Deconfounding Serial Recall

Cowan, Nelson; Saults, J. Scott; Elliott, Emily M.; Moreno, Matthew

doi:10.1006/jmla.2001.2805

Cited by 134 publications

(222 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…(Bakeman & McArthur, 1996) Discussion Experiment 3 replicated the beneficial effect of free time with a probed-recall paradigm. It also replicated the serial-position effects of previous experiments that deconfounded input and output order (Cowan, Saults, Elliott, & Moreno, 2002;Oberauer, 2003):…”

Section: Figure 8: Top: Proportion Of Distractor Intrusions As a Funcsupporting

confidence: 77%

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

Oberauer

Lewandowsky

2016

Cognition

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Section: Figure 8: Top: Proportion Of Distractor Intrusions As a Funcsupporting

confidence: 77%

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

Oberauer

Lewandowsky

2016

Cognition

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“…There are several arguments against this, and in favor of the suggestion that the focus of attention can consult activated memory only once. Theoretically, the act of recall may interfere with the activated-memory record (Cowan, Saults, Elliott, & Moreno, 2002), or there may be a phenomenon analogous to inhibition of return (Posner, Rafal, Choate, & Vaughan, 1985), which can occur not only for spatial locations but also for previously-attended objects (Tipper, Driver, & Weaver, 1991).…”

Section: Assumption 3: Single Iteration Of Retrievalmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the capacity of attention: Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes

Cowan

Elliott

Saults

et al. 2005

Cognitive Psychology

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977

1,051

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Working memory (WM) is the set of mental processes holding limited information in a temporarily accessible state in service of cognition. We provide a theoretical framework to understand the relation between WM and aptitude measures. The WM measures that have yielded high correlations with aptitudes include separate storage and processing task components, on the assumption that WM involves both storage and processing. We argue that the critical aspect of successful WM measures is that rehearsal and grouping processes are prevented, allowing a clearer estimate of how many separate chunks of information the focus of attention circumscribes at once. Storage-and-processing tasks correlate with aptitudes, according to this view, largely because the processing task prevents rehearsal and grouping of items to be recalled. In a developmental study, we document that several scope-of-attention measures that do not include a separate processing component, but nevertheless prevent efficient rehearsal or grouping, also correlate well with aptitudes and with storage-andprocessing measures. So does digit span in children too young to rehearse. Keywordsworking memory; short-term memory; individual differences; variation in working memory; cholastic abilities; intellectual abilities; attention; capacity; storage capacity Baddeley and Hitch (1974) highlighted a key theoretical construct, working memory (WM), which can be described generally as the set of mechanisms capable of retaining a small amount of information in an active state for use in ongoing cognitive tasks (though it now means Research on WM suggests that the measures used most often to examine individual differences have both strengths and weaknesses. A main type of strength is their strong correlation with intellectual aptitude tests, and a main type of weakness is the difficulty encountered in analyzing and interpreting WM test results. This difficulty stems largely from the reliance on dual tasks in the measurement of WM capacity (which include separate storage and processing task components). We will argue that the research literature provides hints that the strengths can be retained without using storage-and-processing measures. We will offer a theoretical framework for doing so, and for measuring WM in a more meaningful way than is found with current measurement practices. The theoretical framework is based on the notion of an adjustable attentional focus and on measures of the storage capacity of attention or its scope. The predictions tested in the present article pertain to the scope of attention, whereas the adjustable nature of the focus allows consistency with other highly relevant research (e.g., Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001).We do not judge the success of this endeavor by whether storage-and-processing measures or the proposed alternative, scope-of-attention measures, pick up more variance in aptitude tasks.Rather, success will be judged by whether the variance that is picked up contributes to our understanding of the processes underlyi...

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“…It is often assumed that recall of one or more list items can have both facilitatory and interfering effects on the retrieval of other list items (e.g., Nairne, Ceo, & Reysen, 2007). The successful retrieval of some list items may aid the retrieval of other semantically-related or temporally-neighboring items, leading to semantic clustering and temporal contiguity effects (e.g., Polyn, Norman & Kahana, 2009), but the retrieval of one item may also decrease the accessibility of others through output interference (e.g., Beaman, 2002;Cowan, Saults, Elliott & Moreno, 2002;Oberauer, 2003;Tan & Ward, 2007). Using a cued recall task, Nairne et al…”

Section: On the Tendency To Initiate Ifr Of A Short List Of Words Witmentioning

confidence: 99%

First things first: Similar list length and output order effects for verbal and nonverbal stimuli.

Cortis¹,

Dent²,

Kennett³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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When participants are presented with a short list of unrelated words and they are instructed that they may recall in any order, they nevertheless show a very strong tendency to recall in forward serial order. Thus, if asked to recall in any order: "hat, mouse, tea, stairs", participants often respond "hat, mouse, tea, stairs" even though there was no forward order requirement of the task. In four experiments, we examined whether this tendency is language-specific, reflecting mechanisms involved with speech perception, speech production, and / or verbal short-term memory.Specifically, we examined whether we would observe similar findings when participants were asked to recall, in any order, lists of between 1 and 15 non-verbal stimuli, such as visuo-spatial locations (Experiment 1, Experiment 3, Experiment 4), or touched facial locations (Experiment 2).Contrary to a language-specific explanation, we found corresponding tendencies (albeit somewhat reduced) in the immediate free recall of these non-verbal stimuli. We conclude that the tendency to initiate recall of a short sequence of items with the first item is a general property of memory, which may be augmented by verbal coding. wordsKeywords: free recall; visuo-spatial memory; tactile memory; verbal short-term memory; serial order 3 Recently, Ward, Tan, and Grenfell-Essam (2010) reported the first systematic investigation into an experimental finding that was first reported by Corballis (1967) and then again by Neath and Crowder (1996). When participants are asked to recall a short list of words in any order, such as:"hat, mouse, tea, stairs", they often respond in forward serial order (that is, they recall "hat, mouse, tea, stairs"), even though there was no forward order requirement of the task. Ward et al. argued that this finding was important for two reasons. First, the finding encouraged greater theoretical integration between the otherwise divergent immediate free recall (IFR) and immediate serial recall (ISR) literatures. Second, the finding is potentially difficult to explain by many theories of IFR that emphasize the importance of explaining recency effects (that is, the high accessibility of items presented toward the end of a list). Third, the finding adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests that forward-ordered recall may be a defining principle of episodic memory (e.g., Hurlstone, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2014).One specific aim of the current work is to address the question of whether this forwardordered tendency observed in the IFR of verbal stimuli reflects the operation of language-specific mechanisms (such as a speech input/output buffer or a verbal short-term memory system) or whether the tendency is a more general property of memory that can also be observed across different (non-verbal) materials. A second more general aim of the current work is to examine the functional similarities and differences between IFR of stimuli from verbal and non-verbal domains.In the introduction that follows, we outline more fully the phenomenon ...

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Deconfounding Serial Recall

Cited by 134 publications

References 71 publications

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

On the capacity of attention: Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes

First things first: Similar list length and output order effects for verbal and nonverbal stimuli.

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