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Charles Hulme - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Serial and free Recall in children can be improved by training evidence for the importance of phonological and semantic representations in immediate memory tasks
Psychological Science, 2010Co-Authors: Monica Melbylervag, Charles HulmeAbstract:Children were assigned to three groups given training on unfamiliar words--phoneme-awareness training, rhyme training, and vocabulary training--and an untrained control group. Before and after training, we assessed the children's performance on Serial- and free-Recall tasks with these words, as well as their ability to define the words, manipulate phonemes in them, and generate rhymes for them. We found that phoneme-awareness training improved Serial Recall substantially and improved free Recall to a lesser extent. In contrast, vocabulary training produced a substantial increase in free Recall and a lesser increase in Serial Recall. These effects on Recall were specific and did not generalize to untrained words. Rhyme training produced increases in rhyming skills but no increase in either Serial or free Recall. We argue that Serial and free Recall depend on common memory mechanisms, but Serial Recall relies more on phonological codes and free Recall relies more on semantic codes.
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speech and language processing mechanisms in verbal Serial Recall
Journal of Memory and Language, 2006Co-Authors: Richard J Allen, Charles HulmeAbstract:We report two experiments examining the role of concreteness and word phonological neighborhood characteristics on immediate Serial Recall. In line with previous findings concreteness, word frequency, and larger neighborhood size are associated with better Serial Recall. Both concreteness and word neighborhood size were also positively associated with a measure of access to a speech production code from semantics (the speed and accuracy of providing a spoken word from its spoken definition). In contrast, concreteness had no effects on speech perception measures, and words from large neighborhoods were actually identified in speech with more difficulty than words from small neighborhoods. This pattern of results suggests that speech production mechanisms are more closely related to immediate Serial Recall performance than are speech perception mechanisms.
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high and low frequency words are Recalled equally well in alternating lists evidence for associative effects in Serial Recall
Journal of Memory and Language, 2003Co-Authors: Charles Hulme, Gordon D A Brown, George Stuart, Caroline MorinAbstract:Three experiments investigate the effects of mixing items of different types in the same list. Experiments 1 and 2 compare the immediate Serial Recall of high- and low-frequency words in pure and alternating lists. In pure lists high-frequency words are better Recalled, but in alternating lists the two types of words are Recalled at intermediate, and identical, levels. Experiment 3 compares the Recall of words and nonwords. In pure lists nonwords are Recalled substantially less well than words. In alternating lists nonwords gain a substantial Recall advantage compared to pure lists but are still less well Recalled than words, which are Recalled at identical levels in both mixed and alternating lists. The results refute item-based redintegration accounts of frequency effects in immediate Serial Recall and provide evidence for the importance of inter-item associative mechanisms.
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concrete words are easier to Recall than abstract words evidence for a semantic contribution to short term Serial Recall
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 1999Co-Authors: Ian Walker, Charles HulmeAbstract:Immediate Serial Recall and maximal speech rate were assessed for concrete and abstract words differing in length. Experiment 1 showed large advantages for spoken Recall of concrete words that were independent of speech rate. Experiment 2 showed an equivalent effect with written, rather than spoken, Recall. Experiment 3 showed that the concreteness effect was still present when Recall was backward rather than forward. In all 3 experiments, concrete words enjoyed an advantage that was roughly constant across all Serial positions (with the possible exception of the 1st and last items). Experiment 4 used a matching-span procedure and showed that when there was no requirement for linguistic output, the effect of concreteness (but not the effect of word length) was eliminated. It is argued that semantic coding exerts powerful effects in verbal short-term memory tasks that have generally been underestimated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract).
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word frequency effects on short term memory tasks evidence for a redintegration process in immediate Serial Recall
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 1997Co-Authors: Charles Hulme, Gordon D A Brown, Steven Roodenrys, Richard Schweickert, Sarah Martin, George StuartAbstract:Four experiments investigated the mechanisms responsible for the advantage enjoyed by high-frequency words in short-term memory tasks. Experiment 1 demonstrated effects of word frequency on memory span that were independent of differences in speech rate. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that word frequency has an increasing effect on Serial Recall across Serial positions, but Experiment 4 showed that this effect was abolished for backward Recall. A model that includes a redintegration process that operates to ''clean up'' decayed short-term memory traces is proposed, and the multinomial processing tree model described by R. Schweickert (1993) is used to provide a quantitative fit to data from Experiments 2, 3, and 4.
