Modelling transposition latencies: Constraints for theories of serial order memory☆

Several competing theories of short-term memory can explain serial recall performance at a quantitative level. However, most theories to date have not been applied to the accompanying pattern of response latencies, thus ignoring a rich and highly diagnostic aspect of performance. This article explores and tests the error latency predictions of four alternative mechanisms for the representation of serial order. Data from three experiments show that latency is a negative function of transposition displacement, such that list items that are reported too soon (ahead of their correct serial position) are recalled more slowly than items that are reported too late. We show by simulation that these data rule out three of the four representational mechanisms. The data support the notion that serial order is represented by a primacy gradient that is accompanied by suppression of recalled items.

[1]  G. Logan.  Toward an instance theory of automatization. , 1988 .

[2]  Stephan Lewandowsky,et al.  A redintegration account of the effects of speech rate, lexicality, and word frequency in immediate serial recall , 2000, Psychological research.

[3]  N. Burgess,et al.  Temporal Grouping Effects in Immediate Recall: A Working Memory Analysis , 1996 .

[4]  J. S. Nairne.  A feature model of immediate memory , 1990, Memory & cognition.

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

[6]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A Theory of Memory Retrieval. , 1978 .

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

[8]  J. S. Nairne.  The myth of the encoding-retrieval match , 2002, Memory.

[9]  Gordon D. A. Brown,et al.  To Repeat or Not to Repeat: The Time Course of Response Suppression in Sequential Behaviour , 1997, NCPW.

[10]  S. Lewandowsky.  Redintegration and Response Suppression in Serial Recall: A Dynamic Network Model , 1999 .

[11]  S. Lewandowsky,et al.  Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in serial recall. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[12]  Eugene Galanter,et al.  Handbook of mathematical psychology: I. , 1963 .

[13]  B. Murdock,et al.  Memory for Serial Order , 1989 .

[14]  Stephen A. Ritz,et al.  Distinctive features, categorical perception, and probability learning: some applications of a neural model , 1977 .

[15]  Michael C. Anderson,et al.  Interference and inhibition in memory retrieval. , 1996 .

[16]  Nelson Cowan,et al.  Deconfounding Serial Recall , 2002 .

[17]  Neil Burgess,et al.  Representations of Serial Order , 1997, NCPW.

[18]  John R. Anderson,et al.  A Production System Theory of Serial Memory , 1997 .

[19]  Gordon D. A. Brown,et al.  Think before you speak: pauses, memory search, and trace redintegration processes in verbal memory span. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[20]  I. Neath.  Modelling the Disruptive Effects of Irrelevant Speech on Order Information , 1999 .

[21]  Charles Hulme,et al.  Modeling Item Length Effects in Memory Span: No Rehearsal Needed? , 1995 .

[22]  S. Grossberg,et al.  Adaptive pattern classification and universal recoding: I. Parallel development and coding of neural feature detectors , 1976, Biological Cybernetics.

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

[24]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  Understanding serial position curves in short-term recognition and recall. , 2003 .

[25]  Ian Neath,et al.  Fill‐in and infill errors in order memory , 2005, Memory.

[26]  J. L. Myers,et al.  Regression analyses of repeated measures data in cognitive research. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[27]  K. Haberlandt,et al.  Forward and Backward Recall , 2003, Psychological science.

[28]  Alice F. Healy,et al.  Separating item from order information in short-term memory , 1974 .

[29]  R. Nosofsky.  Attention, similarity, and the identification-categorization relationship. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[30]  John A. Nelder,et al.  A Simplex Method for Function Minimization , 1965, Comput. J..

[31]  J. S. Nairne.  The Loss of Positional Certainty in Long-Term Memory , 1992 .

[32]  Barbara Anne Dosher.  Item Interference and Time Delays in Working Memory: Immediate Serial Recall , 1999 .

[33]  Stephan Lewandowsky,et al.  The time course of response suppression: No evidence for a gradual release from inhibition , 2005, Memory.

[34]  C. Lebiere,et al.  An integrated theory of list memory. , 1998 .

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

[36]  Stephan Lewandowsky,et al.  Using Parameter Sensitivity and Interdependence to Predict Model Scope and Falsifiability , 1996 .

[37]  Dylan M. Jones,et al.  Grouping of list items reflected in the timing of recall: implications for models of serial verbal memory , 2002 .

[38]  N. Cowan,et al.  Two separate verbal processing rates contributing to short-term memory span. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[39]  D. Luce,et al.  Detection and Recognition " ' , 2006 .

[40]  G D Brown,et al.  Oscillator-based memory for serial order. , 2000, Psychological review.

[41]  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 .

[42]  J Ryan,et al.  Grouping and Short-Term Memory: Different Means and Patterns of Grouping , 1969, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

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

[44]  GrossbergS..  Adaptive pattern classification and universal recoding , 1976 .

[45]  Thomas J. Palmeri,et al.  An Exemplar-Based Random Walk Model of Speeded Classification , 1997 .

[46]  Barbara Anne Dosher,et al.  Output loss or rehearsal loop? Output-time versus pronunciation-time limits in immediate recall for forgetting-matched materials. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[47]  N. Burgess,et al.  Memory for serial order: A network model of the phonological loop and its timing , 1999 .

[48]  R. Shepard.  Stimulus and response generalization: A stochastic model relating generalization to distance in psychological space , 1957 .

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

[50]  K. Haberlandt,et al.  Transposition asymmetry in immediate serial recall , 2005, Memory.

[51]  R. Henson.  Positional information in short-term memory: Relative or absolute? , 1999, Memory & cognition.

[52]  James L. McClelland,et al.  The time course of perceptual choice: the leaky, competing accumulator model. , 2001, Psychological review.

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

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

[55]  Clive Frankish,et al.  Modality-specific grouping effects in short-term memory , 1985 .