Memory without retrieval: Testing the direct-access account of the missing item task.

Abstract

In the missing item task, two short lists are presented. The test list contains all but one of the items from the study list in a new random order and the task is to report which item from the study list is missing. Murdock and Smith (2005) found that the time to correctly respond with the missing item was independent of the position of the missing item and was also independent of the list length. They argued that these data are difficult to accommodate by models that include a search process but are consistent with models that posit "direct access" such as the power set version of Theory of Distributed Associative Memory (TODAM). If direct access is occurring, redintegration cannot be occurring. Two experiments test the direct access account by determining whether two effects commonly ascribed to redintegration occur in the missing item task. Experiment 1 found a semantic relatedness effect and Experiment 2 found a word frequency effect. The presence of these effects is consistent with a redintegration account. Implications for TODAM and for an explanation based on the Feature Model are discussed. Public Significance StatementRemembering is assumed to require retrieval but results from the missing item task have been interpreted as showing direct access to memory. However, performance on this task was found to vary depending on the frequency of the words and also to differ when the words were semantically related. Because both frequency and semantic relatedness effects are thought to require retrieval, the direct access account was not supported.