Stephan Lewandowsky - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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rehearsal in Serial Recall an unworkable solution to the nonexistent problem of decay
Psychological Review, 2015Co-Authors: Stephan Lewandowsky, Klaus OberauerAbstract:We examine the explanatory roles that have been ascribed to various forms of rehearsal or refreshing in short-term memory (STM) and working memory paradigms, usually in conjunction with the assumption that memories decay over time if they are not rehearsed. Notwithstanding the popularity of the rehearsal notion, there have been few detailed examinations of its underlying mechanisms. We explicitly implemented rehearsal in a decay model and explored its role by simulation in several benchmark paradigms ranging from immediate Serial Recall to complex span and delayed Recall. The results show that articulatory forms of rehearsal often fail to counteract temporal decay. Rapid attentional refreshing performs considerably better, but so far there is scant empirical evidence that people engage in refreshing during STM tasks. Combining articulatory rehearsal and refreshing as 2 independent maintenance processes running in parallel leads to worse performance than refreshing alone. We conclude that theoretical reliance on articulatory rehearsal as a causative agent in memory may be unwise and that explanatory appeals to rehearsal are insufficient unless buttressed by quantitative modeling.
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Response suppression contributes to recency in Serial Recall
Memory & Cognition, 2012Co-Authors: Simon Farrell, Stephan LewandowskyAbstract:Serial Recall is often assumed to involve response suppression: the removal or inhibition of items already Recalled so that they are not Recalled again. Evidence for response suppression includes repetition inhibition and the separation of erroneous repetitions. Some theorists have suggested that response suppression, by eliminating competing responses, also contributes to recency in forward Serial Recall. We present experiments in which performance on the final item was examined as a function of whether or not the preceding retrievals entailed suppression of potential response competitors. In line with the predictions of response suppression, recency was found to be reduced when the earlier Recall errors consisted of intrusion errors (which leave list items unsuppressed) rather than transposition errors (which involve suppression).
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temporal isolation effects in recognition and Serial Recall
Memory & Cognition, 2010Co-Authors: Caroline Morin, Gordon D A Brown, Stephan LewandowskyAbstract:Recent temporal distinctiveness models of memory predict that temporally isolated items will be Recalled better than temporally crowded items. The effect has been found in some tasks (free Recall, memory for Serial order when report order is unconstrained, running memory span) but not in others (forward Serial Recall). Such results suggest that the attentional weighting given to a temporal dimension in memory may vary with task demands. Here, we find robust temporal isolation effects in recognition memory (Experiment 1) and a smaller isolation effect in forward Serial Recall when an open pool of items is used (Experiment 2). Analysis of 26 temporal isolation effects suggests that the phenomenon occurs in a range of tasks but is larger when it is useful to attend to a temporal dimension in memory. The overall pattern of results is taken to favor memory models that rely on multiple weighted dimensions in memory, one of which is temporal.
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forgetting in immediate Serial Recall decay temporal distinctiveness or interference
Psychological Review, 2008Co-Authors: Klaus Oberauer, Stephan LewandowskyAbstract:Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of Serial Recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (Serial order in a box) model, respectively. The models were fit to 2 experiments investigating the effect of filled delays between items at encoding or at Recall. Short delays between items, filled with articulatory suppression, led to massive impairment of memory relative to a no-delay baseline. Extending the delays had little additional effect, suggesting that the passage of time alone does not cause forgetting. Adding a choice reaction task in the delay periods to block attention-based rehearsal did not change these results. The interference-based SOB fit the data best; the primacy model overpredicted the effect of lengthening delays, and SIMPLE was unable to explain the effect of delays at encoding. The authors conclude that purely temporal views of forgetting are inadequate.
