The time to initiate retrieval of a memory depends on recency (original) (raw)
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Retrieval-induced forgetting in recognition is absent under time pressure
Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2011
We examined retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) in recognition from a dual-process perspective, which suggests that recognition depends on the outputs of a fast familiarity process and a slower recollection process. In order to determine the locus of the RIF effect, we manipulated the availability of recollection at retrieval via response deadlines. The standard RIF effect was observed in a self-paced test but was absent in a speeded test, in which judgments presumably depended on familiarity more than recollection. The findings suggested that RIF specifically affects recollection. This may be consistent with a context-specific view of retrieval inhibition.
Judgments of recency and their relation to recognition memory
Memory & Cognition, 2003
Experiment 2) in which individual items were repeated at lags of 5 to 30 other items. They made old versus new recognition decisions on each word and followed each "old" response with a numerical judgment of recency (JOR). Recognition judgments displayed the mirror effect. Conditionalized on recognition, JORs were shorter for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words, and shorter for concrete words than for abstract words. This was true at every lag, suggesting that recognition and JOR may have a common basis. However, recognition confidence ratings obtained in Experiment 3 proved much less sensitive than JOR to test lag. Memory models applicable to multiple judgment tasks will be needed to account for such findings.
Memory & Cognition, 1976
Experimental manipulationofthe upper bound on the retention interval (30 sec, with average duration of 11 sec, vs. 2 min, with average duration of 18 sec) failed to produce evidence for independent adjustment of initial long-term and short-term storage strengths. Very accurate strength functions of retention time were obtained; these were fitted equally well by a two-component equation and a one-componentequation derived from a theory postulating sequential employment of an active attentional buffer and a one-trace passive storage system. The latter theory appears to be capable of accounting for both post-attentional and two-phase experimental strength data, using fewer free parameters than strength theories which postulate the simultaneous existence of short-term and long-term traces. Other arguments for two traces are also discussed In relation to the postulate of a single post-attentional trace.
Stimulus encoding and decision processes in recognition memory
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1974
Recognition memory for words and pictures was tested using a fixed, memorized-set procedure (Experiment I) and a continuous procedure (Experiment II). Test items were presented twice each at lags of 4, 12, or 24 intervening items, and any item could be tested using the same or different stimulus form (word or picture) at each lag. A recognition model that assumes successive encoding, decision, and response stages was used as the theoretical framework for interpretation of the results. The analysis indicated that stimulus form and lag affected encoding processes in similar ways for Experiments I and II. Differences were obtained for the decision stage, however, as stimulus form apparently affected decision processes in Experiment II but not in Experiment I.
2005
Properties of a short term memory structure are discovered in the data of Rubin, Hinton and Wenzel (1999): Recall (recognition) probabilities and search times are linearly related through stimulus presentation lags from 6 seconds to 600 (350) seconds. This data suggest that only one memory structure is present in the Rubin, Hinton and Wenzel data. The data also suggest that the memory items have a finite effective size that shrinks to zero in a logarithmic fashion as the time since stimulus presentation increases, away from the start of the search. According to the logarithmic decay, the size of the memory items decreases to a couple of neurons at about 1200 seconds for recall and 350 seconds for recognition-this should be the time scale for a short term memory being converted to a long term memory. The incorrect recall time saturates, suggesting a limited size of the short term memory structure: the time to search through the structure for recall is 1.7 seconds. For recognition the corresponding time is about 0.4 seconds, a non-Sternberg experimental result to compare with the 0.243 seconds given by Cavanagh (1972)).
Processing multiple recognition probes in short- and long-term memory
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1975
On each trial in a recognition memory task either one or two test probes were presented. If one probe was presented, subjects were to respond yes if it was a member of a well learned long-term memory set or a member of a short-term memory set that was changed on each trial; subjects were to give a no response if the probe was not a member of either memory set. If two probes were presented, subjects were to give a yes response only if both were memory set members and were to give a no response otherwise. Several aspects of the results indicate that multiple probes are processed sequentially in this task .
A Power-Law Model of Psychological Memory Strength in Short-Term and Long-Term Recognition
A classic law proposed in cognition is that forgetting curves are closely approximated by power functions. Such results describe relations between different empirical dependent variables and time, and the precise form of the functional relation must depend on the scale used to measure each variable. In this research, we conduct a speeded probe-recognition task involving both short-term and long-term probes. We discover that formal memory-strength parameters from an exemplar-recognition model follow closely a power-function of lag. The model accounts for rich sets of response-time (RT) data at both individual-subject and individual-lag levels. Because the derivation of the memory strengths is based on model fits to choices and RTs from individual trials, the derived power law is independent of the scale that is used to summarize the forgetting functions. Alternative models that assume different functional relations, or posit a separate fixed-strength working-memory store, fare considerably worse than the power-law model in accounting for the data.