An analysis of latency and interresponse time in free recall

In four experiments, subjects freely recalled previously studied items while a voice key and computer recorded each item’s recall latency relative to the onset of the recall period. The measures of recall probability and mean recall latency were shown to be empirically independent, demonstrating that there exists no a priori relationship between the two. In all four experiments, latency distributions were fit well by the ex-Gaussian, suggesting that retrieval includes a brief normally distributed initiation stage followed by a longer exponentially distributed search stage. Further, the variation in mean latency stemmed from the variation in the duration of the search stage, not the initiation stage. Interresponse times (IRTs), the time elapsed between two successive item recalls, were analyzed as well. The growth of mean IRTs, plotted as a function of output position, was shown to be a simple function of the number of items not yet recalled. Finally, the mathematical nature of both free recall latency and IRT growth are shown to be consistent with a simple theoretical account of retrieval that depicts mean recall latency as a measure of the breadth of search.     

The benefit of interleaved mathematics practice is not limited to superficially similar kinds of problems

Most mathematics assignments consist of a group of problems requiring the same strategy. For example, a lesson on the quadratic formula is typically followed by a block of problems requiring students to use that formula, which means that students know the appropriate strategy before they read each problem. In an alternative approach, different kinds of problems appear in an interleaved order, which requires students to choose the strategy on the basis of the problem itself. In the classroom-based experiment reported here, grade 7 students (n = 140) received blocked or interleaved practice over a nine-week period, followed two weeks later by an unannounced test. The mean test scores were greater for material learned by interleaved practice rather than by blocked practice (72 % vs. 38 %, d = 1.05). This interleaving effect was observed even though the different kinds of problems were superficially dissimilar from each other, whereas previous interleaved mathematics studies had required students to learn nearly identical kinds of problems. We conclude that interleaving improves mathematics learning not only by improving discrimination between different kinds of problems, but also by strengthening the association between each kind of problem and its corresponding strategy.     

Studying Personality Cross-Culturally Edited by Bert Kaplan

This article offers a theory about the evolution of small group systems through a seriesof stages It discusses the relationship of these stages to and their effect on the self-other and therapeutic mteruentive spheres m the long-term group treatment of children. The developmental unfolding is seen as universal to small groups and as operating on an interpersonal and collective level, distinguishable from individual psyches and close dyadic bonds but influenced by them. On an isomorphic level the group stages contain emotive, cognitive, and interactive themes and pr cesses that parallel and evoke those of the bonding and work processes. As such, the group dynamic provides an enabling matrix and a mirror for the other goings on in the member–therapist encounter. Its pacing and its progressions and regressions appear to correspond with those of the development of the transitional space and therapeutic culture of the group. Like the other articles in the symposium, this one offers specific examples in which the three spheres intersect and are integrated.     

Discrepant Data and Improbable Results: An Examination of Vohs,Mead, and Goode (2006)

A highly cited article by Vohs, Mead, and Goode (2006) reported several experiments in which an incidental reminder of money produced large effects on subsequent behaviors unrelated to money. We attempted 2 high-powered direct replications of the first experiment, which found that money-primed subjects worked on a puzzle nearly twice as long as controls before quitting. The replication studies showed no evidence of money priming. Moreover, 25% of the subjects in our studies solved the puzzle correctly or incorrectly, whereas none reportedly did so in the original study. We also list anomalies in the reported results of the original study.     

A Social Priming Data Set With Troubling Oddities

A recent paper by Chatterjee, Rose, and Sinha (2013) reported impressively large “money priming” effects: incidental exposure to concepts relating to cash or credit cards made participants much less generous with their time and money (after cash primes) or much more generous (after credit card primes ). Primes also altered participants’ choices in a word-stem completion task. To explore these effects, we carried out re-analyses of the raw data. A number of strange oddities were brought to light, including a dramatic similarity of the filler word-stem completion responses produced by the 20 subjects who contributed most to the priming effects. We suggest that these oddities undermine the credibility of the paper and require further investigation.     

Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: Choices and consequences

Our research on learning enhancement has been focusing on the consequences for learning and forgetting of some of the more obvious and concrete choices that arise in instruction, including questions such as these: How does spacing of practice affect retention of information over significant retention intervals (up to 1 year)? Do spacing effects generalize beyond recall of verbal materials? Is feedback needed to promote learning, and must it be immediate? Although retrieval practice has been found to enhance learning in comparison with additional study, does it actually reduce the rate of forgetting? Can retrieval practice effects be extended to nonverbal materials? We suggest that as we begin to find answers to these questions, it should become possible for cognitive psychology to offer nonobvious advice that can be applied in a variety of instructional contexts to facilitate learning and reduce forgetting.     

On the relative and absolute strength of a memory trace

Subjects studied either an 8- or 16-word list and later recalled the items while a voice key recorded each response latency. The trials were partitioned by recall total in order to examine the means and distributions of both latencies and interresponse times as a function of recall total. Each analysis was consistent with the view that an item’s absolute strength determineswhether it is recalled whereas an item’s relative strength determineswhen it is recalled. In addition, mean latency was effectively proportional to study list length yet independent of recall total. All of the analyses were consistent with the view that the set of study items is sampled according to a relative-strength rule until all items are found and that a sampled item is recovered into consciousness only when its absolute strength exceeds a fixed threshold.     

When two memories can and cannot be retrieved concurrently

We examined whether two memories can be retrieved concurrently from long-term memory. In Experiment 1, the subjects recalled words, either from two categories—alternating between the two—or from just one category. In Experiment 2, the subjects recalled two words belonging to either the same category or different categories, and the category prompts for these two responses appeared either simultaneously or successively. The results of both studies are consistent with the view that two items from different categories must be retrieved serially, whereas two items from the same category can be retrieved in parallel.     

Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis

The authors performed a meta-analysis of the distributed practice effect to illuminate the effects of temporal variables that have been neglected in previous reviews. This review found 839 assessments of distributed practice in 317 experiments located in 184 articles. Effects of spacing (consecutive massed presentations vs. spaced learning episodes) and lag (less spaced vs. more spaced learning episodes) were examined, as were expanding interstudy interval (ISI) effects. Analyses suggest that ISI and retention interval operate jointly to affect final-test retention; specifically, the ISI producing maximal retention increased as retention interval increased. Areas needing future research and theoretical implications are discussed.     

The breadth of memory search

The recall of previously studied items is widely believed to incorporate a search of a markedly constrained set of possibilities, and the present study examines whether this set of items typically includes unstudied semantic associates of the study items. In an episodic task, participants recalled a previously studied list of eight exemplars drawn from a small or large category, and, in a semantic task, participants generated exemplars from these categories. Category size affected the time course of recall in the semantic task but not in the episodic task. This empirical dissociation between episodic and semantic memory is consistent with the view that episodic memory search efficiently excludes unstudied semantic associates of the study items and is instead constrained to those items sharing the temporal and spatial attributes of the episode.