Access to the memory trace through orthographic and categoric information.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the retrieval properties of three different types of retrieval cues in order to reveal the retrieval information carried by the trace of an item in episodic memory. Three independent groups of subjects learned to respond, with the same instances, to the names of categories to which the instances belonged, or the initial letters of the names of the instances, or the category-name-initial-letter pairs. Subsequently, the three kinds of traces established were examined by attempting to access their identities through the initial letters or the category names. Several differences between traces established to be accessed by initial letters and traces established to be accessed by category names were found. Most important was the finding that the traces retrieved previously according to initial-letter cues could be retrieved equally as well according to the category names, but traces that had been retrieved previously according to the category names were retrieved much more poorly according to the initial-letter cues. The implication of this finding was that in order to be an effective retrieval cue, the initial letter of an item must be intentionally preencoded for such a purpose; but some semantic retrieval information is encoded with every trace as a matter of course. The results were related to encoding specificity, the structure of the mental lexicon, and a speech-production hypothesis to account for initial-letter cuing effects.The experiments described in this report were designed to gather information concerning the interaction of different types of retrieval cues with the memory traces they access. The term memory trace refers here to the mental representation of a stimulus item established by a subject-in his attempt to commit that item to memory.

Coding processes in normal and learning-disabled children: Evidence for modality-specific pathways to the cognitive system.

“…The only exception to this statement, as we have just pointed out, was the both impairments group (and the auditory and visual groups when items were presented in their impaired modality). Recently, Ozier (1978) demonstrated a similar finding. Her subjects (adults) automatically encoded semantic information when given a perceptual encoding task, but the reverse did not occur.…”

The effects of partial information in amnesic and normal subjects

“…It remains to be explained why intra-item associations are apparently normal in amnesic subjects; the question cannot be answered at present when it is still a basic puzzle why the first letters of words are able to function as retrieval cues (Ozier, 1978). However, it should be noted that reading a five-letter word must involve activation of its semantic memory representation (the sense, the sound, and the spelling of the word); this activation may result in some kind of "priming", making activation of the same semantic memory structures more probable in a later cued recall test (see for example Bahrick, 1971;Brown, 1979).…”

Semantic and formational clustering in deaf and hearing subjects’ free recall of signs

“…Lauer and Battig (1972) and Mondani, Pellegrino, and Battig (1973) found that subjects preferred taxonomic organization over orthographic (initial letter) organization. More recently, Ozier (1978) has provided evidence that semantic information, but not orthographic (initial letter) information, is encoded automatically in memory.…”

“…Wood (1972) found that subjects clustered acoustically during recall if they had been asked earlier to sort items into categories of words that rhyme. And Ozier (1978) showed that initial letters can serve as effective retrieval cues if subjects are required to use these during acquisition. Additional research is needed to determine whether conditions such as these (e.g., blocked presentation, sorting instructions) would lead deaf subjects to cluster on the basis of formational similarity of signs in free recall.…”