Need probability affects retention: A direct demonstration

Anderson, Richard B.; Tweney, Ryan D.; Rivardo, Mark G.; Duncan, Sean C.

doi:10.3758/bf03211331

Cited by 37 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Bahrick (1979) found a similar advantage for recall of Spanish-English word lists. Anderson and Schooler (1991) and Anderson et al (1997) model these and analogous results in terms of need probability, showing that accuracy of recall is strongly predicted by degree of expectation for needing the relevant memory trace at test time, based on the intervals between its prior occurrences.…”

Section: Rational Expectation For Repetitionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Comprehension priming as rational expectation for repetition: Evidence from syntactic processing

Myslín

Lévy

2016

Cognition

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Why do comprehenders process repeated stimuli more rapidly than novel stimuli? We consider an adaptive explanation for why such facilitation may be beneficial: priming is a consequence of expectation for repetition due to rational adaptation to the environment. If occurrences of a stimulus cluster in time, given one occurrence it is rational to expect a second occurrence closely following. Leveraging such knowledge may be particularly useful in online processing of language, where pervasive clustering may help comprehenders negotiate the considerable challenge of continual expectation update at multiple levels of linguistic structure and environmental variability. We test this account in the domain of structural priming in syntax, making use of the sentential complement-direct object (SC-DO) ambiguity. We first show that sentences containing SC continuations cluster in natural language, motivating an expectation for repetition of this structure. Second, we show that comprehenders are indeed sensitive to the syntactic clustering properties of their current environment. In a series of between-groups self-paced reading studies, we find that participants who are exposed to clusters of SC sentences subsequently process repetitions of SC structure more rapidly than participants who are exposed to the same number of SCs spaced in time, and attribute the difference to the learned degree of expectation for repetition. We model this behavior through Bayesian belief update, showing that (the optimal degree of) sensitivity to clustering properties of syntactic structures is indeed learnable through experience. Comprehension priming effects are thus consistent with rational expectation for repetition based on adaptation to the linguistic environment.

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Section: Rational Expectation For Repetitionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Comprehension priming as rational expectation for repetition: Evidence from syntactic processing

Myslín

Lévy

2016

Cognition

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“…The general form of MD is not affected by altering time spent encoding (e.g., Wixted & Ebbesen, 1991), time between encoding and testing (Klatzky, 1980), or motivations to remember (R. B. Anderson, Tweney, Rivardo, & Duncan, 1997). GRMA is likewise considered to be an inherent property of goals and motives.…”

Section: From Individuals To Large Populationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting fluctuations in widespread interest: Memory decay and goal-related memory accessibility in Internet search trends.

Masicampo¹,

Ambady²

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Memory and interest respond in similar ways to people's shifting needs and motivations. We therefore tested whether memory and interest might produce similar, observable patterns in people's responses over time. Specifically, the present studies examined whether fluctuations in widespread interest (as measured by Internet search trends) resemble two well-established memory patterns: memory decay and goal-related memory accessibility. We examined national and international events (e.g., Nobel Prize selections, holidays) that produced spikes in widespread interest in certain people and foods. When the events that triggered widespread interest were incidental (e.g., the death of a celebrity), widespread interest conformed to memory decay patterns: It rose quickly, fell slowly according to a power function, and was higher after the event than before it. When the events that triggered widespread interest were goal related (e.g., political elections), widespread interest conformed to patterns of goal-related memory accessibility: It rose slowly, fell quickly according to a sigmoid function, and was lower after the event than before it. Fluctuations in widespread interest over time are thus similar to standard memory patterns observed at the individual level due perhaps to common mechanisms and functions.

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“…For example, R. B. Anderson, Tweney, Rivardo, and Duncan (1997) showed that the rate of decrement in recall of digits was a function of the probability that recall would be required at a given retention interval.…”

Section: Consequences Of Rememberingmentioning

confidence: 99%