scholarly journals The detrimental effect of semantic similarity in short-term memory tasks: A meta-regression approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sho Ishiguro ◽  
Satoru Saito
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Detrimental Effect ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Regression Approach ◽  
Meta Regression

scholarly journals Whether and how semantic similarity impairs short-term memory: A test with a new index of semantic similarity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sho Ishiguro ◽  
Satoru Saito
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Detrimental Effect ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Visual Similarity ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Confounding Factors ◽  
Short Term ◽  
General Process ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Similarity Effect

Semantic similarity appears to have a facilitative effect on short-term memory (STM), which contrasts with the detrimental effects of phonological and visual similarity on STM. Given that STM theories generally posit detrimental effects of similarity, it is theoretically and empirically important to test the semantic similarity effect. Recently, a review study proposed that semantic similarity per se would have a detrimental effect while semantic association and additional retrieval cues, which are facilitative of STM, would work as confounding factors for the semantic similarity effect. The present study tested this view by minimizing the influence of these possible confounding factors in the experiment and by utilizing a new index of semantic similarity in the analysis. The results of the present study indicated that the semantic similarity indeed had a detrimental effect on immediate serial recall correct-in-position scores. An examination based on two other scoring methods (i.e., item correct and absolute order errors) further suggested that the locus of the detrimental effect of semantic similarity is in order memory. In addition, other semantico-lexical variables (e.g., word length, frequency, and imageability) were also analyzed. Patterns of these variables’ effects on item memory were complementary to the effect of semantic similarity on order memory. From a theoretical point of view, as the detrimental effect of semantic similarity demonstrated by the present study is comparable to phonological and visual similarity effects, this finding implies a store based on semantic information or a general process for various types of information.

A Chinese automatic question answering technique based on semantic similarity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Weijie Yang ◽  
Hong Ma
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Experimental Verification ◽  
Question Answering ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Open Domain ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Memory Network ◽  
Long Short Term Memory

In this paper, for the Chinese automatic question answering technology in open domain, in addition to considering the traditional association between questions and questions, the correlation between questions and answers is added. The cosine similarity between questions and answers is used as the semantic similarity between them. A bi-directional long short-term memory network (BiLSTM) is added between the question and question, answer and the answer to seek the association between the contexts. and an attention mechanism is added to make question and answer related. Finally, the experimental verification shows that the accuracy of automatic question answering by the proposed method reaches 70%.

scholarly journals Estimating information flow through a memory system: the utility of meta-analytic methods for genetics

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tugce Yildizoglu ◽  
Jan-Marek Weislogel ◽  
Farhan Mohammad ◽  
Edwin S.-Y. Chan ◽  
Pryseley N. Assam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Olfactory Memory ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Meta Regression ◽  
Experimental Findings

Critics of significance testing claim that this statistical framework promotes discrepancies by using arbitrary thresholds (α) to impose reject/accept dichotomies on continuous data, which is not reflective of the biological reality of quantitative phenotypes. Here we explore this idea and evaluate an alternative approach, demonstrating the potential for meta-analysis and related estimation methods to resolve discordance generated by the use of traditional significance tests. We selected a set of behavioral studies proposing differing models of the physiological basis of Drosophila olfactory memory and used systematic review and meta-analysis approaches to define the true role of lobular specialization within the brain. The mainstream view is that each of the three lobes of the Drosophila mushroom body play specialized roles in short-term aversive olfactory memory, but a number of studies have made divergent conclusions based on their discordant experimental findings. Multivariate meta- regression models revealed that short-term memory lobular specialization is not in fact supported by the data, and identified the cellular extent of a transgenic driver as the major predictor of its effect on short- term memory. Our findings demonstrate that meta-analysis, meta-regression, hierarchical models and estimation methods in general can be successfully harnessed to identify knowledge gaps, synthesize divergent results, accommodate heterogeneous experimental design and quantify genetic mechanisms.

scholarly journals Phonological and Semantic Contributions to Verbal Short-Term Memory in Young Children With Developmental Stuttering

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 644-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie D. Anderson ◽  
Stacy A. Wagovich ◽  
Bryan T. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Phonological Similarity ◽  
Absolute Difference ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the verbal short-term memory skills of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) in 2 experiments, focusing on the influence of phonological and semantic similarity. Method Participants were 42 CWS and 42 CWNS between the ages of 3;0 and 5;11 (years;months). In Experiment 1, children completed the phonological similarity task, in which they listened to lists of phonologically similar and dissimilar words and then repeated them when signaled to do so. In Experiment 2, children completed another forward span task, the semantic category task, which is similar to the phonological similarity task, except that it consisted of lists of semantically homogeneous and heterogeneous words. Main dependent variables were cumulative memory span, proportion of errors by type, and speech reaction time (SRT) for correct responses. Results The CWS exhibited significantly shorter memory spans for phonologically dissimilar words and were less affected by the phonological qualities of the words than the CWNS in Experiment 1, based on the findings of both between-groups and within-group analyses. In Experiment 2, although the groups did not differ in their performance in either condition, within-group analyses revealed that the CWNS benefitted from semantic similarity, whereas the CWS did not. The between-groups difference in absolute difference scores, however, did not reach significance. The CWS produced more omissions and false alarms than the CWNS in both experiments, but the 2 groups of children were otherwise comparable in SRT, although the CWS exhibited overall faster SRT than the CWNS in Experiment 2. Conclusions Verbal short-term memory is one domain-general cognitive process in which CWS display weakness relative to typically fluent peers. These weaknesses are likely due, in part, to differences in phonological and, perhaps, semantic processing of words to aid memory.

Short-term Memory for Word Sequences as a Function of Acoustic, Semantic and Formal Similarity

1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Baddeley
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Auditory Presentation ◽  
Acoustic Similarity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Formal Similarity ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Reliable Effect ◽  
Similar Letter ◽  
Similarity Effect

Experiment I studied short-term memory (STM) for auditorily presented five word sequences as a function of acoustic and semantic similarity. There was a large adverse effect of acoustic similarity on STM (72·5 per cent.) which was significantly greater (p < 0·001) than the small (6·3 per cent.) but reliable effect (p < 0·05) of semantic similarity. Experiment II compared STM for sequences of words which had a similar letter structure (formal similarity) but were pronounced differently, with acoustically similar but formally dissimilar words and with control sequences. There was a significant effect of acoustic but not of formal similarity. Experiment III replicated the acoustic similarity effect found in Experiment I using visual instead of auditory presentation. Again a large and significant effect of acoustic similarity was shown.

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