Is memory organized by temporal contiguity?

The hypotheses that memories are ordered according to time and that contiguity is central to learning have recently reemerged in the human memory literature. This article reviews some of the key empirical findings behind this revival and some of the evidence against it, and finds the evidence for temporal organization unconvincing. A central problem is that, as many memory experiments are done, they have a prospective, as well as a retrospective, component.

Research Strategy in the Study of Memory: Fads, Fallacies, and the Search for the "Coordinates of Truth".

This article presents an evaluation of research strategy in the psychology of memory. To the extent that a strategy can be discerned, it appears less than optimal in several respects. It relates only weakly to subjective experience, it does not clearly differentiate between structure and strategy, and it is oriented more toward remembering which words were in a list than to the diverse functions that memory serves.

How does repetition affect memory? Evidence from judgments of recency.

Four experiments were done to investigate the effects of repetition on judgment of recency (JOR). Experiment 1 showed that repetition can make an item seem either more recent or less recent than a nonrepeated item, depending on presentation spacing. Experiments 2-4 showed that subjects are able to judge the recency of a repeated item's first presentation or of its second presentation with a high degree of independence, especially if they report that the item occurred twice.

Memory strength and recency judgments.

Two experiments were done to examine the effect of memory strength on numerical judgment of recency (JOR). In one experiment, the strong versus weak manipulation was defined by stimulus type (pictures vs. names); and in the other, it was defined by long versus short study durations of pictures.

Time versus items in judgment of recency.

In the numerical judgment of recency (JOR) task, subjects judge how many items have intervened since the test item was previously presented. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the basis of JOR is the age of the memory (time) or the number of intervening items. Subjects went through a long list that was made up of alternating fast blocks and slow blocks, but the block structure was disguised by probabilistic selection of a short or long intertrial interval.

Judgment of frequency versus recognition confidence: repetition and recursive reminding.

Judgments of presentation frequency (JOFs) were compared with recognition confidence ratings (RCRs) in a single memory experiment. Two differences were found: (1) Relative to the effect of exposure duration, frequency had a larger effect on JOF than it had on RCR. (2) Replicating a finding by Proctor (1977), normalized memory operating characteristic (zMOC) curves for JOF had slopes greater than 1.

Robert Hooke's model of memory.

In 1682 the scientist and inventor Robert Hooke read a lecture to the Royal Society of London, in which he described a mechanistic model of human memory. Yet few psychologists today seem to have heard of Hooke's memory model. The lecture addressed questions of encoding, memory capacity, repetition, retrieval, and forgetting--some of these in a surprisingly modern way.

Judgments of recency and their relation to recognition memory.

Subjects went through a list of 550 high- and low-frequency words (Experiment 1) or concrete and abstract words (Experiment 2) in which individual items were repeated at lags of 5 to 30 other items. They made old versus new recognition decisions on each word and followed each "old" response with a numerical judgment of recency (JOR). Recognition judgments displayed the mirror effect.

Context matching and judgments of recency.

An experiment was done to test a context-matching explanation of memory for recency under steady-state conditions. Subjects went through a list of 550 names, in which individual names were repeated at lags of 5-30 other items. The names were shown in two different styles or contexts.

Judgments of frequency and recency: how they relate to reports of subjective awareness.

In 2 experiments, the author explored the relations of remember versus familiar ratings to judgments of frequency (JOFs) and to judgments of recency (JORs). In both cases, remembered items were associated with more accurate memory judgments. In general, familiar items were judged to have occurred less frequently and less recently than remembered items.

Similarity, global matching, and judgments of frequency.

In the test-pair similarity effect, forced-choice recognition is more accurate for similar test pairs, such as leopard-cheetah, than it is for unrelated test pairs, such as leopard-turnip. According to global matching models, this occurs because the retrieved familiarities of similar items are correlated. In the Minerva 2 model, global matching underlies frequency judgments as well as recognition memory.