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phonological similarity in Serial Recall constraints on theories of memory
Journal of Memory and Language, 2008Co-Authors: Stephan Lewandowsky, Simon FarrellAbstract:Abstract In short-term Serial Recall, similar-sounding items are remembered more poorly than items that do not sound alike. When lists mix similar and dissimilar items, performance on the dissimilar items is of considerable theoretical interest. Farrell and Lewandowsky [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2003). Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in Serial Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29 , 838–849.] recently showed that if guessing strategies are controlled, dissimilar items on mixed lists are Recalled more accurately than on pure dissimilar lists, a finding that challenges several current theories of Serial Recall. This article presents two experiments that extend the generality of the mixed-list advantage for dissimilar items and then applies three theories of memory—the primacy model, SIMPLE, and SOB—to the data. The simulations show that the data are best explained by the SOB theory [Farrell, S. (2006). Mixed-list phonological similarity effects in delayed Serial Recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 55 , 587-600; Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2002). An endogenous distributed model of ordering in Serial Recall. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 9 , 59–79.] which, unlike most other current theories, posits that similarity has an effect at the time of encoding.
Marie Poirier - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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semantic similarity and immediate Serial Recall is there an effect on all trials
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2005Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Denis Ouellette, Marie PoirierAbstract:In immediate Serial Recall, items are better Recalled when they are all drawn from the same semantic category. This is usually accounted for by a two-stage retrieval-based framework, in which, at Recall, long-term knowledge is used to reconstruct degraded phonological traces. The category shared by list items would serve as an additional retrieval cue restricting the number of Recall candidates. Usually, the long-term search set is not defined, but some authors have suggested an extended search set and others a restricted set that is composed of the most recently presented items. This was tested in an experiment in which participants undertook an immediate Serial Recall task either alone or under articulatory suppression with either semantically similar or dissimilar lists. A trial-by-trial analysis revealed that, in both quiet and suppression conditions, items from similar lists were better Recalled on all the trials, including the first one. In addition, there was no interaction between semantic similarity and trial, indicating that the effect of similarity was of similar size on all the trials. The results are best interpreted within a proposal suggesting an extended long-term search set.
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immediate Serial Recall of words and nonwords tests of the retrieval based hypothesis
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2000Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Marie PoirierAbstract:In two experiments, the immediate Serial Recall of lists of words or nonwords was investigated under quiet and articulatory suppression conditions. The results showed better item Recall for words but better order Recall for nonwords, as measured with proportion of order errors per item Recalled. Articulatory suppression hindered the Recall of item information for both types of lists and of order information for words. These results are interpreted in light of a retrieval account in which degraded phonological traces must undergo a reconstruction process calling on long-term knowledge of the tobe-remembered items. The minimal long-term representations for nonwords are thought to be responsible for their lower item Recall and their better order Recall. Under suppression, phonological representations are thought to be minimal, producing trace interpretation problems responsible for the greater number of item and order errors, relative to quiet conditions. The very low performance for nonwords under suppression is attributed to the combination of degraded phonological information and minimal long-term knowledge.
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semantic similarity and immediate Serial Recall is there a detrimental effect on order information
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1999Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Marie PoirierAbstract:Four experiments investigated the disruptive effect of semantic similarity on short-term ordered Recall. Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted immediate Serial Recall performance for lists of semantically similar items, drawn from the same semantic category, with performance for lists that contained items from different categories. Experiments 1 and 2 showed the usual similarity advantage for item information Recall, but, contrary to expectations, there was no similarity disadvantage for the Recall of order information, even when the level of item Recall was controlled. Experiments 3 and 4 replicate and extend these findings by using an order reconstruction task or a limited word pool strategy, both of which yield alternate measures of order retention. These findings clearly contradict the widespread belief stating that semantic similarity hinders the short-term Recall of order information. Results are discussed in the light of a retrieval-based account where the effects of semantic similarity reflect the proces...
