Judgments relative to patterns: How temporal sequence patterns affect judgments and memory (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.
Position effects in comparative judgments of serial order: List structure vs. differential strength
Memory & Cognition, 1980
Two experiments are reported that test the hypothesis that the serial position effect in comparative judgment of ordinal position in arbitrary serial lists results from differential memory or associative strength among list items. The serial position effect in comparative judgment is typically a pattern in which pairs that contain a term from one of the two extremes of the list are processed faster and more accurately than pairs that contain no end terms. The experiments show that a new term added to either the end or the middle of a well-practiced fourterm series behaves almost immediately like the end or central term, respectively, of a wellpracticed five-term series. Furthermore, when the added term is removed, the list reverts immediately to the position effect obtained in a four-term series. Theories that explain the position effect by differential build-up of item strength or of interitem associative strength over practice cannot explain these effects. We propose instead that learning of a serial list is accomplished by assigning list members to positions in a general-purpose linear order schema and that subjects can make these assignments rapidly and flexibly. This study is concerned with the structure of the memorial representation that subjects use to process comparative judgments about the relative ordinal position of items in a well-learned serial list. The serial lists examined here give the ordering of a series of objects on some attribute. For example, the "objects" in one of our experiments are fictitious men with names like "Tom," "Dan," and "Ned," and the dimension is height. In this experiment, subjects learn that Tom is taller than Ned, Ned is taller than Dan, and so on. In the comparative judgment testing with the list in this example, subjects are shown pairs from the list and are required to decide, while timed, which name signified the taller or the shorter member of the pair. Experiments following this general scheme (comparative judgment testing of a short, well-learned list) have consistently shown a number of effects that do not seem to depend on the nature of the attribute used to order the items on the list. These are generally referred to as the semantic congruity effect, the serial position effect, and the distance effect, or, more conveniently, the
Effects of Order on Memory of Event Times
2021
Memorizing time of an event may employ two processes (1) encoding of the absolute time of events within an episode, (2) encoding of its relative order. Here we study interaction between these two processes. We performed experiments in which one or several items were presented, after which participants were asked to report the time of occurrence of items. When a single item was presented, the distribution of reported times was quite wide. When two or three items were presented, the relative order among them strongly affected the reported time of each of them. Bayesian theory that takes into account the memory for the events order is compatible with the experimental data, in particular in terms of the effect of order on absolute time reports. Our results suggest that people do not deduce order from memorized time, instead people's memory for absolute time of events relies critically on memorized order of the events.
Sequential effects and memory in category judgments
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1970
The effects of previous stimuli on responses in an absolute judgment of loudnesses situation were investigated when feedback was and was not provided. Whether or not information feedback was provided, responses were assimilated to the value of the immediately previous stimulus in the series. The effects of stimuli more than one trial back in the sequence depend on the presence or absence of feedback. When the entire stimulus scale was shifted up or down to 5 db. from the level on the previous day, a substantial shift occurred in the constant error of judgment in the direction of the scale shift, providing evidence that a relatively long-term (24-hr.) memory process was being used in the judgment situation. None of the currently available models is adequate to account for both these results and those of earlier studies. The form of the sequential dependencies observed may depend at least partially on the presence or absence of an identification function from stimuli to responses.
Memory Judgments. Final Report
1973
The usefulness of the method of memory judgments as a tool for studying human memory was explored in this research. The first experiments involved the nature of the information about when an event occurred, the spacing of repetitions of an event, and presentation modality of an event. Results suggested that time and spacing are represented in memory by contextual associations, while modality is represented, in addition, by a literal copy of the perceptual experience. A second group of experiments involved the effect of the spacing of repetitions on retention. They suggested that the locus of the effect is on the second of two presentations of the event and that the effect is primarily a function of duration of the spacing interval. The third group of experiments involved memory for the duration of an interval. Judgments of duration were not found to be related in any simple way to standard recall or recognition measures of memory for events during the interval. Abstract This grant supported 17 experiments, most of which explored the usefulness of the method of,memory judgments as a tool for studying human memory. The first experiments were concerned with the general question, "What is stored?" Specifically, they involved the nature of the informatidn about when an event occurred, the spacing of repetitions of an event, and the presentation modality of an event.
