Reliability of retrieving information from knowledge structures in memory: Scripts

Abstract

Research has shown that the reliability of retrieving information from knowledge structures in memory is surprisingly low. For many knowledge structures only about half the information retrieved in one session is the same information retrieved in a second session 1 week later. A number of theorists have argued that knowledge structures known as scripts are particularly important and well-organized knowledge structures. The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to determine the reliability of retrieving script information from memory. In Experiment 1, 10 scripts were tested. It was found that the reliability of retrieving information from scripts had a mean value of .50, which is no larger a value than values found for many other knowledge structures. On the other hand, any script information recalled in both sessions was almost always recalled in the same relative order. The mean output-output correlation was .92. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that the strict ordering of script actions by the subjects was not the result of ordering instructions.

Cognitive Malleability and the Wisdom of Independent Aggregation

“…He found that only 69% of the exemplars retrieved in the first session were retrieved again 1 week later. Retrieval reliability is even lower for noun meanings, facts about people, and scripts (Bellezza, 1984b(Bellezza, , 1984c(Bellezza, , 1988. Perhaps most surprisingly, retrieval reliability of information about the self, thought to be better organized and more salient than information about other knowledge domains (e.g., Epstein, 1973;Greenwald, 1981;Kuiper & Rogers, 1979), is in fact even lower (51%) than the retrieval reliability for common taxonomic categories such as fruit and fish (76%; Bellezza, 1987; see also Greenwald, Bellezza, & Banaji, 1988).…”