People can use a content-specific recapitulation strategy to trigger memories (i.e., mentally reinstating encoding conditions), but how people deploy this strategy is unclear. Is recapitulation naturally used to guide all recollection attempts, or is it only used selectively, after retrieving incomplete information that requires additional…

The article tests the assumption that forgetting in working memory for verbal materials is caused by time-based decay, using the complex-span paradigm. Participants encoded 6 letters for serial recall; each letter was preceded and followed by a processing period comprising 4 trials of difficult visual search. Processing duration, during which…

A model of short-term memory and episodic memory is presented, with the core assumptions that (a) people parse their continuous experience into episodic clusters and (b) items are clustered together in memory as episodes by binding information within an episode to a common temporal context. Along with the additional assumption that information…

The influence of semantic processing on the serial ordering of items in short-term memory was explored using a novel dual-task paradigm. Participants engaged in 2 picture-judgment tasks while simultaneously performing delayed serial recall. List material varied in the presence of phonological overlap (Experiments 1 and 2) and in semantic content…

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) research suggests that the adult capacity is limited to three or four multifeature object representations. Despite evidence supporting a developmental increase in capacity, it remains unclear what the unit of capacity is in children. The current study employed the change detection paradigm to investigate both the…

Impairment on standard tests of delayed recall is often already maximal in the aMCI stage of Alzheimer's Disease. Neuropathological work shows that the neural substrates of memory function continue to deteriorate throughout the progression of the disease, hinting that further changes in memory performance could be tracked by a more sensitive test…

This research investigated the cognitive processes underlying remember-know judgments in terms of contextual binding in multidimensional source memory. Stochastic dependence between the retrieval of different context attributes, which formed the empirical criterion of binding, was observed for remembered items but not for known items. Experiment 1…

This study evaluated how people learn about encoding strategy effectiveness in an associative memory task. Individuals studied two lists of paired associates under instructions to use either a normatively effective strategy (interactive imagery) or a normatively ineffective strategy (rote repetition) for each pair. Questionnaire ratings of imagery…

We examined associative and item recognition using the maintenance rehearsal paradigm. Our intent was to control for mnemonic strategies; to produce a low, graded level of learning; and to provide evidence of the role of attention in long-term memory. An advantage for low-frequency words emerged in both associative and item recognition at very low…

A model of memory retrieval is described. The model embodies four main claims: (a) temporal memory--traces of items are represented in memory partly in terms of their temporal distance from the present; (b) scale-similarity--similar mechanisms govern retrieval from memory over many different timescales; (c) local distinctiveness--performance on a…

Control over memory can be achieved in two ways: by constraining retrieval such that only sought after information comes to mind or, alternatively, by means of post-access monitoring. We used a memory-for-foils paradigm to gain evidence of differences in retrieval constraints. In this paradigm, participants studied words under deep or shallow…

In four experiments the behavioral consequences of an involuntary attentional distraction concerning memory performance was investigated. The working memory model of Cowan (1995) predicts a performance deficit for memory representations that are held in an active state when the focus of attention is distracted by a change in physical properties.…

Compared young and old intellectually superior individuals on Brown-Peterson memory tasks and in a switch and nonswitch condition of a Wickens paradigm. All memory interference in young adults could be attributed to retrieval difficulty, but a residual proactive deficit occurred in old adults. (Author/JAC)

The particular concern of this experiment was to develop a technique for the effective study of the factors that influence the buildup of proactive inhibition in short-term memory studies of the Brown-Peterson variety. (Author)

This annotated bibliography on memory is divided into 12 areas: information theory; proactive and retroactive interference and interpolated activities; set, subject strategies, and coding techniques; paired associate studies; simultaneous listening and memory span studies; rate and mode of stimulus presentation; rate and order of recall, and…