A Remember-Know Analysis of the Semantic Serial Position Function

Abstract

Did the serial position functions observed in certain semantic memory tasks (e.g., remembering the order of books or films) arise because they really tapped episodic memory? To address this issue, participants were asked to make "remember-know" judgments as they reconstructed the release order of the 7 Harry Potter books and 2 sets of movies. For both classes of stimuli, the "remember" and "know" serial position functions were indistinguishable, and all showed the characteristic U-shape with marked primacy and recency effects. These results are inconsistent with a multiple memory systems view, which predicts recency effects only for "remember" responses and no recency effects for "know" responses. However, the data were consistent with a general memory principle account: the relative distinctiveness principle. According to this view, performance on both episodic and semantic memory tasks arises from the same type of processing: Items that are more separated from their close neighbors in psychological space at the time of recall will be better remembered.

Serial position functions in general knowledge.

“…The results are consistent with the growing number of studies that report serial position functions in tasks thought to tap semantic, as opposed to episodic, memory (e.g., Crowder, 1993; Healy et al, 2000; Healy & Parker, 2001; Kelley et al, 2013, 2014; Maylor, 2002; Neath & Saint-Aubin, 2011; Overstreet & Healy, 2011; Roediger & Crowder, 1976). Even if one discounts the data from the basketball payers due to lack of a primacy effect, there remain demonstrations of serial position effects with 8 different classes of stimuli: political figures, lyrics, books, movies, actors, animals, countries, and planets.…”

“…However, there are a growing number of studies that show serial position functions when people recall information that is presumably in semantic memory. These effects have been demonstrated when recalling political figures (e.g., Crowder, 1993;Healy, Havas, & Parker, 2000;Healy & Parker, 2001;Neath & Saint-Aubin, 2011;Roediger & Crowder, 1976;Roediger & DeSoto, 2014); song lyrics (Kelley, Neath, & Surprenant, 2013;Maylor, 2002;Overstreet & Healy, 2011); movies (Kelley et al, 2013(Kelley et al, , 2014; and the order of the Harry Potter books (Kelley et al, 2013(Kelley et al, , 2014.…”

“…Even if that explanation were not contradicted by the data, it would not apply to serial position functions observed when recalling the order in which movies were released or Harry Potter books were published. Finally, if one were to argue that the latter demonstrations reflected episodic memory, the data from a remember/know analysis revealed serial position functions when only "know" responses are examined (see Kelley et al, 2014).…”

Three Semantic Serial Position Functions at the Same Time

“…Previous research has demonstrated serial position functions, with their characteristic primacy and recency effects, in a number of different tasks that are thought to tap semantic as opposed to episodic memory (Crowder, 1993; Healy et al, 2000; Healy & Parker, 2001; Kelley et al, 2013, 2014, 2015; Maylor, 2002; Neath & Saint-Aubin, 2011; Overstreet & Healy, 2011; Overstreet et al, in press; Roediger & Crowder, 1976; Roediger & DeSoto, 2014). The results reported here extend these results in two ways: First, three more dimensions have been found that produce serial position functions and error gradients.…”

“…Whereas most theoretical accounts posit that primacy and recency are restricted to episodic memory (see Kelley, Neath, & Surprenant, 2014, for a discussion), the relative distinctiveness principle predicts that serial position functions should be observed when the task taps semantic memory or, more generally, in any task where the set of items can be reasonably ordered along a given dimension, other things being equal (see Neath & Saint-Aubin, 2011). In episodic tasks, the dimension is frequently temporal (i.e., relative time), but need not be; items can be ordered on a perceptual dimension (Neath, Brown, McCormack, Chater, & Freeman, 2006), on an ordinal position dimension (Surprenant, Neath, & Brown, 2006), or on any other dimension that is useful and relevant to the task.…”