Predictability and recall strategy for nominal serial position curves

1981 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
JERKER RÖNNBERG
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Position Curves

scholarly journals Imitating Unfamiliar Sequences of Connected Linear Motions

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 2832-2843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yigal Agam ◽  
Daniel Bullock ◽  
Robert Sekuler
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Queuing Model ◽  
Position Effects ◽  
Effect Analysis ◽  
Time Correction ◽  
Straight Segments ◽  
Adjacent Segments ◽  
Serial Position Curves ◽  
Movement Imitation

A fundamental challenge in neuroscience is to understand the mechanisms by which multicomponent actions are represented and sequenced for production. We addressed this challenge with a movement-imitation task in which subjects viewed the quasi-random, two-dimensional movements of a disc and then used a stylus to reproduce the remembered trajectory. The stimulus disc moved along straight segments, which differed sufficiently from one another that it was possible to trace individual segments' fate in the resulting movement imitation. A biologically based segmentation algorithm decomposed each imitation into segments whose directions could be compared with those of homologous segments in the model. As the number of linked segments in a stimulus model grew from three to seven, imitation became less accurate, with segments more likely to be deleted, particularly from a model's final stages. When fidelity of imitation was assessed segment by segment, the resulting serial position curves showed a strong primacy effect and a moderate recency effect. Analysis of pairwise transposition errors revealed a striking preponderance of exchanges between adjacent segments that, along with the serial position effects, supports a competitive queuing model of sequencing. In analogy to results with verbal serial recall, repetition of one directed segment in the model reduced imitation quality. Results with longer stimulus models suggest that the segment-by-segment imitation generator may be supplemented in the final stages of imitation by an error-signal driven overlay that produces a late-course, real-time correction. Results are related to neural mechanisms that are known to support sequential motor behavior and working memory.

scholarly journals Using response time distributions and race models to characterize primacy and recency effects in free recall initiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Osth ◽  
Simon Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Recency Effects ◽  
Linear Ballistic Accumulator ◽  
Response Time Distributions ◽  
Serial Position Functions ◽  
Serial Position Curves ◽  
Alternative Decision ◽  
Rt Distributions

Memory models have typically characterized retrieval in free recall as multi-alternative decision making. However, the majority of these models have only been applied to mean response times (RTs), and have not accounted for the complete RT distributions. We show that RT distributions carry diagnostic information about how items enter into competition for recall, and how that competition impacts on the dynamics of recall. We jointly fit RT distributions and serial position functions of free recall initiation with both a racing diffusion model and the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA: Brown & Heathcote, 2008) model in a hierarchical Bayesian framework while factorially varying different assumptions of how primacy and recency are generated. Recency was either a power law or an exponential function. Primacy was treated either as a strength boost to the early list items so that both primacy and recency items jointly compete to be retrieved, a rehearsal process whereby the first item is sometimes rehearsed to the end of the list to make it functionally recent, or due to reinstatement of the start of the list. While serial position curves do not distinguish between these accounts, they make distinct predictions about how RT distributions vary across serial positions. Results from a number of datasets strongly favor the reinstatement account of primacy with an exponential recency function. These results suggest that models of free recall can be more constrained by considering complete RT distributions.

Short Article: Do Updating Tasks Involve Updating? Evidence from Comparisons with Immediate Serial Recall

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Palladino ◽  
Christopher Jarrold
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Recall ◽  
Fixed Number ◽  
Spatial Updating ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Position Effects ◽  
Serial Position Effects ◽  
Immediate Serial Recall ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Serial Position Curves

Updating tasks require participants to process a sequence of items, varying in length, and afterwards to remember only a fixed number of the elements of the sequence; the assumption being that participants actively update the to-be-recalled list as presentation progresses. However recent evidence has cast doubt on this assumption, and the present study examined the strategies that participants employ in such tasks by comparing the serial position curves found in verbal and visuo-spatial updating tasks with those seen in standard serial recall tasks. These comparisons showed that even when the same number of items are presented or recalled, participants perform less well in an updating than a serial recall context. In addition, while standard serial position effects were observed for serial recall, marked recency and reduced or absent primacy effects were seen in updating conditions. These findings suggest that participants do not typically adopt a strategy of actively updating the memory list in updating tasks, but instead tend to wait passively until the list ends before trying to recall the most recently presented items.

