Order recall in verbal short-term memory: The role of semantic networks

In their recent article, Acheson, MacDonald, and Postle (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 37:44–59, 2011) made an important but controversial suggestion: They hypothesized that (a) semantic information has an effect on order information in short-term memory (STM) and (b) order recall in STM is based on the level of activation of items within the relevant lexico-semantic long-term memory (LTM) network. However, verbal STM research has typically led to the conclusion that factors such as semantic category have a large effect on the number of correctly recalled items, but little or no impact on order recall (Poirier & Saint-Aubin, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 48A:384–404, 1995; Saint-Aubin, Ouellette, & Poirier, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12:171–177, 2005; Tse, Memory 17:874–891, 2009). Moreover, most formal models of short-term order memory currently suggest a separate mechanism for order coding—that is, one that is separate from item representation and not associated with LTM lexico-semantic networks. Both of the experiments reported here tested the predictions that we derived from Acheson et al. The findings show that, as predicted, manipulations aiming to affect the activation of item representations significantly impacted order memory.

[1]  F. Richard Ferraro,et al.  Interactions Between Short-Term and Long-Term Memory in the Verbal Domain , 2010 .

[2]  Gordon D. A. Brown,et al.  Memory for familiar and unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to short-term memory span , 1991 .

[3]  M. Poirier,et al.  Immediate serial recall, word frequency, item identity and item position. , 1996, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[4]  Chris Mellish,et al.  Current research in natural language generation , 1990 .

[5]  Matthew M Botvinick,et al.  Short-term memory for serial order: a recurrent neural network model. , 2006, Psychological review.

[6]  Rna Henson,et al.  Short-term memory for serial order. , 2001 .

[7]  Daniel J. Acheson,et al.  The effect of concurrent semantic categorization on delayed serial recall. , 2011, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[8]  N. Cowan An embedded-processes model of working memory , 1999 .

[9]  Jean Saint-Aubin,et al.  The Influence of Long-term Memory Factors on Immediate Serial Recall: An Item and Order Analysis , 1999 .

[10]  George Houghton,et al.  The problem of serial order: a neural network model of sequence learning and recall , 1990 .

[11]  Daniel J. Acheson,et al.  Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. , 2009, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  A. W. Melton,et al.  Coding Processes in Human Memory. , 1973 .

[13]  Simon Farrell,et al.  Modeling working memory: An interference model of complex span , 2012, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[14]  M P A Page,et al.  A model linking immediate serial recall, the Hebb repetition effect and the learning of phonological word forms , 2009, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[15]  M. Page,et al.  Interactions Between Short-Term and Long-Term Memory in the Verbal Domain , 2008 .

[16]  George Houghton,et al.  Connectionist models in cognitive psychology , 2004 .

[17]  M. Poirier,et al.  Semantic Similarity and Immediate Serial Recall: Is There a Detrimental Effect on Order Information? , 1999, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[18]  M. Masson Using confidence intervals for graphically based data interpretation. , 2003, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[19]  N. Burgess,et al.  A revised model of short-term memory and long-term learning of verbal sequences , 2006 .

[20]  Stephen Grossberg,et al.  A Theory of Human Memory: Self-Organization and Performance of Sensory-Motor Codes, Maps, and Plans , 1982 .

[21]  D. Norris,et al.  THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 1996, 49A (1), 80 ± 115 Unchained Memory: Error Patterns Rule out Chaining Models of Immediate Serial Recall , 2022 .

[22]  M. D’Esposito Working memory. , 2008, Handbook of clinical neurology.

[23]  Jean Saint-Aubin,et al.  Semantic similarity and immediate serial recall: Is there an effect on all trials , 2005, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[24]  R. Henson Short-Term Memory for Serial Order: The Start-End Model , 1998, Cognitive Psychology.

[25]  Charles Hulme,et al.  High- and low-frequency words are recalled equally well in alternating lists: Evidence for associative effects in serial recall , 2003 .

[26]  Mike Page,et al.  Connectionist models of short-term memory for serial order , 2005 .

[27]  A. Miyake,et al.  Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control , 1999 .

