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Biomedical subjects

J S Nairne

Publications and source records attributed to J S Nairne.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

von Restorff revisited: isolation, generation, and memory for order.

The effects of isolation and generation on memory for order were investigated in 4 experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effect of isolation on order retention. Previous investigations in this area have yielded equivocal results. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that isolation enhances memory for order: Isolated items were repositioned more accurately than comparable items in control lists. Experiments 3 and 4 investigated the effect of generation on order retention. These experiments revealed that generation can enhance, disrupt, or have no effect on memory for order, depending on the relative number of generated items appearing within a list. Implications of these results for general theoretical accounts of isolation effects in memory are discussed. A simplified version of the feature model (J. S. Nairne, 1990) is shown to provide a general account of isolation effects.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Part-set cuing of order information: implications for associative theories of serial order memory.

In three experiments, the effect of cuing, at the point of test, on memory for order and/or position was investigated. Experiment 1 used a partial reconstruction of order task to demonstrate a mnemonic benefit of part-set cuing at the time of test; this result is used to argue that people may commonly use interitem associative information, rather than just position information, to help them remember serial order. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and simultaneously demonstrated the mnemonic detriment that part-set cuing typically produces in free recall. Experiment 3 showed that cues presented at test will either help or hinder reconstruction of order, depending on whether those cues are consistent or inconsistent with the original presentation order. The results of all three experiments are discussed within the framework of position and associative theories of serial order memory.

Association↗
PubMed1999

Reversing the phonological similarity effect.

The phonological similarity effect--poor retention of order for lists of similar-sounding items--is a benchmark finding in the short-term memory literature. In our first two experiments, we show that the effect actually reverses following relatively brief periods of distraction, yielding better order retention for similar than for dissimilar lists, provided that different items are used on every trial. In Experiment 3, the same items were used on every trial and similar lists produced poorer performance across all three retention intervals. The results are interpreted from a general discrimination framework: Items are viewed as occupying positions in a multidimensional space defined by list and within-list dimensions.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Recognition and recall-like processes in the long-term reconstruction of order.

Four experiments examined whether the recovery of an item's position in a sequence taps processes similar to recognition and/or recall. Across the experiments, subjects either recalled, recognised, or made position judgements about list items that differed in word frequency. Typical word frequency effects were found in recall and recognition, but frequency failed to affect measures of position memory consistently across the four experiments. Despite the apparent procedural similarities across tasks, it appears that the recovery of position information may tap mnemonic processes that are different from those tapped by recognition and recall. Implications of these findings for current models of position memory are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1993

The separability of space and time: dimensional interaction in the memory trace.

The speeded-classification paradigm, adapted from the study of perceptual interactions, was used to examine interactions among features of the short-term memory trace. In each of four experiments, a trial began with the presentation of a pair of stimuli, each member of which occurred either first or second in time and above or below a fixation point. One of the two stimuli was then presented again, and the task was to classify its prior temporal (Experiments 1 and 3) or spatial (Experiments 2 and 4) position. The main question of interest asked whether subjects could selectively attend to one of these occurrence dimensions while ignoring irrelevant variation along the other. The results suggested that whereas subjects can selectively ignore temporal or spatial variation when no recall of the irrelevant dimensions value is required, they suffer interference when values on both dimensions must be remembered. The obtained patterns of interference are consistent with postperceptual interactions of the spatial and temporal components of the memory trace.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Design controversies and the generation effect: support for an item-order hypothesis.

We performed three experiments to investigate an earlier finding of Nairne, Riegler, and Serra (1991) that item generation disrupts the long-term retention of serial order. Experiment 1 demonstrated a clear advantage of reading over generating on a reconstruction test when reading and generating occurred in pure, but not mixed, lists. Experiment 2 showed that the standard generate advantage is seen in free recall of mixed, but not pure, lists, even when recall is immediately followed by reconstruction of serial order of the same items. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1, but with the use of an incidental learning procedure. The results of all three experiments are consistent with the claim that generation has dissociative effects on item and order memory; moreover, these dissociative effects help to explain design controversies in the generation effect literature.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Dissociative effects of generation on item and order retention.

The effects of generation on the long-term retention of item and order information were examined in a between-list design in 3 experiments. In each experiment, completing word fragments during presentation significantly impaired long-term retention of serial order, as measured by either a reconstruction task or the amount of input-output correspondence in free recall. Memory for the individual items, however, was sometimes helped by generation. This pattern of dissociation, reminiscent of immediate memory findings, is used to interpret problematic issues in the generation effect literature and to argue for the role of the item-order distinction in the long-term-memory arena.

Humans↗
PubMed1991

On the nature of interactions between the past and the present.

We conceptualize the past and the present as dimensions of experience and ask whether past processing must affect decisions about the present and whether present processing must affect decisions about the past. The paradigm is speeded classification: Ss classified a stimulus's past spatial position and tried to ignore information about present position (Experiments 1-4), or classified present position, while attempting to ignore past position (Experiments 5-6). We found that in classifying the past, Ss were unable to ignore present position, unless it was processed apart from the retrieval cue. In classifying the present, subjects could ignore past position completely. We conclude that a processing asymmetry exists, reflecting perhaps a logical asymmetry in the information required to make past or present decisions.

Attention↗
PubMed1991

Positional uncertainty in long-term memory.

Long-term memory for position was examined from the perspective of an immediate memory framework, the perturbation model of Estes (Estes, 1972; Lee & Estes, 1977, 1981). First, a simple version of the perturbation model is shown to provide a reasonable fit of previously reported long-term data (Nairne, 1990b), even though the perturbation idea was developed to explain the phenomena of immediate retention. Second, new results are reported that extend the application to multiple dimensions. Long-term memories for list and within-list position appear to mimic the classic patterns of immediate retention, in that both show bow-shaped serial position curves and error generalization gradients that are roughly symmetrical around the true serial position.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

A feature model of immediate memory.

A feature model of immediate memory is presented, and simulations are described. List items are characterized as multiattribute vectors that can be selectively overwritten by subsequent external events and by the ongoing stream of internal activity. Degraded primary memory vectors are compared with intact secondary memory vectors, and retrieval likelihood is computed as the ratio of similarities. The model is shown to account for the major modality-based phenomena of the immediate serial recall literature, including modality-based temporal grouping effects and the negative effects of phonological similarity.

Attention↗
PubMed1988

The mnemonic value of perceptual identification.

In four experiments, subjects were required to name words presented on a CRT screen. On generate trials, the words were presented quickly, at a point where roughly half could be identified correctly; on read trials, the items were presented for a full second, allowing for rapid and easy naming. A surprise recognition test for the presented items then revealed a substantial retention advantage for the briefly presented items, but no similar advantage was produced in a recall. It is argued that under rapid viewing conditions subjects may fail to extract enough visual features to allow for immediate resolution, requiring the initiation of a kind of data-driven generation process. This latter process then produces a generation effect for the briefly presented items compared with the read items, but only on a retention test that shows sensitivity to data-driven processing. These results are discussed from the standpoint of current theoretical views on the generation effect.

Humans↗