Serial Learning of Heterogeneous Items in Ordered and Unordered Sequences

1975 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
E. Rae Harcum
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Learning ◽  
Serial Position Effect ◽  
Position Effect ◽  
Learning Difficulty ◽  
Acquisition Strategy ◽  
Serial Position Curves

The present study tests the acquisition-strategy hypothesis of serial learning, which attributes the serial-position effect to consistent orders of item acquisition among individual Ss, and over-all learning difficulty in part to the ease of establishing an order of acquisition. As predicted, lists of CVC trigrams which were organized in terms of associative values to facilitate a temporal beginning-to-end strategy of acquisition were learned faster than unorganized lists or lists organized from end to beginning. Also as predicted, an unorganized array of heterogeneous trigrams produced more errors and less regularity of the serial-position curves than a homogeneous series. Results thus supported the strategy hypothesis of serial learning.

Effects of Conceptual Grouping of Adjacent Items on Serial Learning

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-190
Author(s):  
John H. Wright ◽  
David A. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Learning ◽  
Serial List ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Learning Time ◽  
Serial Position Curves

10 Ss were randomly assigned to each of the 6 experimental conditions representing placement of one of two 5-item concept clusters, empirically shown to differ in degree of conceptual relatedness, in either the beginning, middle, or end portion of a 15-item serial list. Ss learning lists containing a highly conceptually related cluster exhibited a greater tendency to learn the concept items early in serial learning, regardless of their position in the list, than did Ss learning lists containing a less conceptually related cluster. As a result of a superiority of performance in the cluster portions of the high-concept lists and an opposite superiority of performance in the non-cluster portions of the low-concept lists, the serial position curves for the 6 lists were significantly different. The failure to find over-all differences in learning among lists yielding different serial position curves supports theories of serial learning which propose that total serial learning time is independent of the order in which the items of a serial list are learned.

Unchained Memory: Error Patterns Rule out Chaining Models of Immediate Serial Recall

1996 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. A. Henson ◽  
Dennis G. Norris ◽  
Michael P. A. Page ◽  
Alan D. Baddeley
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Recall ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Immediate Serial Recall ◽  
Error Patterns ◽  
Memory Error ◽  
Locality Constraint ◽  
Serial Position Curves ◽  
Rule Out

Many models of serial recall assume a chaining mechanism whereby each item associatively evokes the next in sequence. Chaining predicts that, when sequences comprise alternating confusable and non-confusable items, confusable items should increase the probability of errors in recall of following non-confusable items. Two experiments using visual presentation and one using vocalized presentation test this prediction and demonstrate that: (1) more errors occur in recall of confusable than alternated non-confusable items, revealing a “sawtooth” in serial position curves; (2) the presence of confusable items often has no influence on recall of the non-confusable items; and (3) the confusability of items does not affect the type of errors that follow them. These results are inconsistent with the chaining hypothesis. Further analysis of errors shows that most transpositions occur over short distances (the locality constraint), confusable items tend to interchange (the similarity constraint), and repeated responses are rare and far apart (the repetition constraint). The complete pattern of errors presents problems for most current models of serial recall, whether or not they employ chaining. An alternative model is described that is consistent with these constraints and that simulates the detailed pattern of errors observed.

Response Organization in Attention Control and a Perceptual Serial Position Effect

1972 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Underwood
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Serial Position Effect ◽  
Position Effect ◽  
Attention Control ◽  
Overt Response ◽  
Detection Rates ◽  
Response Organization ◽  
Dichotic Presentation ◽  
Serial Position Curves

To determine the influence of response organization factors in selective attention, a comparison was made between the shadowing and monitoring techniques of attention control and a one-trial serial recall technique in which subjects were instructed to remember one message (attended channel) of a dichotic presentation. Detections of semantic targets in the attended and unattended messages from the remembering condition were quantitatively similar to those from the monitoring condition. This suggests that the low detection rates in the unattended message when subjects are shadowing are a function of the higher processing demands of overt response organization required by this task. A serial position effect was also in evidence: the detection probability was enhanced if the target was positioned towards either end of the serial presentation of 16 items. The primacy observed here, common to all three attention control conditions, indicates more efficient perceptual processing and subsequent categorizing of end items than of central, embedded items. The hypothesis is offered that the principles governing the present primacy effects may also underlie primacy in serial position curves of short-term memory studies.

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