Forgotten but not gone: savings for pictures and words in long-term memory

Five experiments examined the relearning of words, simple line-drawing pictures, and complex photographic pictures after retention intervals of 1 to 10 weeks. For those items that were neither recalled nor recognized, the identical item was relearned better than an unrelated control item, as measured by a recall test following relearning. This relearning advantage in recall held for all three classes of material and extended to the cross-modality case (i.e., picture-word and word-picture) and the same-referent case (i.e., two pictures of the same object). However, recognition tests of relearning failed to detect this same relearning advantage for apparently forgotten items. Taken together, these findings conflict with the existing account of savings. Most fundamental, the classic argument that relearning serves a trace-strengthening function is undetermined by the observed recall-recognition contrast. An alternative explanation of savings is suggested wherein relearning assists retrieval of information, thereby affecting recall in particular.     

Dual-process theory and signal-detection theory of recognition memory

Two influential models of recognition memory, the unequal-variance signal-detection model and a dual-process threshold/detection model, accurately describe the receiver operating characteristic, but only the latter model can provide estimates of recollection and familiarity. Such estimates often accord with those provided by the remember-know procedure, and both methods are now widely used in the neuroscience literature to identify the brain correlates of recollection and familiarity. However, in recent years, a substantial literature has accumulated directly contrasting the signal-detection model against the threshold/detection model, and that literature is almost unanimous in its endorsement of signal-detection theory. A dual-process version of signal-detection theory implies that individual recognition decisions are not process pure, and it suggests new ways to investigate the brain correlates of recognition memory.     

Associative symmetry and memory theory

This article reexamines the theory and data concerning two opposing views of episodic association. The independent association hypothesis (IAH) sees associations as unidirectional and separately modifiable links between individual item representations. The associative symmetry hypothesis (ASH) sees an association as a holistic conjunction of the constituent items, blending the elements of their representations into a new one. In early tests of these hypotheses, experimenters compared forward and backward recall of paired associates, looking for asymmetries. Although some studies showed significant differences between forward and backward recall, the vast majority did not. The author of this study used a mathematical analysis of distributed memory models to reexamine this classic question. These analyses revealed that symmetric and asymmetric models can mimic each other, offering identical predictions regarding forward and backward recall. To distinguish these models, the author examined the correlation between forward and backward recall at the level of individual pairs of items. Both this correlation and the correlation between recall of pairs tested in the same direction were near unity. These results provide new evidence favoring the ASH over the IAH.     

Fuzzy-trace theory and memory development

We review recent applications of fuzzy-trace theory to memory development, organizing the presentation around two themes: the theory’s explanatory principles and experimental findings about memory development that follow as predictions from those principles. The featured explanatory principles are: parallel storage of verbatim and gist traces, dissociated retrieval of verbatim and gist traces, differential survival rates for verbatim and gist traces, retrieval phenomenology, and developmental trends in verbatim and gist memory. The experimental findings come from four different areas of research: the development of retrieval phenomenologies, “reversed” developmental trends in false memory, the development of mere testing effects, and the development of false persistence in memory.     

Stimulus array and recall method as variables in audio-visual split-span memory

Performance on an audio-visual split-span task was found to be adversely affected by the concurrent operation of two factors, namely: alternation of stimulus classes between the two input messages, and the use of a recall method which entails alternate sampling of the two messages. However, these factors had no significant effect when operating singly. The present study indicated that subjects prefer the strategy of reporting visual items first when using modality recall, and that this strategy is more efficient than that of reporting auditory items first. Also, modality recall proved to be the preferred method under free recall instructions. While there were more visual errors than auditory errors, visual commissions exceeded order errors, but auditory order errors exceeded commissions. The redundancy proposal of the search hypothesis (Yntema and Trask, 1963) was tested, and was found to be inadequate as an account of audio-visual performance.     

Reader and text variables as determinants of discourse memory in adulthood

Young students, old students, and old nonstudents read and recalled short texts that were in either narrative or expository form. In addition, a set of six verbal ability measures thought to be related to discourse memory was obtained for all of the participants. Older subjects recalled less from the texts than younger subjects, and neither type of text nor student status modified the magnitude of the age differences. The set of verbal ability measures was adequately described by two principal components, one consisting of simple, speed-related skills, and the other consisting of more complex skills. Each set of variables predicted a proportion of discourse memory variance, and accounted for some of the variance that would otherwise be attributed to age. The results suggest that age differences in some basic cognitive skills related to reading effectiveness might underlie age differences in memory for discourse.     

A protoconnectionist theory of memory

I. A. Richards published a chapter entitled “Memory” in 1924 in which he proposed what may be viewed as the outline of a connectionist theory of memory. However, this protoconnectionist theory attracted no subsequent attention. There appear to be two types of reason for this neglect. The first concerns the impossibility at that time of implementing the theory in the form of an explicit model. The second concerns the nature of Richards’s career. On the one hand, Richards did not himself subsequently develop his theory of memory any further. On the other, the fact that Richards was not generally perceived as a psychologist probably impeded the dissemination of his theory among psychologists. The neglect of Richards’s theory demonstrates the range of factors, other than the strictly scientific, which can be important in determining the influence or otherwise of a psychological theory.     

Contiguity and the causal theory of memory

In Memory: A Philosophical Study, Bernecker argues for an account of contiguity. This Contiguity View is meant to solve relearning and prompting, wayward causation problems plaguing the causal theory of memory. I argue that Bernecker’s Contiguity View fails in this task. Contiguity is too weak to prevent relearning and too strong to allow prompting. These failures illustrate a problem inherent in accounts of memory causation. Relearning and prompting are both causal relations, wayward only with respect to our interest in specifying remembering’s requirements. Solving them requires saying more about remembering, not causation. I conclude by sketching such an account.     

An instance theory of attention and memory

An instance theory of attention and memory (ITAM) is presented that integrates formal theories of attention and memory phenomena by exploiting commonalities in their formal structure. The core idea in each theory is that performance depends on a choice process that can be modeled as a race between competing alternatives. Attention and categorization are viewed as different perspectives on the same race. Attention selects objects by categorizing them; objects are categorized by attending to them. ITAM incorporates each of its ancestors as a special case, so it inherits their successes.     

Sentences for use in memory research

To investigate the effects of effort toward comprehension on subsequent recall, Auble, Franks, and Soraci (1979) generated a series of 40 sentences which varied in comprehensibility. We presented these sentences along with 60 new sentences to 122 undergraduates at the University of New Orleans. Sentences were rated for comprehensibility both before and after cue presentation. Sentences which appear most useful for research are discussed.