Effects of cuing on short-term retention of order information.

Healy, Alice F.; Fendrich, David W.; Cunningham, Thomas F.; Till, Robert E.

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.13.3.413

Cited by 29 publications

(53 citation statements)

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“…These regular data patterns are often used as empirical benchmarks for developing theories ofserial order memory. The Estes perturbation model, for example, has been very successful in explaining order data in both shortand long-term settings (Healy, Fendrich, Cunningham, & Till, 1987;Lee & Estes, 1977, 1981. The perturbation model assumes that people encode position memories during list presentation (e.g., Item X occurred in the second temporal position on the list) but that those memories become uncertain and fuzzy with the passage oftime.…”

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confidence: 99%

Part—set cuing of order information: Implications for associative theories of serial order memory

Serra

Nairne

2000

Memory & Cognition

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In three experiments, the effect of cuing, at the point of test, on memory for order and/or position was investigated, Experiment 1 used a partial reconstruction of order task to demonstrate a mnemonic benefit of part-set cuing at the time of test; this result is used to argue that people may commonly use interitem associative information, rather than just position information, to help them remember serial order. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and simultaneously demonstrated the mnemonic detriment that part-set cuing typically produces in free recall. Experiment 3 showed that cues presented at test will either help or hinder reconstruction of order, depending on whether those cues are consistent or inconsistent with the original presentation order. The results of all three experiments are discussed within the framework of position and associative theories of serial order memory.The ability to remember occurrence information, particularly the position of items in time, is central to successful episodic remembering. When an item is forgotten from a memory list, it is not the item per se that is forgotten but, rather, the fact that the item occurred at a particular point in time. People do not forget the word elephant; they simply forget that elephant occurred on the memory list. Successful remembering, as a result, hinges on the precise encoding and retention ofposition information-that is, when and where the item occurred in a temporal-spatial window defined by the experiment and its setting (see Crowder, 1979;Estes, 1997;Nairne, 1991).Traditionally, memory researchers have looked at position memory, or memory for order, by using serial recall tasks, often in an immediate memory setting. A short list of items is presented and followed moments later by a test requiring one to recall the items from left to right in their exact temporal order ofpresentation. However, immediate serial recall suffers from a number of problems, including the fact that it typically confounds item and order memory; that is, participants need to remember not only the temporal positions that items occupied, but also the items themselves. To help solve this problem, relevant list items can be re-presented at test in a new random order, with the requirement that participants simply place them back into their original order of presentation (e.g.,

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Part—set cuing of order information: Implications for associative theories of serial order memory

Serra

Nairne

2000

Memory & Cognition

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“…These different findings led to very different conclusions about the rate of forgetting from primary memory when secondary memory processes are minimized. Although Muter (1980) concluded that the rate of forgetting was very rapid, we concluded that the rate offorgetting was no more rapid than in previous studies in whic~secondary memory processes were evident (e.g., Cunningham et a!., 1984;Healy et al, 1987;Lee & Estes, 198.1). Muter (1995) expresses surprise (see p. 385) that subjects would ever exhibit difficulty in recalling a small s~gment of letters immediately after their presentation (i.e., at a O-see retention interval).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 40%

“…(Cunningham et al, 1993, p. 672) Hence, the major goal of the study by Cunningham et al (1993) was to continue the second line of investigation, in an attempt to achieve a more powerful reduction of secondary memory processes and to examine the rate of forgetting from primary memory when primary memory processes are isolated as much as possible. (p. 672) In his commentary, Muter (1995) quotes this goal (see p. 385) but cites only part of it out of context, so that he does not make it clear that it was of crucial concern in the investigation ofCunningham et al (1993) to build on the experimental and theoretical methods developed by Healy et al (1987) and to see whether very rapid forgetting would be obtained with those methods, rather than only with the ones developed by Muter (1980).…”

Section: Goals Ofthe Study By Cunningham Et Al (1993)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, Muter (1995) is correct that the digit shadowing distractor task used by Cunningham et al (1993) was different from, and perhaps easier than, the counting backward and word reading tasks used by Muter (1980), but the digit shadowing task was used for at least two good reasons. First, the digit shadowing distractor task was the one used in the earlier study by Healy et al (1987) as well as in the previous work on which that study was based (see Lee &Estes, 1981, andWilliams, 1984). Second, that task provided control by the experimenter over the rate ofthe subject's responses (each digit is presented at the rate of one per 1/2 sec in the fast presentation rate or one per sec in the slow presentation rate, so that the subject must respond at that rate), whereas no such control is provided over the rate of the counting backward and word reading tasks used by Muter (1980).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Very rapid forgetting: Reply to Muter

