequency effect on recognition memory1
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1974
The better recognition memory for rare as compared to frequently used words was shown to be unrelated to difference in association value, imagery, concreteness, or any change in phenomenal frequency due to exposure on the test list. But a manipulation substantially ...
A comparison of forgetting rates in frequency discrimination and recognition
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1984
In two experiments on memory for pictures, a frequency-discrimination task was used to determine whether recognition decisions display slower forgetting than do discriminations among frequencies greater than O. Experiment 1 compared frequency discriminations of 1-0 (recognition), 2-1, 4-1, and 4-2 and tested retention over an interval of 1 week. Experiment 2 added another recognition condition (2-0) and extended retention to 2 weeks. Neither experiment showed evidence for differential forgetting. The outcome is consistent with the hypothesis that the information underlying recognition memory and memory for frequency is qualitatively the same.
On the relation between frequency estimates and recognition memory
Memory & Cognition, 1980
The paper concerns the relation between frequency estimates and recognition decisions. Theories postulating that these two measures reflect independent retrieval processes and theories that postulate that frequency estimation and recognition are mutually dependent processes are discussed. Empirical results apparently supporting both positions are also reviewed. Results of experiments in which instructions and test methods are varied factorially and results of conditional and correlational analyses establishing a dependency between frequency estimates and recognition decisions are taken as evidence supporting the dependent process view. However, the results do not permit discrimination within this class of theories. This paper concerns the relation between frequency estimation and recognition judgments. The position advocated in this article is that both tasks depend on access with the same memory information and that the same decision process subserves both tasks. To some extent the relation is forced, inasmuch as estimating that an item has occurred one or more times presupposes or includes a decision that the item has indeed occurred. However, this does not imply that recognition tests and frequency estimates, which are different tests of retention, are accomplished in the same manner. In fact, as we shall outline below, there are reasons to expect that different retrieval processes and different memory information are involved. First, however, let us consider the case for the dependency position, namely, that the same memory information accessed in the same way underlies performance in both tasks.