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immediate Serial Recall word frequency item identity and item position
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1996Co-Authors: Marie Poirier, Jean SaintaubinAbstract:Immediate Serial Recall, Word Frequency, Item Identity and Item Position MARIE POIRIER and JEAN SAINT - AUBIN, Universite Laval Abstract Eighteen subjects completed an immediate Serial Recall task, where the to - be - Recalled lists consisted of either high, medium, or low - frequency items. Moreover, lists were either phonologically similar or distinct. Results showed that increasing frequency enhanced item information Recall but had no effect on order Recall. Conversely, increasing phonological similarity had a detrimental effect on order Recall but no significant effect on item Recall. It is argued that both effects reflect retrieval processes where degraded representations are reconstructed on the basis of long - term knowledge: Low - frequency words have reduced accessibility, lowering the probability of correct reconstruction, and phonologically similar items are more easily confused with other Recall candidates. In immediate Serial Recall (ISR), subjects must Recall a short list of items immediately after their presentation. It is now well established that lists of high - frequency words produce better performance than lists of low - frequency words (Engle, Nations, & Cantor, 1990; Gregg, Freedman, & Smith, 1989; Kausler & Pucket, 1979; Roodenrys, Hulme, Alban, Ellis, & Brown, 1994; Watkins, 1977; Watkins & Watkins, 1977). The aim of the work reported here was to answer a further question: Does frequency enhance memory for an item's occurrence, memory for an item's position within a list, or both (Whiteman, Nairne, & Serra, 1994)? Recent theoretical proposals can be seen as arguing either way. For example, Roodenrys et al. (1994) proposed a two - stage view of frequency effects, where partially degraded traces are retrieved from a phonological short - term store and are then subjected to a "deblurring" or pattern completion process. They suggest that this process depends on long - term representations, and that high - frequency words are better Recalled because of their greater accessibility. In other words, frequency affects the probability of a successful deblurring attempt. A similar account of lexicality effects in ISR has been proposed (Hulme, Maughan, & Brown, 1991; Schweickert, 1993), and it has also been usefully applied to the semantic category advantage (Poirier & Saint - Aubin, 1995). This type of proposal predicts an effect of frequency on item identity (Poirier & Saint - Aubin, 1995; see also Estes, 1991). All else being equal, the probability of successful deblurring will be greater for high - frequency items, leading to better item identity Recall. The main objective of the experiment reported here was to test this prediction. In contrast to accounts emphasizing item information, a number of proposals attribute the frequency advantage to better order information encoding, the hypothesis being that high - frequency lists entail stronger inter - item links (Deese, 1960; Sumby, 1963; Whiteman et al., 1994). Notably, Lewandowsky and Murdock (1989) successfully applied the Theory of Distributed Associative Memory to frequency effects in ISR by assuming that higher frequency lists produced stronger inter - item associations. A relevant empirical test of this class of proposals was recently conducted by Whiteman et al. (1994). They examined the effect of word frequency on a reconstruction task. After list presentation, subjects were provided with the items in a new random order and asked to reconstruct the original presentation sequence. It follows that the task is mainly one of order information Recall (Whiteman et al., 1994). Based on the hypothesis that high - frequency enhances order memory, superior performance is expected in the high - frequency condition. The Whiteman et al. (1994) results did not support this prediction: Word frequency did not influence performance. However, the reconstruction task used by Whiteman et al. …
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memory for related and unrelated words further evidence on the influence of semantic factors in immediate Serial Recall
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1995Co-Authors: Marie Poirier, Jean SaintaubinAbstract:A number of recent studies have explored the role of long-term memory factors in memory span tasks. The effects of lexicality, frequency, imageability, and word class have been investigated. The work reported in this paper examined the effect of semantic organization on the Recall of short lists of words. Specifically, the influence of semantic category on immediate Serial Recall and the interaction of this variable with articulatory suppression was investigated in three experiments. Experiment 1 compared immediate Serial Recall performance when lists comprising items from the same semantic category were used (homogeneous condition) with a situation where lists held items from different semantic categories. Experiment 2 examined the same conditions with and without articulatory suppression during item presentation, and Experiment 3 reproduced these conditions with suppression occurring throughout presentation and Recall. Results of all three experiments showed a clear advantage for the homogeneous conditi...
