In practice, the sum of the item scores is often used as a basis for comparing subjects. For items that have more than two ordered score categories, only the partial credit model (PCM) and special cases of this model imply that the subjects are stochastically ordered on the common latent variable. However, the PCM is very restrictive with respect…

It is commonly assumed that orthographical lexical access in visual word recognition takes place in parallel, with all letters activated at the same time. In contrast, in the SERIOL model of letter-position encoding, letters fire sequentially (Whitney, 2001). I present further support for such seriality on several fronts. (1) The reasons that led…

The grouping of list items is known to improve serial memory accuracy and constrain the nature of temporal errors. A recent study (M. T. Maybery, F. B. R. Parmentier, & D. M. Jones, 2002) showed that grouping results in a temporal organization of the participants' responses that mimics the list structure but not the timing of its presentation.…

The primacy model is presented as a new model of serial recall. This model stores order information by means of the assumption that the strength of activation of successive list items decreases across list position to form a primary gradient. The model produces accurate simulation of the effects of word length, list length, and phonological…

According to temporal distinctiveness models, items that are temporally isolated from their neighbors during list presentation are more distinct and thus should be recalled better. Event-based theories, by contrast, deny that time plays a role at encoding and predict no beneficial effect of temporal isolation, although they acknowledge that a…

Recent experiments have shown that placing dissimilar items on lists of phonologically similar items enhances accuracy of ordered recall of the dissimilar items [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2003). Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in serial recall. "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition," 29,…

Simulation and real data studies are used to investigate the value of modeling multiple-choice distractors on item response theory linking. Using the characteristic curve linking procedure for Bock's (1972) nominal response model presented by Kim and Hanson (2002), all-category linking (i.e., a linking based on all category characteristic curves…

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…

This study examined the relationship between witness age, narrative features in testimony, and the perceived credibility of witnesses. Ninety older and young adult witnesses to a staged theft were videotaped as they freely recalled crime events. Later, participant-jurors viewed the videos and assessed the witnesses' credibility. Operational…

Human behavior shows a variety of serially ordered action sequences. This paper presents a theory of serial order which describes how sequences of actions might be learned and performed. In this theory, parallel interactions across time (coarticulation) and parallel interactions across space (dual-task interference) are viewed as two aspects of a…