Biomedical subjects

Daniel J Burns

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel J Burns.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

An item gains and losses analysis of false memories suggests critical items receive more item-specific processing than list items.

In a repeated testing paradigm, list items receiving item-specific processing are more likely to be recovered across successive tests (item gains), whereas items receiving relational processing are likely to be forgotten progressively less on successive tests. Moreover, analysis of cumulative-recall curves has shown that item-specific processing produces a slower, but steadier rate of recall than relational processing. The authors relied on these findings to determine the type of processing that both list items and critical lures receive in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory procedure. The first 2 experiments revealed that critical lures produced more item gains, but only the list items resulted in a decrease in item losses across successive tests. The critical lures also produced slower but steadier cumulative recall. In Experiments 3 and 4, the critical items were physically presented during study, which resulted in the lures producing progressively fewer losses across successive tests. The authors concluded that critical items receive more item-specific processing than list items but that unless they are presented in the list, they do not become part of participants' organized retrieval scheme.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2006

The simultaneous learning effect: why does simultaneous task learning improve retention?

Despite the prevalence of encoding variables that have been shown to influence the rate of learning, very few affect the rate of forgetting of verbal material. However, when a list of words is learned simultaneously with other lists, the rate of forgetting is markedly lower than that of single-task learning. Although the magnitude of this simultaneous learning effect is large compared with typical list learning effects, it has received little empirical attention. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the hypothesis that the simultaneous learning effect is the result of a differential contribution of short-term memory during encoding. The results showed that the advantage for simultaneous task learning was obtained even under conditions that minimized the potential effects of short-term memory. Experiment 3 revealed that the simultaneous learning effect was larger when the specific items learned simultaneously were the same on each learning trial than when they were different. This finding supported a cuing explanation of the effect: the items from the other lists act as retrieval cues during delayed recall.

Cues↗

PubMed2005

Using cumulative-recall curves to assess the extent of relational and item-specific processing.

Although distinguishing between item-specific and relational information has proved to be a useful approach for understanding a variety of important memory phenomena, finding measurement tools for assessing the amount and type of information processed has proven difficult. Using the repeated-testing procedure, Burns (1993) demonstrated that item gains (the recall of items on a later test that were not recalled on earlier tests) and item losses (the forgetting of items on a later test that were recalled on earlier tests) reflected differences in amount of item-specific and relational information processed, respectively. Although several researchers have begun to use the measures with apparent success, the present research demonstrates that the accuracy of the item-gain measure is largely dependent on the rather arbitrary choice of recall-test length. We also show that a related but alternative measure, analysis of cumulative-recall curves, avoids some of the shortcomings of the item gain and loss measures. Moreover, we provide evidence for the generality of the cumulative-recall approach by demonstrating its effectiveness in mixed-list designs.

Humans↗

PubMed2004

The simultaneous acquisition effect: simultaneous task learning inhibits memory for order.

Delayed recall of a list of words learned simultaneously with other lists is superior to that of a list of words learned singly. A Brown-Peterson-like task was used to investigate this simultaneous acquisition effect from the perspective of the item-order distinction. It was hypothesized that simultaneous task learning would impede the encoding of order information but promote the encoding of item-specific information relative to single-task learning. The results of the first four experiments strongly supported the hypothesis that simultaneous task learning decreases the encoding of order information but provided no evidence that it facilitated the encoding of item-specific information. Additionally, Experiment 5 showed that the simultaneous acquisition effect did not occur in a mixed-list design, demonstrating an important boundary condition of the effect.

Humans↗