Simon Farrell - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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can the effects of temporal grouping explain the similarities and differences between free Recall and Serial Recall
Memory & Cognition, 2015Co-Authors: Jessica Spurgeon, Geoffrey D Ward, William Matthews, Simon FarrellAbstract:Temporal grouping can provide a principled explanation for changes in the Serial position curves and output orders that occur with increasing list length in immediate free Recall (IFR) and immediate Serial Recall (ISR). To test these claims, we examined the effects of temporal grouping on the order of Recall in IFR and ISR of lists of between one and 12 words. Consistent with prior research, there were significant effects of temporal grouping in the ISR task with mid-length lists using Serial Recall scoring, and no overall grouping advantage in the IFR task with longer list lengths using free Recall scoring. In all conditions, there was a general tendency to initiate Recall with either the first list item or with one of the last four items, and then to Recall in a forward Serial order. In the grouped IFR conditions, when participants started with one of the last four words, there were particularly heightened tendencies to initiate Recall with the first item of the most recent group. Moreover, there was an increased degree of forward-ordered transitions within groups than across groups in IFR. These findings are broadly consistent with Farrell’s model, in which lists of items in immediate memory are parsed into distinct groups and participants initiate Recall with the first item of a chosen cluster, but also highlight shortcomings of that model. The data support the claim that grouping may offer an important element in the theoretical integration of IFR and ISR.
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Response suppression contributes to recency in Serial Recall
Memory & Cognition, 2012Co-Authors: Simon Farrell, Stephan LewandowskyAbstract:Serial Recall is often assumed to involve response suppression: the removal or inhibition of items already Recalled so that they are not Recalled again. Evidence for response suppression includes repetition inhibition and the separation of erroneous repetitions. Some theorists have suggested that response suppression, by eliminating competing responses, also contributes to recency in forward Serial Recall. We present experiments in which performance on the final item was examined as a function of whether or not the preceding retrievals entailed suppression of potential response competitors. In line with the predictions of response suppression, recency was found to be reduced when the earlier Recall errors consisted of intrusion errors (which leave list items unsuppressed) rather than transposition errors (which involve suppression).
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phonological similarity in Serial Recall constraints on theories of memory
Journal of Memory and Language, 2008Co-Authors: Stephan Lewandowsky, Simon FarrellAbstract:Abstract In short-term Serial Recall, similar-sounding items are remembered more poorly than items that do not sound alike. When lists mix similar and dissimilar items, performance on the dissimilar items is of considerable theoretical interest. Farrell and Lewandowsky [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2003). Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in Serial Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29 , 838–849.] recently showed that if guessing strategies are controlled, dissimilar items on mixed lists are Recalled more accurately than on pure dissimilar lists, a finding that challenges several current theories of Serial Recall. This article presents two experiments that extend the generality of the mixed-list advantage for dissimilar items and then applies three theories of memory—the primacy model, SIMPLE, and SOB—to the data. The simulations show that the data are best explained by the SOB theory [Farrell, S. (2006). Mixed-list phonological similarity effects in delayed Serial Recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 55 , 587-600; Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2002). An endogenous distributed model of ordering in Serial Recall. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 9 , 59–79.] which, unlike most other current theories, posits that similarity has an effect at the time of encoding.
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multiple roles for time in short term memory evidence from Serial Recall of order and timing
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 2008Co-Authors: Simon FarrellAbstract:Three experiments are reported that examine the relationship between short-term memory for time and order information, and the more specific claim that order memory is driven by a timing signal. Participants were presented with digits spaced irregularly in time and postcued (Experiments 1 and 2) or precued (Experiment 3) to Recall the order or timing of the digits. The primary results of interest were as follows: (a) Instructing participants to group lists had similar effects on Serial and timing Recall in inducing a pause in Recall between suggested groups; (b) the timing of Recall was predicted by the timing of the input lists in both Serial Recall and timing Recall; and (c) when the Recall task was precued, there was a tendency for temporally isolated items to be more accurately Recalled than temporally crowded items. The results place constraints on models of Serial Recall that assume a timing signal generates positional representations and suggest an additional role for information about individual durations in short-term memory.
