A framework for interpreting recency effects in immediate serial recall

Abstract

A descriptive framework is offered for the interpretation of recency effects in immediate serial recall. Basic to the framework is a distinction between two types of trace features: (1) modalitydependent features, which represent the perceptual qualities of presentation, and (2) modalityindependent features, which result from the set of encoding operations known as the "inner voice." Recency and modality effects emerge because certain types of modality-dependent (i.e., languagebased) features are typically not subject to postlist interfering events and are likely to be sampled as discriminative cues in recall. The framework is used to interpret problematic findings in the modality effect literature, such as the effects of visual presentation, lipreading, mouthing, and stimulus class on the recall of recency items.The question of how we remember recently presented information as it recedes backward in time has occupied the attention of memory theorists for some time. The typical finding that items near the end of a list are remembered best has served as an empirical cornerstone for a number of memory issues; for example, the separation between primary and secondary memory stores has relied on variations in the recency effect in free recall for much of its empirical base (see Greene, 1986, for a review). The concern of the present article, however, is with the recency effect in immediate serial recall, a procedure in which subjects are presented with relatively short lists of items to be recalled immediately in the exact order of presentation. Of particular interest is the finding that the size of the recency effect in immediate serial recall is dramatically affected by the specific modality of stimulus presentation. The modality effect, as it is termed, refers to the fact that recency performance is enhanced for auditorally presented items relative to silent visual controls (Conrad

Is there a modality effect? Evidence for visual recency and suffix effects

“…Furthermore, it is also very unlikely that the subjects retained temporal order only by encoding the labels for temporal positions in a speechlike form. It is exactly this processing of modalityindependent features that, without the support of residual auditory traces, predicts the absence of a recency effect (Nairne, 1988). Third, a strong recency effect was obtained when item information could be disregarded.…”

“…The surviving trace features will aid recall as long as they provide discriminative information about an item. It follows that, if the items in the set are poorly discrirninable, very little discriminative information can be provided by the surviving traces, and, because ofthis, recency will be absent or sharply reduced (Nairne, 1988). This is exactly what has been found when auditory lists of high interitem similarity are used (Battacchi, Pelamatti, & Umiltä, 1989;Crowder, 1971;Darwin & Baddeley, 1974;Watkins, Watkins, & Crowder, 1984), and there is no reason to limit the effect of stimulus similarity to audition.…”

Visual distinctivenesscan enhance recency effects

“…Greater saliency of visually presented features should lead to improved recall, since it would strengthen the encoding ofnonverbal information (Nairne, 1988). The effectiveness of visual distinctiveness at enhancing recency appears to depend on two factors: first, on whether saliency is manipulated for the entire set or just the last item; and second, on which dimension is used to make the static properties of the stimulus more salient.…”

“…An alternative method for increasing distinctiveness is to make the static visual properties ofa set ofstimuli more salient, by manipulating what Nairne (1988Nairne ( , 1990 refers to as "modality-dependent" features. McDowd and Madigan (1991) were unable to enhance recency effects in this manner, despite several attempts, which included making visual stimuli more distinctive in terms of their color, salience within the presentation environment (i.e., by minimizing visual interference), or spatial distribution.…”

“…Attempts to identify the characteristics of acoustic stimuli that account for this modality effect have included an emphasis on the greater duration of acoustic (Crowder & Morton, 1969) or, more broadly, speech-like stimuli in precategorical storage (Crowder, 1986); the easier linguistic encoding of such stimuli (Nairne, 1988;Shand & Klima, 1981); and the property that they have of changing states during temporal presentation (Campbell, Dodd, & Brasher, 1983;Glenberg, 1990;Glenberg & Swanson, 1986;Kallman & Cameron, 1989). These theoretical approaches are all similar in assuming that aspects of auditory stimuli somehow make them more "distinctive" and that this distinctiveness consequently enhances recency effects.…”