This review discusses the state of knowledge in odor memory within the framework of mainstream memory research. Experimental findings are structured around prevailing theoretical distinctions in the study of memory proper, including semantic-episodic memory and implicit-explicit memory. Unaided odor-identification performance is found to be approximately 40%-50% of the total stimulus set presented to Ss, although performance approaches the limit of memorial discrimination if Ss are given label training with feedback. Odor identification is conceptualized as a task with 3 major components and where performance falls on a continuum ranging from nonverbal feelings of familiarity to specific object names. Odor recognition is shown to be relatively stable over long retention intervals, and more than 1 explanation can account for this effect. It is also suggested that name recognition may contribute to the results obtained in odor-recognition experiments. Several possible avenues for future research on both explicit and implicit memory for odors are mentioned. It is concluded that although much is known already about memory for odors, many questions still remain unanswered or unasked.
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the presentation-order error that occurs in judgments of sequentially presented temporal intervals. The factors of interest were (1) the source of the errors, sensitivity versus bias, (2) the direction of the errors, and (3) the effect of varying the lSI separating the sequentially presented intervals. Subjects experienced two successively presented time intervals in the range of 1 to 4 sec or 10 to 13 sec on each trial, separated by ISIs of .5-6 sec, and were asked to reproduce either the first or the second interval. Results indicated a negative time-order error for all intervals, such that the intervals were consistently reproduced as longer when presented second rather than first. This time-order error was found to be due to the sensitivity of the processing system, and was interpreted in terms of the recency effect of memory. Presentation order was found to affect sensitivity, whereas lSI was shown to affect reliability of reproductions. lSI had no systematic effect on the size of the time-order error. Implications for time-order error theories and the general importance of the study of presentationorder effects are discussed.Fechner (1860) was the first psychologist to discover and speculate about the nature and cause of the systematic error that generally affects subjects' judgments of sequentially presented stimuli: When discriminating between a pair of successively lifted weights, Fechner observed that the probability of a correct judgment was greater when he first lifted the lighter of the two weights rather than the other way around. Fechner subsequently distinguished between a negative discrimination error (better discrimination when the first stimulus is less than the second) and a positive one (better discrimination when the first stimulus is greater than the second).This presentation-order error, more commonly known as time-order error (TOE), has been the subject of theoretical and empirical attention since the early days of experimental psychology (for comprehensive reviews, see Guilford, 1954;Hellstrom, 1985;Needham, 1934;Woodrow, 1935), and appropriately so: successive stimulus presentation is ubiquitous in cognitive psychological research, and knowledge regarding systematic errors in judgment that occur on the basis of the order in which stimuli are presented is of vital importance for the interpretation of such research. Beyond the psychology lab, successive judgments are probably also more common than simultaneous judgments, and are evidenced, for example, in such varied behaviors as comparing musical per-
Three experiments were designed to decide whether temporal information is coded more accurately for intervals defined by auditory events or for those defined by visual events. In the first experiment, the irregular-list technique was used, in which a short list of items was presented, the items all separated by different interstimulus intervals. Following presentation, the subject was given three items from the list, in their correct serial order, and was asked to judge the relative interstimulus intervals. Performance was indistinguishable whether the items were presented auditorily or visually. In the second experiment, two unfilled intervals were defined by three nonverbal signals in either the auditory or the visual modality. After delays of 0, 9, or 18 sec (the latter two filled with distractor activity), the subjects were directed to make a verbal estimate of the length of one ofthe two intervals, which ranged from 1 to 4 sec and from 10 to 13 sec. Again, performance was not dependent on the modality of the time markers. The results of Experiment 3, which was procedurally similar to Experiment 2 but with filled rather than empty intervals, showed significant modality differences in one measure only. Within the range of intervals employed in the present study, our results provide, at best, only modest support for theories that predict more accurate temporal coding in memory for auditory, rather than visual, stimulus presentation.The recency effect in memory captures one of the most conspicuous laws of memory and metamemory: we remember well what just happened and less well what happened in the more remote past. Currently, one prominent theoretical approach to recency is founded on the proposition that items from the end of a series have a privileged status because of their discriminability along the temporal dimension (Baddeley & Hitch, 1977;Hitch, 1985;Murdock, 1960). Glenberg (1987;Glenberg & Swanson, 1986) has set out a particularly well-formulated version of this idea. His temporal distinctiveness theory deals successfully with several aspects of recency including, notably, the long-term recency effect of Bjork and Whitten (1974) and its dependence on the relative spacing of list items to each other and the time lapse prior to recall.Briefly, the central proposition of Glenberg's (1987;Glenberg & Swanson, 1986) retrieval-based distinctiveness theory is that encoding of new information includes a description of the time of occurrence of the new information. Retrieval proceeds by means of temporally defined search sets when more efficacious retrieval cues (i.e., semantic cues) are not available. The size of a given search set is a function of how long ago the information was presented: temporally more distant events are asThis research was supported by NSF Grant BNS 92-19661 to Robert G. Crowder. We wish to thank Arthur M. Glenberg, Alice F. Healy, Alee Hellstrom, and an anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Correspondence regarding this article should ...
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