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mixed list phonological similarity effects in delayed Serial Recall
Journal of Memory and Language, 2006Co-Authors: Simon FarrellAbstract:Abstract Recent experiments have shown that placing dissimilar items on lists of phonologically similar items enhances accuracy of ordered Recall of the dissimilar items [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2003). Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in Serial Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29 , 838–849.]. Two explanations have been offered for this effect: an encoding explanation, in which items similar to current memory contents are given less encoding weight and offer less competition for Recall; and a retrieval explanation, which suggests that the long-term similarity structure of the items leads to dissimilar items being more distinct on mixed lists. These theories are compared in an experiment in which a filled delay was introduced between study and test. Simulations show the prominent enhancing effects of similarity after a delay are captured by a model that assumes encoding is sensitive to the similarity of items to other list items [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2002). An endogenous distributed model of ordering in Serial Recall. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9 , 59–79.], but are not handled by a retrieval model [the Start–End Model; Henson, R. N. A. (1998). Short-term memory for Serial order: the Start–End Model. Cognitive Psychology, 36 , 73–137. ].
Jean Saintaubin - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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semantic similarity and immediate Serial Recall is there an effect on all trials
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2005Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Denis Ouellette, Marie PoirierAbstract:In immediate Serial Recall, items are better Recalled when they are all drawn from the same semantic category. This is usually accounted for by a two-stage retrieval-based framework, in which, at Recall, long-term knowledge is used to reconstruct degraded phonological traces. The category shared by list items would serve as an additional retrieval cue restricting the number of Recall candidates. Usually, the long-term search set is not defined, but some authors have suggested an extended search set and others a restricted set that is composed of the most recently presented items. This was tested in an experiment in which participants undertook an immediate Serial Recall task either alone or under articulatory suppression with either semantically similar or dissimilar lists. A trial-by-trial analysis revealed that, in both quiet and suppression conditions, items from similar lists were better Recalled on all the trials, including the first one. In addition, there was no interaction between semantic similarity and trial, indicating that the effect of similarity was of similar size on all the trials. The results are best interpreted within a proposal suggesting an extended long-term search set.
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immediate Serial Recall of words and nonwords tests of the retrieval based hypothesis
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2000Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Marie PoirierAbstract:In two experiments, the immediate Serial Recall of lists of words or nonwords was investigated under quiet and articulatory suppression conditions. The results showed better item Recall for words but better order Recall for nonwords, as measured with proportion of order errors per item Recalled. Articulatory suppression hindered the Recall of item information for both types of lists and of order information for words. These results are interpreted in light of a retrieval account in which degraded phonological traces must undergo a reconstruction process calling on long-term knowledge of the tobe-remembered items. The minimal long-term representations for nonwords are thought to be responsible for their lower item Recall and their better order Recall. Under suppression, phonological representations are thought to be minimal, producing trace interpretation problems responsible for the greater number of item and order errors, relative to quiet conditions. The very low performance for nonwords under suppression is attributed to the combination of degraded phonological information and minimal long-term knowledge.
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semantic similarity and immediate Serial Recall is there a detrimental effect on order information
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1999Co-Authors: Jean Saintaubin, Marie PoirierAbstract:Four experiments investigated the disruptive effect of semantic similarity on short-term ordered Recall. Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted immediate Serial Recall performance for lists of semantically similar items, drawn from the same semantic category, with performance for lists that contained items from different categories. Experiments 1 and 2 showed the usual similarity advantage for item information Recall, but, contrary to expectations, there was no similarity disadvantage for the Recall of order information, even when the level of item Recall was controlled. Experiments 3 and 4 replicate and extend these findings by using an order reconstruction task or a limited word pool strategy, both of which yield alternate measures of order retention. These findings clearly contradict the widespread belief stating that semantic similarity hinders the short-term Recall of order information. Results are discussed in the light of a retrieval-based account where the effects of semantic similarity reflect the proces...