Healy

Cunningham

1995

Memory & Cognition

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We reply to the commentary in which Muter (1995) disputes thefindings and arguments ofCunningham, Healy, Till, Fendrich, andDimitry (1993) concerning the rate of forgetting from primary memory. Although Muter (1980) We found Muter's (1995) commentary to be stimulating and challenging. Although we disagree with much of what Muter says, the issues and criticisms that he raises with regard to our (Cunningham, Healy, Till, Fendrich, & Dimitry, 1993) goals, procedures, findings, and conclusions illustrate well the complexities involved in this area ofresearch. We believe that the concept of very rapid forgetting in short-term memory has been oversimplified in the past and that a close examination of our study visa-vis Muter's commentary will help clarify the conceptual and procedural complexities and confusions associated with the phenomenon.In his commentary, Muter (1995) argues that the experiments reported by Cunningham et al. (1993) do not constitute failures to replicate Muter's (1980) experiments demonstrating very rapid forgetting. Muter (1995) posits that Cunningham et al.'s procedures lack some of the necessary conditions for studying forgetting from primary memory and that their data do not cast doubt on the finding of very rapid forgetting. More specifically, Muter (1995) cites as two major problems the expectations of the subjects with regard to recall and the diffi-

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“…O ne possible explanation is that proactive interference (PI: K eppel & U nderwood, 1962) was able to bu ild up much m ore rapidly in the original Order O nly experiments because subjects were both presented with and tested over the same set of item s on each trial. Althou gh the sam e item s were presented across trials in H ealy et al (1987) andCunningh am et al (1993), su bjects were not consistently tested over the same set of consonants on each trial in these experim ents. G iven that PI is considered to be on e of the major deter minants of forgetting in im mediate m emor y experiments, PI shou ld always be considered as a prim e candidate for in terpreting apparent forgetting differences across experimental conditions.…”

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Short-Term Forgetting of Order Under Conditions of Reduced Interference

Nairne

Whiteman

Kelley

1999

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A

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T hree experiments examined the shor t-ter m retention of order in a modi® ed Brown±Peter son task. O ur intent was to examine the loss of order memory, unconfounded by item m em or y, under conditions in wh ich interference from prior trials is kept low. In previous work on the shor t-ter m for getting of order, experimenter s have tended to repeat the same items across trials or to draw from a restricted set; in our experiments, we changed the to-be-recalled items from trial to trial and used reconstr uction as the retention measure. In all three exp eriments, ver y little forgetting was obtained across retention intervals that have traditionally produced dr amatic and systematic loss. Ou r results are reminiscent of those obtained in the Brown± Peterson task wh en per for mance is assessed after only the ® r st experimental trial.In the typ ical Brown±Peterson experim ent (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1959), su bjects are presented with a shor t list of item s (e.g. th ree words or a conson an t trigram), followed by a distractor-® lled retention interval of varyin g d ur ation . At th e p oint of recall, the task is to rem ember th e list items in their correct serial order. U nder these conditions, forgetting is often dramatic. In one condition, for exam ple, Peterson and Peter son (1959) found that subjects respon d ed correctly over 70% of the tim e following 3 sec of distraction. After 18 sec, the percentage of correct responses had drop ped to 15% .One advan tage of requiring serial recall is that separate estimates of forgetting can be obtained for recall based on an ord ered or free-scoring criterion. D irect comparisons of these measu res reveal that ordered recall shows much more forgetting than does free recall, in wh ich items are scored with ou t regard to or igin al serial position (e.g. M arsh, Sebrechts, H icks, & L an dau, 1997;M uter, 1980; Sebrechts, M arsh, & S eam on , 1989 Sebrechts, M arsh, & S eam on , ). M uter (1980 found, for example, little difference between or dered and unordered scoring on immediate tests, bu t there were advantages for unordered scoring of 20±30% at retention intervals of 2, 4, and 8 sec. O ne might in terpret these results as suggesting that order in for m ation is lost rapidly from mem ory, bu t serial recall has the disadvan tage of confounding mem ory for order with m emor y for the item s themselves. A scoring criterion based on ord ered recall therefore measu res not on ly the loss of or der infor m ation , bu t the loss of item in for m ation as well.A m or e accurate assessm ent of the rate at wh ich ord er infor mation is lost comes from experiments using order reconstruction as the retention measu re. In reconstruction tasks, T H E QUART ERLY JOU RN AL O F EXPERIM EN T AL PS YCH OL OG Y, 1999, 52A (1), 241±251Requ ests for rep rints and cor respondence sh ou ld be sent to James S. N air ne, D epartment of Psychological Sciences, P urd ue U n iver sity, West L afayette, IN 47907±1364, U.S.A.

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Effects of cuing on short-term retention of order information.

Cited by 29 publications

References 15 publications

Part—set cuing of order information: Implications for associative theories of serial order memory

Part—set cuing of order information: Implications for associative theories of serial order memory

Very rapid forgetting: Reply to Muter

Short-Term Forgetting of Order Under Conditions of Reduced Interference

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