Retrieval dynamics in recognition and list discrimination: further evidence of separate processes of familiarity and recall.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the time course of retrieval from memory is different for familiarity and recall. The response-signal method was used to compare memory retrieval dynamics in yes-no recognition memory, as a measure of familiarity, with those of list discrimination, as a measure of contextual recall. Responses were always made with regard to membership in two previous study lists.

The benefits of a partnership approach to disability management.

Taking a partnership approach to disability management and fostering a return-to-work culture can significantly reduce disability costs for employers and help disabled employees successfully return to work. Two rehabilitation case managers from ReliaStar Life Insurance Company share their perspective and experience, including three case studies that illustrate successful case management intervention and return-to-work strategies.

Violations of the independence assumption in process dissociation.

L. L. Jacoby, J.

When encoding fails: instructions, feedback, and registration without learning.

Four experiments replicated and extended the registration-without-learning effect, in which there is little improvement in the ability to discriminate an old target (X) from a highly similar test item (Y) after the first few presentations of X, even though judgments of frequency continue to rise in an open-ended fashion. Forced-choice testing revealed the anomalous form of the learning curve for X-Y discrimination (faster and then slower than the exponential). Effects of several different learning instructions were compared, but these appeared to affect only the level of initial learning, and to do little to promote X-Y discrimination learning on later presentations.

On variability, Simpson's paradox, and the relation between recognition and recall: reply to Tulving and Flexser.

Tulving and Flexser's (1992) defense of the Tulving-Wiseman law rests on the partitioning of data points into 2 sets, which they call constrained and unconstrained. This dichotomy depends crucially on the implicit assumption that within-condition variance is 0. Simulations are done to show the effects of variability on the maximum contingency that can be displayed by an average 2 x 2 table.

Effects of similarity and repetition on memory: registration without learning?

We investigated judgments of the frequency of test items (Y) that were highly similar to studied items (X) to test a prediction made by several memory models: that the judged frequency of Y should be proportional to the judged frequency of X. Whether stimuli were pictures or words, judged frequency of Y was bimodally distributed with 1 mode at zero, suggesting that frequency judgments involve a 2-stage process in which a zero judgment is made if there is a mismatch between retrieved information and the test item. Nonzero judgements, taken by themselves, were consistent with the prediction of proportionality.

Suction-assisted lipectomy in the older patient.

A retrospective study of 158 suction-assisted lipectomy patients ranging in age from 50 to 81 years was completed in order to determine the success of the technique in this subset of older patients. These were primarily cosmetic procedures of the trunk and extremities. The patients presented with a typical wide spectrum of systemic medical disorders as one would expect in this age group.

Voluntary attention and the spacing effect.

Three experiments were done to test the hypothesis that the spacing effect results from a voluntary decision by the subject to pay little attention to the second presentation (P2) of an item when it occurs shortly after the first (P(1))- In all three experiments, the spacing of repetitions was varied. In Experiment I, allocation of attention was manipulated by pairing P2 of some pictures with a signal that indicated high payoff for later retention. In Experiment II, attention was controlled more directly by requiring the subject, in one condition, to recite words aloud.

What causes the spacing effect? Some effects of repetition, duration, and spacing on memory for pictures.

Three experiments examined effects of the spacing of repetitions on memory for pictures. In Experiment I, the duration of the first presentation (P(1)) was manipulated, as was P(1)-P(2) spacing. The effect of spacing on judged frequency was independent of P(1) duration.

Spacing effects in picture memory.

Three experiments were conducted to capitalize on the conclusion of Shaffer and Shiffrin (1972) that complex visual scenes are not rehearsed in testing the hypothesis that the effect of spacing on memory is due to rehearsal. In Experiment I, a list of vacation slides was presented in which both the number of repetitions and the spacing of repetitions were varied. Subsequent frequency judgments showed an effect of spacing much like that found using verbal materials.