Representation of order information: An analysis of grouping effects in short-term memory.
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1986
Presenting short sequences of items in temporal or spatial groups is known to improve recall of their order. Theories about this effect propose either that groups of items are represented in a hierarchical structure in which the positions of items in a group are nested under codes denoting the groups themselves, or in a matrix structure where each item is directly tagged for its group and position. In a matrix system, position codes are independent of group codes, and the retrieval of a code near the bottom of a hierarchy depends on the successful retrieval of the codes above it. Experiments 1-4 tested these dependence relationships with a probed recall procedure in which subjects were presented with a grouped sequence of items and were then required to recall the position and group of one of the items. This technique provided information about how well subjects correctly recalled both the group and position, the group only, the position only, and neither the group nor the position of an item. When the items in a group were letters, digits, or musical notes, the data conformed to a hierarchical structure. When the nonalphanumeric characters ~, $, %, & , . , +, @, T, <, were used, a matrix structure emerged.
Memory & Cognition, 2012
The frequency effect in short-term serial recall is influenced by the composition of lists. In pure lists, a robust advantage in the recall of high-frequency (HF) words is observed, yet in alternating mixed lists, HF and lowfrequency (LF) words are recalled equally well. It has been argued that the preexisting associations between all list items determine a single, global level of supportive activation that assists item recall. Preexisting associations between items are assumed to be a function of language cooccurrence; HF-HF associations are high, LF-LF associations are low, and mixed associations are intermediate in activation strength. This account, however, is based on results when alternating lists with equal numbers of HF and LF words were used. It is possible that directional association between adjacent list items is responsible for the recall patterns reported. In the present experiment, the recall of three forms of mixed lists-those with equal numbers of HF and LF items and pure lists-was examined to test the extent to which item-to-item associations are present in serial recall. Furthermore, conditional probabilities were used to examine more closely the evidence for a contribution, since correct-in-position scoring may mask recall that is dependent on the recall of prior items. The results suggest that an item-to-item effect is clearly present for early but not late list items, and they implicate an additional factor, perhaps the availability of resources at output, in the recall of late list items.
Repetition and memory: Evidence for a multiple-trace hypothesis
Journal of experimental psychology, 1971
Two hypotheses concerning the effect of frequency on memory are (a) that repetition increments the cumulative strength of a single memory trace and (b) that repetition results in multiple traces, each identifiable by its "time tag." Results from two experimental paradigms supported the multiple-trace hypothesis. In one paradigm, words were presented twice in a single list, and subsequent judgments of serial position showed that the effects of the two repetitions could be discriminated in memory. In the other paradigm, a combined frequency-judgment and list-discrimination task demonstrated that 5s could differentiate between recent and remote frequencies of the same word. It is concluded that the internal representation of frequency is one in which the identities of individual repetitions are preserved. Implications for the frequency theory of verbal discrimination learning are discussed. 1 hanks are due to Marguerite B. Payne for assistance. .. .. . ance with the research and to M. I. Posner, W. A. hypothesis implies that event frequency is Wickelgren, and G. M. Reicher for comments on represented by trace strength (Hintzman, the manuscript. 1969 1970) wh;le the mu l t i p le-trace 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Douglas .
2005
We examined the influence of encoding and generation processes on distinctiveness, isolation, and background effects in short-term recall of order information. Adults recalled the order of letters in one of two segments following a distractor task, knowing in advance the identity of the letters. A distinctive letter was one that was either in red or absent and replaced with a red dash, thereby requiring generation. On trials with a distinctive letter, the letter was primed in advance. A negative generation effect was found; in addition, there was a positive distinctiveness effect but a negative background effect on trials in which generation was required. These effects can be explained in terms of the extra processing given to distinctive items when they need to be generated.