Positional information in short-term memory: Relative or absolute?

Henson, Richard N.

doi:10.3758/bf03198544

Cited by 123 publications

(256 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…For example, if subjects are probed serial recall (Henson, 1999). We therefore asked whether subjects in our paired-associate task exhibited a similar tendency to commit protrusion errors.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal associative processes revealed by intrusions in paired-associate recall

Davis

Geller

Rizzuto

et al. 2008

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also examined whether PLIs tend to come from the same serial position as the target item (cf. Henson, 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

Temporal associative processes revealed by intrusions in paired-associate recall

Davis

Geller

Rizzuto

et al. 2008

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…To see why edges are well suited for learning positional regularities, it is necessary to consider the kinds of memory that can be used to encode sequences (see Henson, 1998Henson, , 1999, for reviews). On the one hand, sequences such as ABCD can be encoded by remembering the transitions A !…”

Section: What Kinds Of Classes Did Participants Learn?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Primitive computations in speech processing

Endress

Mehler

2009

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Previous research suggests that artificial-language learners exposed to quasi-continuous speech can learn that the first and the last syllables of words have to belong to distinct classes (e.g., Endress & Bonatti, 2007;Peña, Bonatti, Nespor, & Mehler, 2002). The mechanisms of these generalizations, however, are debated. Here we show that participants learn such generalizations only when the crucial syllables are in edge positions (i.e., the first and the last), but not when they are in medial positions (i.e., the second and the fourth in pentasyllabic items). In contrast to the generalizations, participants readily perform statistical analyses also in word middles. In analogy to sequential memory, we suggest that participants extract the generalizations using a simple but specific mechanism that encodes the positions of syllables that occur in edges. Simultaneously, they use another mechanism to track the syllable distribution in the speech streams. In contrast to previous accounts, this model explains why the generalizations are faster than the statistical computations, require additional cues, and break down under different conditions, and why they can be performed at all. We also show that that similar edge-based mechanisms may explain many results in artificial-grammar learning and also various linguistic observations. Permanent repository link

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“…The last two categories can be considered item-type errors. Most of these categories are commonly used for error analyses in the literature (e.g., Henson, 1998Henson, , 1999. Figure 3 shows the average number of error types made by participants under the two sampling conditions for the "easy" and "hard" word lists.…”

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confidence: 99%

Effects of Lexical Competition on Immediate Memory Span for Spoken Words

Goh

Pisoni²

2003

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A

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Current theories and models of the structural organization of verbal short-term memory are primarily based on evidence obtained from manipulations of features inherent m the short-term traces of the presented stimuli, such as phonological similarity. In the present study, we investigated whether properties of the stimuli that are not inherent in the short-term traces of spoken words would affect performance in an immediate memory span task. We studied the lexical neighbourhood properties of the stimulus items, which are based on the structure and organization of words in the mental lexicon. The experiments manipulated lexical competition by varying the phonological neighbourhood structure (i.e., neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency) of the words on a test list while controlling for word frequency and intra-set phonological similarity (family size). Immediate memory span for spoken words was measured under repeated and nonrepeated sampling procedures. The results demonstrated that lexical competition only emerged when a nonrepeated sampling procedure was used and the participants had to access new words from their lexicons. These findings were not dependent on individual differences in short-term memory capacity. Additional results showed that the lexical competition effects did not interact with proactive interference. Analyses of error patterns indicated that itemtype errors, but not positional errors, were influenced by the lexical attributes of the stimulus items. These results complement and extend previous findings that have argued for separate contributions of long-term knowledge and short-term memory rehearsal processes in immediate verbal serial recall tasks.One of the major assumptions of current verbal short-term memory (STM) models is the proposal that words are coded and represented in a phonological form in immediate memory. For example, in Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) well-known "working" memory model, they propose a specific mechanism called the "phonological (or articulatory) loop" to support the retention of verbal lists on a temporary basis. The impetus for positing specific mechanisms to handle phonological coding of words stems from a number of robust findings in the STM literature. These include the phonological similarity effect (e.g., Baddeley, 1966;Conrad, 1964), the word length effect (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975), the unattended speech effect (Salamé & Baddeley, 1982, 1987, and the articulatory suppression effect (Baddeley, Lewis, &Vallar, 1984).The Interpretations given to these diverse findings on immediate memory span have not gone unchallenged (see, e.g., Caplan, Rochon, & Waters, 1992;Caplan & Waters, 1994; © 2003 The Experimental Psychology Society Requests for reprints should be sent to Winston D. Goh, National University of Singapore, Department of Social, Work & Psychology, 11 Law Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore. winston_goh@nus.edu.sg. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript Q J Exp Psychol A. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 September 04. ...

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Positional information in short-term memory: Relative or absolute?

Cited by 123 publications

References 37 publications

Temporal associative processes revealed by intrusions in paired-associate recall

Temporal associative processes revealed by intrusions in paired-associate recall

Primitive computations in speech processing

Effects of Lexical Competition on Immediate Memory Span for Spoken Words

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