Biomedical subjects

G McKoon

Publications and source records attributed to G McKoon.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMed1986

Memory connections between thematically similar episodes.

Recent theories about the representation of thematic information in memory propose that two episodes that share a theme are connected together through a thematic structure. We investigated the use of such cross-episode connections in comprehension and memory in six experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 used a priming technique; it was found that verification time for a test sentence from one story was speeded by an immediately preceding test sentence from a thematically similar story but only when subjects were given instructions to rate the similarities of the stories. In the remaining experiments, a single test sentence was presented immediately after a story was read, with timing controlled by presenting the story one word at a time. Response time for a test sentence from a previously read story was facilitated if the immediately preceding story was thematically similar, but only if the previously read story was extensively prestudied. We conclude that, during reading of an episode, thematic information may be encoded so as to lead to activation of similar episodes and formation of connections in memory between episodes, but such encoding is not automatic and depends on subjects' strategies and task difficulty.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

A critical evaluation of the semantic-episodic distinction.

Tulving (1983, 1984) has recently claimed that a wide range of evidence supports the distinction between episodic and semantic memory systems. He has provided a list of features to describe the differences between the two systems and a set of experimental results to demonstrate the distinction. In this article, we present opposing evidence that invalidates many of the distinguishing features and contradicts interpretations of the supporting experiments. In addition, we argue that the question of whether there are two separate memory systems cannot be answered without a specific theory about the differences between the systems.

Amnesia↗

PubMed1986

More on the distinction between episodic and semantic memories.

In reply to a critique of the episodic/semantic distinction (McKoon, Ratcliff, & Dell, 1986), Tulving (1986) argues that the usual rules for testing theories do not apply to the classification of phenomena with respect to memory systems. But we respond that the classification methods proposed by Tulving (1986) may be detrimental to the advancement of theory and that whole domains of inquiry should not be excluded from the usual criteria of experimental psychology.

Brain↗

PubMed1985

Components of activation: repetition and priming effects in lexical decision and recognition.

Activation decay functions were examined in two different tasks: lexical decision and word recognition. Activation (amount of facilitation) was measured both for item repetition and for priming between newly learned associates. Results indicate that there are at least three different components of activation: a short-term component that decays with one or two intervening items and that appears to be common to priming and repetition; an intermediate component for repetition in recognition; and a long-term component for repetition.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

The role of semantic information in episodic retrieval.

In two experiments, subjects studied lists of categorized words and then were tested for recognition of those words. Response time for a test word was speeded whenever the immediately preceding test word was from the same category. This was true even for test words (lures) from categories never studied. Thus it is argued that semantic information not present at the time of study affected retrieval. This finding is discussed with respect to the distinction between episodic and semantic memories.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1984

The mental representation of knowledge acquired from maps.

Recognition priming and distance estimation were used to investigate the mental representation of knowledge acquired from maps. In Experiment 1, recognition priming showed that cities close in route distance primed each other more than cities far in route distance, even when Euclidean distance was equated. Experiment 2 showed that this finding was robust and not an artifact of the way subjects learned the maps. Distance estimations in Experiment 1 supported the priming results. These results indicated that psychological distance in cognitive maps is primarily dependent on route distance rather than Euclidean distance.

Cognition↗

PubMed1981

The representation of pictures in memory.

The two experiments presented in this article examined the memory representation of pictorial information. The technique used to investigate structure was priming in item recognition. Subjects studied a list of pictures and then were tested for recognition of parts of pictures. In Experiment 1, the time to recognize a target part of a picture was speeded (primed) if the immediately preceding part in the test list was from the same picture. This priming effect was larger if the two parts were interacting with each other in the picture than if they were not interacting. Experiment 2 showed more priming between the interacting, foreground parts of a picture than between one of the interacting parts and a background part. For noninteracting parts, priming between foreground parts was equal to priming between foreground and background parts. It is suggested that priming may prove a useful technique for investigating other aspects of the representation of pictorial information.

Adult↗