[28]  S. Lewandowsky,et al.  An endogenous distributed model of ordering in serial recall , 2002, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[29]  C. Tse The role of associative strength in the semantic relatedness effect on immediate serial recall , 2009, Memory.

[30]  M. Humphreys,et al.  The role of context in producing item interactions and false memories. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[31]  M. Poirier,et al.  Memory for Related and Unrelated Words: Further Evidence on the Influence of Semantic Factors in Immediate Serial Recall , 1995, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[32]  Simon Farrell,et al.  Mixed-List Phonological Similarity Effects in Delayed Serial Recall. , 2006 .

[33]  Stephex GROSSBERGl Behavioral Contrast in Short Term Memory : Serial Binary Memory Models or Parallel Continuous Memory Models ? , 2003 .

[34]  Robert Rosen,et al.  Progress in Theoretical Biology , 2012 .

[35]  J. Deese Frequency of Usage and Number of Words in Free Recall: The Role of Association , 1960 .

[36]  Leonie M Miller,et al.  A constrained Rasch model of trace redintegration in serial recall , 2008, Memory & cognition.

[37]  D. Norris,et al.  The primacy model: a new model of immediate serial recall. , 1998, Psychological review.

[38]  Prahlad Gupta,et al.  A computational model of nonword repetition , immediate serial recall , and nonword learning , 2008 .

[39]  Randi C. Martin,et al.  Proactive Interference in a Semantic Short-Term Memory Deficit: Role of Semantic and Phonological Relatedness , 2007, Cortex.

[40]  Word frequency effects in immediate serial recall: Item familiarity and item co‐occurrence have the same effect , 2005, Memory.

[41]  S. Majerus,et al.  Short-term memory for serial order supports vocabulary development: new evidence from a novel word learning paradigm. , 2013, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[42]  Prahlad Gupta,et al.  Examining the Relationship between word Learning, Nonword Repetition, and Immediate Serial Recall in Adults , 2003, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[43]  Thomas A. Schreiber,et al.  The University of South Florida free association, rhyme, and word fragment norms , 2004, Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.

[44]  Alan D Baddeley,et al.  Memory for serial order across domains: An overview of the literature and directions for future research. , 2014, Psychological bulletin.

[45]  Marie Poirier,et al.  Immediate serial recall of words and nonwords: Tests of the retrieval-based hypothesis , 2000, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[46]  Antje S. Meyer,et al.  Automaticity and control in Language Processing , 2007 .

[47]  Charles Hulme,et al.  Concrete words are easier to recall than abstract words: Evidence for a semantic contribution to short-term serial recall. , 1999 .

[48]  C. Hulme,et al.  The effects of word co-occurrence on short-term memory: associative links in long-term memory affect short-term memory performance. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[49]  Bradley R. Buchsbaum,et al.  The Search for the Phonological Store: From Loop to Convolution , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[50]  Nelson Cowan,et al.  How chunks form in long-term memory and affect short-term memory limits , 2008 .

[51]  Steve Majerus,et al.  Verbal short-term memory and temporary activation of language representations: the importance of distinguishing item and order information , 2009 .

[52]  Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz,et al.  False working memories? Semantic distortion in a mere 4 seconds , 2008, Memory & cognition.

[53]  R. Schweickert A multinomial processing tree model for degradation and redintegration in immediate recall , 1993, Memory & cognition.

[54]  Simon Farrell,et al.  Short-Term Memory: New Data and a Model , 2008 .

[55]  Cristina Romani,et al.  The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Concreteness Effects in Different Tasks: Implications for Models of Short-term Memory , 2022 .

[56]  C. Frankish,et al.  Long-term knowledge effects on serial recall of nonwords are not exclusively lexical. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[57]  M. Masson,et al.  Using confidence intervals in within-subject designs , 1994, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[58]  Prahlad Gupta,et al.  EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORD PROCESSING AND VERBAL SHORT-TERM MEMORY: EVIDENCE FROM ASSOCIATIONS AND DISSOCIATIONS , 2004, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[59]  Pere Caminal,et al.  Interactions between short-term and long-term cardiovascular control mechanisms. , 2007, Chaos.