Serial position, output order, and list length effects for words presented on smartphones over very long intervals

Mack, Cathleen Cortis; Cinel, Caterina; Davies, Nigel; Harding, Mike; Ward, Geoffrey D

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2017.07.009

Cited by 30 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…Finally, smartphone and life-logging technology offers researchers interested in the psychology of memory a more complete, more objective, more contemporaneous and more incidentally encoded record of autobiographical events to interrogate our memory capabilities than that possible to even the most committed diary writing by memory researchers (e.g., Linton, 1975 ; Wagenaar, 1986 ). It also allows carefully controlled experimental stimuli to be presented via personal devices at time intervals well beyond what is practical in the laboratory (e.g., Cortis Mack, Cinel, Davies, Harding, & Ward, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards augmented human memory: Retrieval-induced forgetting and retrieval practice in an interactive, end-of-day review.

Cinel¹,

Mack²,

Ward³

2018

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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The authors report 6 experiments that examined the contention that an end-of-day review could lead to augmentation in human memory. In Experiment 1, participants in the study phase were presented with a campus tour of different to-be-remembered objects in different university locations. Each to-be-remembered object was presented with an associated specific comment. Participants were then shown the location name and photographs of half of the objects from half of the locations, and they were asked to try to name the object and recall the associated comment specific to each item. Following a filled delay, participants were presented with the name of each campus location and were asked to free recall the to-be-remembered objects. Relative to the recall from the unpracticed location categories, participants recalled the names of significantly more objects that they practiced (retrieval practice) and significantly fewer unpracticed objects from the practiced locations (retrieval-induced forgetting, RIF). These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 using a campus scavenger hunt in which participants selected their own stimuli from experimenter’s categories. Following an examination of factors that maximized the effects of RIF and retrieval practice in the laboratory (Experiment 3), the authors applied these findings to the campus scavenger hunt task to create different retrieval practice schedules to maximize and minimize recall of items based on experimenter-selected (Experiment 4) and participant-selected items using both category-cued free recall (Experiment 5) and item-specific cues (Experiment 6). Their findings support the claim that an interactive, end-of-day review could lead to augmentation in human memory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards augmented human memory: Retrieval-induced forgetting and retrieval practice in an interactive, end-of-day review.

Cinel¹,

Mack²,

Ward³

2018

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Self Cite

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“…When taken at face value, these aggregate data offer very little evidence supporting the claim that the benchmark serial position curves in immediate free recall in the laboratory are also observed for stimuli presented over far more extended timescales. This state of affairs is also disturbing if one compares the Cortis Mack et al (2017) data with studies showing long-term recency (e.g., Baddeley & Hitch, 1977; da Costa Pinto & Baddeley, 1991). However, given that studies of long-term recency offer only a single test opportunity, one potential way to reconcile the two sets of data would be to consider the Cortis Mack et al data on only the very first day of testing.…”

Section: Using Smartphone Applications To Study Episodic Memory Over mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, Cortis Mack, Cinel, Davies, Harding, and Ward (2017) pioneered the use of RECAPP,1 an iPhone application for presenting lists of words to participants’ smartphones at particular times. In three experiments, participants saw lists of between two and ten words each day (for between 10 and 50 days), and these words were selected at random without replacement from the Toronto Word Pool (Friendly, Franklin, Hoffman, & Rubin, 1982).…”

Section: Using Smartphone Applications To Study Episodic Memory Over mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This would allow us to determine whether there are reliable serial position effects in free recall on Day 1 of testing. Although a need would remain to integrate the standard laboratory free recall data with the aggregate Cortis Mack et al (2017) data, obtaining reliable bowed serial position curves for Day 1 of testing with smartphones would reconcile the Cortis Mack et al data with studies of long-term recency effects.…”

Section: Using Smartphone Applications To Study Episodic Memory Over mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first smartphone application that we used was RECAPP-XPR, a modified version of an iPhone application, RECAPP, that we have been developing that has been used to study free recall, serial recall, and recognition memory over long timescales (Cortis Mack, et al, 2017; the open access source code is available at https://github.com/Recall-Project). RECAPP-XPR consists of (1) a mobile application and (2) a number of web and data storage components that integrate to support very long-term memory studies, experience-sampling studies, and longitudinal recall studies.…”

Section: The Recapp-xpr Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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RECAPP-XPR: A smartphone application for presenting and recalling experimentally controlled stimuli over longer timescales

et al. 2018

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We report two experiments that used smartphone applications for presenting and recalling verbal stimuli over extended timescales. In Experiment 1 , we used an iPhone application that we had developed, called RECAPP-XPR, to present 76 participants with a single list of eight words presented at a rate of one word every hour, followed by a test of free recall an hour later. The experiment was exceptionally easy to schedule, taking only between 5 and 10 min to set up using a web-based interface. RECAPP-XPR randomly samples the stimuli, presents the stimuli, and collects the free recall data. The stimuli disappear shortly after they have been presented, and RECAPP-XPR collects data on when each stimulus was viewed. In Experiment 2 , the study was replicated using the widely used image-sharing application Snapchat. A total of 197 participants were tested by 38 student experimenters, who manually presented the stimuli as “snaps” of experimentally controlled stimuli using the same experimental rates that had been used in Experiment 1 . Like all snaps, these stimuli disappeared from view after a very short interval. In both experiments, we observed significant recall advantages for the first and last list items (primacy and recency effects, respectively), and there were clear tendencies to make more transitions at output between near-neighboring items, with a forward-ordered bias, consistent with temporal contiguity effects. The respective advantages and disadvantages of RECAPP-XPR and Snapchat as experimental software packages are discussed, as is the relationship between single-study-list smartphone experiments and long-term recency studies of real-world events.

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How a Daily Regimen of Operant Conditioning Might Explain the Power of the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME)

Epstein,

Lothringer,

Zankich

2024

Behav. Soc. Iss.

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Recent studies have shown that biased search results can produce substantial shifts in the opinions and voting preferences of undecided voters – a phenomenon called the “search engine manipulation effect” (SEME), one of the most powerful list effects ever discovered. We believe this is so because, unlike other list effects, SEME is supported by a daily regimen of operant conditioning. When people conduct searches for simple facts (86% of searches), the correct answer invariably turns up in the top position, which teaches users to attend to and click on high-ranking search results. As a result, when people are undecided, they tend to formulate opinions based on web pages linked to top search results. We tested this hypothesis in a controlled experiment with 551 US voters. Participants in our High-Trust group conducted routine searches in which the correct answer always appeared in the first search result. In our Low-Trust group, the correct answer could appear in any search position other than the first two. In all, participants had to answer five questions during this pre-training, and we focused our analysis on people who answered all the questions correctly (n = 355) – in other words, on people who were maximally impacted by the pre-training contingencies. A difference consistent with our hypothesis emerged between the groups when they were subsequently asked to search for information on political candidates. Voting preferences in the High-Trust group shifted toward the favored candidate at a higher rate (34.6%) than voting preferences in the Low-Trust group (17.1%, p = 0.001).

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Serial position, output order, and list length effects for words presented on smartphones over very long intervals

Cited by 30 publications

References 90 publications

Towards augmented human memory: Retrieval-induced forgetting and retrieval practice in an interactive, end-of-day review.

Towards augmented human memory: Retrieval-induced forgetting and retrieval practice in an interactive, end-of-day review.

RECAPP-XPR: A smartphone application for presenting and recalling experimentally controlled stimuli over longer timescales

How a Daily Regimen of Operant Conditioning Might Explain the Power of the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME)

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