Trace resistance and the decay of long-term memory

Wickelgren, Wayne A.

doi:10.1016/0022-2496(72)90015-6

Cited by 186 publications

(169 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Instead, the function can be reconceptualized as indicating a much deeper generalization: That is, it may be that the power law is ubiquitous because slope variability is ubiquitous.Moreover, occasional or even frequent violations of the power law (i.e., exponential forgetting, Wickelgren, 1972;or exponential skill acquisition, Heathcote, Brown, & Mewhort, 2000) need not undermine the power function's validity. Indeed, adherence to the power law might turn out to be valuable as an index of the magnitude of intercomponent slope variability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The power law as an emergent property

Anderson

2001

Memory & Cognition

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Recent work has shown that the power function, a ubiquitous characteristicof learning, memory, and sensation, can emerge from the arithmetic averaging of exponential curves. In the present study, the forgetting process was simulated via computer to determine whether power curves can result from the averaging of other types of component curves. Each of several simulations contained 100 memory traces that were made to decay at different rates. The resulting component curves were then arithmetically averaged to produce an aggregate curve for each simulation. The simulations varied with respect to the forms of the component curves: exponential, range-limited linear, range-limited logarithmic, or power. The goodness of the aggregate curve's fit to a power function relative to other functions increased as the amount of intercomponent slope variability increased, irrespective of componentcurve type. Thus, the power law's ubiquity may reflect the pervasiveness of slope variability across component functions. Moreover, power-curve emergence may constitute a methodological artifact, an explanatory construct, or both, depending on the locus of the effect.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The power law as an emergent property

Anderson

2001

Memory & Cognition

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“…Moreover, empirically derived forgetting functions show that loss of memory strength is particularly dramatic across early retention phases, phases that correspond to the standard assumption concerning the break among focal attention, WM, and LTM (e.g., Dosher & Ma, 1998;McBride & Dosher, 1997Rubin & Wenzel, 1996; Rubin, Hinton, & Wenzel, in press;Wickelgren, 1972). Consequently, access or retrieval speed can be used to differentiate representational states only if it can be measured independently of potentially covarying differences in memory strength.…”

Section: Measuring Access Speedmentioning

confidence: 92%

Working memory and focal attention.

McElree¹

2001

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

340

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Measures of retrieval speed indicated that only a small subset of representations in working memory falls within the focus of attention. An n-back task, which required tracking an item 1, 2, or 3 back in a sequentially presented list, was used to examine the representation and retrieval of recent events and how control processes can be used to maintain an item in focal attention while concurrently processing new information. A speed-accuracy trade-off procedure was used to derive measures of the availability and the speed with which recent events can be accessed. Results converge with other time course studies in demonstrating that attention can be concurrently allocated only to a small number of memory representations, perhaps just 1 item. Measures of retrieval speed further demonstrate that order information is retrieved by a slow search process when an item is not maintained within focal attention.Many core operations in complex cognitive tasks depend on the by-products of recent perceptual and cognitive processing. In language comprehension, for example, a reader/ listener is frequently required to resolve long-distance dependencies in which a constituent assigns a grammatical and semantic role to a representation of a phrase processed at a much earlier point in the sentence (e.g., McElree, 2000). Similarly, subgoals in reasoning and problem solving often require access to the products of operations applied in earlier subgoals (e.g., Anderson, 1983).The amount of information that can be processed at one time is limited, and, in many cases, it is unlikely that all the relevant by-products of recent processing can be actively maintained in the focus of attention. Whenever information exceeds the span of attention, successful execution of a cognitive operation requires shunting information between memory and focal attention. The span of attention places constraints on possible cognitive operations and the manner in which various mental computations must be performed. Determining the capacity of focal attention and how focal attention interfaces with different memory systems is an essential part of understanding complex cognitive tasks.The experiments reported here use the n-back task (Awh et al., 1996;Cohen et al., 1994Cohen et al., , 1997Dobbs & Rule, 1989;See & Ryan, 1995; to examine how much information can be maintained in focal attention while concurrently processing new information. Additionally, the task was used to examine the closely related issue of how information is shunted between memory and focal attention when attentional capacity is exceeded. The n-back task requires judging whether an item matches the nth-item back (e.g., 1-back, 2-back, 3-back) in a sequentially presented list of items. It challenges individuals to maintain the n-back item in focal attention while concurrently processing new items. Substantial demands are placed on control (executive) processes, because the response set NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript must be continually updat...

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“…Reed (1977) showed that the Markov model of Young (1971) performed more or less similar as the present model (leading to a χ 2 -value of 49.3, df = 18). However, a model based on Wickelgren's strength-resistance theory (Reed, 1976;Wickelgren, 1972Wickelgren, , 1974aWickelgren, , 1974b) did perform substantially better, leading to χ 2 values between 24 and 30 depending on the exact assumptions of the model. The basic reason for this superior fit seems to be due that the Reed model is capable of fitting the initial decrease for short retention intervals when the spacing interval increases from 0 to 3 s (see the top curve in the left panel of Fig.…”

Section: Fits To Standard Data On Spacingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spacing and repetition effects in human memory: application of the SAM model

Raaijmakers

2003

Cognitive Science

162

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Spacing between study trials of an item increases the probability that item will be recalled. This article presents a new model for spacing based on the SAM theory of memory developed by Raaijmakers and Shiffrin (1980, 1981). The model is a generalization of the SAM model as applied to interference paradigms (Mensink & Raaijmakers, 1988, 1989 and may be viewed as a mathematical version of the Component-Levels theory proposed by Glenberg (1979). It is assumed that on a second presentation of an item, information is added to an existing trace if the episodic memory image corresponding to that item is retrieved. If it is not retrieved, a new image is stored. It is shown that the model predicts many standard findings including the lack of a spacing effect for the recall of at least one of two items each presented once (Ross & Landauer, 1978).

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Trace resistance and the decay of long-term memory

Cited by 186 publications

References 21 publications

The power law as an emergent property

The power law as an emergent property

Working memory and focal attention.

Spacing and repetition effects in human memory: application of the SAM model

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