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immediate Serial Recall word frequency item identity and item position
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1996Co-Authors: Marie Poirier, Jean SaintaubinAbstract:Immediate Serial Recall, Word Frequency, Item Identity and Item Position MARIE POIRIER and JEAN SAINT - AUBIN, Universite Laval Abstract Eighteen subjects completed an immediate Serial Recall task, where the to - be - Recalled lists consisted of either high, medium, or low - frequency items. Moreover, lists were either phonologically similar or distinct. Results showed that increasing frequency enhanced item information Recall but had no effect on order Recall. Conversely, increasing phonological similarity had a detrimental effect on order Recall but no significant effect on item Recall. It is argued that both effects reflect retrieval processes where degraded representations are reconstructed on the basis of long - term knowledge: Low - frequency words have reduced accessibility, lowering the probability of correct reconstruction, and phonologically similar items are more easily confused with other Recall candidates. In immediate Serial Recall (ISR), subjects must Recall a short list of items immediately after their presentation. It is now well established that lists of high - frequency words produce better performance than lists of low - frequency words (Engle, Nations, & Cantor, 1990; Gregg, Freedman, & Smith, 1989; Kausler & Pucket, 1979; Roodenrys, Hulme, Alban, Ellis, & Brown, 1994; Watkins, 1977; Watkins & Watkins, 1977). The aim of the work reported here was to answer a further question: Does frequency enhance memory for an item's occurrence, memory for an item's position within a list, or both (Whiteman, Nairne, & Serra, 1994)? Recent theoretical proposals can be seen as arguing either way. For example, Roodenrys et al. (1994) proposed a two - stage view of frequency effects, where partially degraded traces are retrieved from a phonological short - term store and are then subjected to a "deblurring" or pattern completion process. They suggest that this process depends on long - term representations, and that high - frequency words are better Recalled because of their greater accessibility. In other words, frequency affects the probability of a successful deblurring attempt. A similar account of lexicality effects in ISR has been proposed (Hulme, Maughan, & Brown, 1991; Schweickert, 1993), and it has also been usefully applied to the semantic category advantage (Poirier & Saint - Aubin, 1995). This type of proposal predicts an effect of frequency on item identity (Poirier & Saint - Aubin, 1995; see also Estes, 1991). All else being equal, the probability of successful deblurring will be greater for high - frequency items, leading to better item identity Recall. The main objective of the experiment reported here was to test this prediction. In contrast to accounts emphasizing item information, a number of proposals attribute the frequency advantage to better order information encoding, the hypothesis being that high - frequency lists entail stronger inter - item links (Deese, 1960; Sumby, 1963; Whiteman et al., 1994). Notably, Lewandowsky and Murdock (1989) successfully applied the Theory of Distributed Associative Memory to frequency effects in ISR by assuming that higher frequency lists produced stronger inter - item associations. A relevant empirical test of this class of proposals was recently conducted by Whiteman et al. (1994). They examined the effect of word frequency on a reconstruction task. After list presentation, subjects were provided with the items in a new random order and asked to reconstruct the original presentation sequence. It follows that the task is mainly one of order information Recall (Whiteman et al., 1994). Based on the hypothesis that high - frequency enhances order memory, superior performance is expected in the high - frequency condition. The Whiteman et al. (1994) results did not support this prediction: Word frequency did not influence performance. However, the reconstruction task used by Whiteman et al. …
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memory for related and unrelated words further evidence on the influence of semantic factors in immediate Serial Recall
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1995Co-Authors: Marie Poirier, Jean SaintaubinAbstract:A number of recent studies have explored the role of long-term memory factors in memory span tasks. The effects of lexicality, frequency, imageability, and word class have been investigated. The work reported in this paper examined the effect of semantic organization on the Recall of short lists of words. Specifically, the influence of semantic category on immediate Serial Recall and the interaction of this variable with articulatory suppression was investigated in three experiments. Experiment 1 compared immediate Serial Recall performance when lists comprising items from the same semantic category were used (homogeneous condition) with a situation where lists held items from different semantic categories. Experiment 2 examined the same conditions with and without articulatory suppression during item presentation, and Experiment 3 reproduced these conditions with suppression occurring throughout presentation and Recall. Results of all three experiments showed a clear advantage for the homogeneous conditi...
