Traveling economically through memory space: characterizing output order in memory for serial order.

Full Abstract

How do people report the contents of short-term memory when information about order must be retained but items can be retrieved in any order? We report an experiment using an unconstrained reconstruction task in which people can report list items in any order but must place them in their correct serial positions. We found (1) a tendency to report recent items first in immediate but not in delayed reconstruction, (2) a tendency to recall temporally isolated items first, (3) a preference for forward recall order, and (4) a preference for output orders that minimize the length of the path that must be traversed through memory space during retrieval. The results constrain most current models of short-term memory in which retrieval is ballistic and is assumed to run to completion autonomously once initiated.

Author information

Author/s: Lewandowsky, Stephan (S); Brown, Gordon D A (GD); Thomas, Jacqueline L (JL);

Affiliation: University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. lewan(-atsign-)psy.uwa.edu.au

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Memory & cognition (Mem Cognit), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Mar; vol 37 (issue 2) : pp 181-93

Dates: Created 2009/02/19; Completed 2009/05/11;

PMID: 19223568, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 5/11/2009, IMS Date: 11 May 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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