Response latency and the content of immediate memory

Fraisse, Paul; Smirnov, S. Yu.

doi:10.3758/bf03335162

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In the fixed recall condition, the latency linearly increased (p < .005) with the number of emitted elements (increment =56 msec/ element). This result confirms and makes clearer the previous work of Fraisse and Smirnov (1976). The increase in latency was due to the increase in the number of elements recalled by the subject when the number of elements in the stimulus was flxed ,"…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Response latency in immediate memory: Free number of responses vs. fixed number of responses

Fraisse

1979

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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In an immediate memory task where cards with six letters were presented tachistoscopically, a decrease in response latency inversely proportional to the number of recognized letters was found . On the other hand, when subjects had to recognize a limited number of letters, latency increased proportionally to the number of responses. These results lead to the conclusion that response elaboration is a complex process that depends on the number of responses immediately recognized and on the time spent searching for stimuli that were detected but not recognized. The time necessitated by the verification of an answer was about the same as the time necessary for the verification of the accuracy of a recognized item (about 40-50msec).The studies that have been conducted during the last 20 years within the framework of information processing have shown the fecundity of Donders ' (1969) idea that variations in reaction time may help to analyze cognitive processes that occur between stimulation and response. In a previous study (Fraisse & Smirnov, 1976),1 the latency of the first response was studied in an immediate memory task ; the subjects were asked to recall a certain number of simple items that they had seen either simultaneously or successively for a brief duration that prevented overt or covert rehearsal. It was found, both with simultaneous tachistoscopic presentation and with successive presentation, that the latency of the first response increased proportionally to the number of items reported (R) , which was itself equal to the number of items presented (S) when only correct responses were taken into account (R = S). This increase in the first response latency was interpreted as being due to the elaboration of responses before their emission. Once the subject begins to answer, he emits his responses at nearly constant speed.The same study was pursued in -an experiment (Fraisse, 1978a) where the number of items (letters) was varied and the latency of correct responses (R = S) and of correct but incomplete responses (R < S) was systematically analyzed . It was found that latency of incomplete responses was always longer than that of complete ones, and that the more incomplete the response, the longer the latency . This finding, which had already been incidentally observed in a study on the immediate memory of geometric figures and nouns (Fraisse, 1977) , suggested that latency of incomplete responses involved two durations: the .duration corresponding to the elaboration of recognized stimuli and a duration corresponding to Requests for reprints should be sent to P. Fraisse, Laboratoire de Psychologie Experimentale, 28 rue Serpente, Paris, France 75006. the search of stimuli that had been detected but not identified. It is well established that, in tachistoscopic presentation, the subject detects the presence of stimuli that he cannot identify. This fact was explicitly verified in an experiment where, besides the immediate memory task, the subjects were submitted to a visual number-discrimination task (Fraisse...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Response latency in immediate memory: Free number of responses vs. fixed number of responses

Fraisse

1979

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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“…In this context it is worth noting that the distribution of pauses is not unlike the typical serial position curve for accuracy of recall. 5 Of possible relevance here is a study by Fraisse and Smirnov (1976) who describe data on the speed of reporting letter from iconic memory. It is noteworthy that at their largest array size (five letters), where report accuracy has severely declined, the rate of speech in correct reports is lower than with smaller arrays, and this appears largely due to a bowed serial position effect for interresponse times, (Fraisse & Smirnov, 1976, Table 1).…”

Section: Qualitative Aspects Of Speech Outputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Initiation latency and advanced planning in rapid recitation and oral reading.

Henderson¹,

Chard²,

Clark³

1981

Canadian Journal of Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologi

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In six experiments subjects translated arrays of one to eight letters into spoken letter names as rapidly as possible. The nature of the initial visual encoding was investigated by comparing a reading condition in which naming was direct from the display with a retrieval condition in which naming was from memory of an immediately preceding display. In both conditions a preparatory process was revealed wherein subjects delayed their initiation of naming for a time dependent on the number of letters to be named. This preparatory delay was briefer in the retrieval condition and it was reduced in both conditions by orthographic structure in the letter array. The delay was shown to be functional since, when subjects were instructed to minimize it, then the ensuing rate of speech was reduced. The time taken to complete naming was invariably a linear function of array size in the reading task; however, in the retrieval task the completion-time function was generally positively accelerated. For arrays of up to five letters speech was faster in the retrieval than in the reading condition, suggesting that preparation in the reading task had resulted in a lesser degree of response planning. The diminished speech rate with longer arrays in the retrieval task was at least partly attributable to discrete hesitations during responding which are ascribed to difficulties in retrieving response information from short-term memory. This slowing was almost eliminated by structure in the letter arrays.

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“…Following a simultaneous or successive presentation of several letters of the alphabet, latency of the first response (LFR) was found to linearly increase with the number of available responses, within the limits of memory span (Fraisse & Smirnov, 1976). A brief and simultaneous presentation of each additional item resulted in a 70-msec increase, whereas in a successive presentation , each additional item resulted in a 50-rnsec increase (there was an interval of 900 rnsec between letters) .…”

Section: Laboratoire De Psychologie Exphimentale Paris 75006 Francementioning

confidence: 99%