Common Modality Effects in Immediate Free Recall and Immediate Serial Recall

In two experiments, participants were presented with lists of between 2 and 12 words for either immediate free recall (IFR) or immediate serial recall (ISR). Auditory recall advantages at the end of the list (modality effects) and visual recall advantages early in the list (inverse modality effects) were observed in both tasks and the extent and magnitude of these effects were dependent upon list length. Both tasks displayed modality effects with short lists that were large in magnitude but limited to the final serial position, consistent with those observed in the typically short lists used in ISR, and both tasks displayed modality effects with longer lists that were small in magnitude and more extended across multiple end-of-list positions, consistent with those observed in the typically longer lists used in IFR. Inverse modality effects were also observed in both tasks at early list positions on longer lengths. Presentation modality did not affect where recall was initiated, but modality effects were greatest on trials where participants initiated recall with the first item. We argue for a unified account of IFR and ISR. We also assume that the presentation modality affects the encoding of all list items, and that modality effects emerge due to the greater resistance of auditory items to output interference

The Hopkins verbal learning test: an in-depth analysis of recall patterns

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group One of the earliest signs of dementia is memory issues and verbal word lists, such as the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), are successfully used for screening. To gain insight in how memory is affected in dementia, and to further improve the efficacy of the HVLT, in-depth analysis of the recall patterns of dementia cases and controls was conducted. Dementia cases and controls were matched for factors that can affect performance, such as age, gender and education level. Word frequency, syllable length, and orthographic neighbourhood size did not differ in the Indonesian version of the HVLT, nor did these characteristics affect recall. However dementia cases showed consistent and poor recall across the three trials; with the worst recall for the “human shelter” category and best recall for the “animals” category. Dementia cases also showed impaired accessibility of all categories with reduced subsequent recall from accessed categories and reduced primacy and recency levels. Finally, dementia cases exhibited lower levels of re-remembering and recalling new words, and higher levels of immediate forgetting and never recalling words. It was concluded that utilising the extra information provided by the in-depth analyses of the recall patterns could be beneficial to improve dementia screening

Temporal isolation effects in immediate recall

Three experiments examined temporal isolation effects (TIEs), the recall advantage for stimuli separated by increased inter-stimulus intervals. Prior research suggests that TIEs are observed in immediate free recall (IFR) using longer lists, but are weaker or absent in immediate serial recall (ISR) using shorter lists. Using digit-filled intervals to reduce rehearsal, IFR and ISR benefitted overall from longer pre-item intervals and shorter post-item intervals, using lists of 7, 17, and 5 words (Experiments 1–3, respectively). Consistent with a grouping account, the first words recalled were often preceded by longer pre-item intervals and transitions tended to be between neighboring items separated by shorter intervals. Using 7-item lists with unfilled intervals (Experiment 3), both IFR and ISR benefitted from longer post-item intervals (possibly due to rehearsal), and once the first responses were removed, there was no effect of pre-item interval on either task. These similar findings encourage the theoretical integration of ISR and IFR

It's time to start changing the game: A 12-week workplace team sport intervention study

Background A 12-week multi-team sport programme was provided to employees of a large services organisation and conducted in workplaces. This programme was used to investigate the short-term effect of regular sports team participation on individual employee and organisational health. Methods A large services organisation participated in this study. Two regional worksites of office workers were assigned as the team sport (intervention) (n = 28 participants) or control (n = 20 participants) groups. The team sport sessions were underpinned by psychological behaviour change theory and consisted of weekly 1-h team sport sessions for 12 weeks. Measures of aerobic fitness, physical activity behaviour, group cohesion, interaction and communication, psychological wellbeing, health, anthropometrics and workplace experiences were recorded pre- and post-intervention. Data were analysed using a series of mixed ANOVAs. Results After 12 weeks significant improvements were observed in VO2 max (+ 4.5 ± 5.8 ml/min kg, P < .002, η 2 p = .182), interpersonal communication within teams (+ 3%, P < .042, η 2 p = .087) and mean weekly physical activity duration (+ 154.74′, P < .002, η 2 p = .071) in the intervention group. A significant (P < .012, η 2 p = .130) effect on body composition was observed in the intervention group. Conclusions Participation in team sport may be an effective method to improve the aerobic fitness and physical activity behaviour of employees, and promote interpersonal communication between colleagues. Individual health outcomes and social interactions have the capacity to influence the health of the organisation. The extent of which these findings are replicable across a scope of organisations should be examined objectively over the long term

Questioning short-term memory and its measurement: why digit span measures long-term associative learning

Traditional accounts of verbal short-term memory explain differences in performance for different types of verbal material by reference to inherent characteristics of the verbal items making up memory sequences. The role of previous experience with sequences of different types is ostensibly controlled for either by deliberate exclusion or by presenting multiple trials constructed from different random permutations

The item versus the object in memory: on the implausibility of overwriting as a mechanism for forgetting in short-term memory

The nature of forgetting in short-term memory remains a disputed topic, with much debate focussed upon whether decay plays a fundamental role (Berman et al., 2009; Altmann and Schunn, 2012; Barrouillet et al., 2012; Neath and Brown, 2012; Oberauer and Lewandowsky, 2013; Ricker et al., 2014) but much less focus on other plausible mechanisms. One such mechanism of long-standing in auditory memory is overwriting (e.g., Crowder and Morton, 1969) in which some aspects of a representation are “overwritten” and rendered inaccessible by the subsequent presentation of a further item. Here, we review the evidence for different forms of overwriting (at the feature and item levels) and examine the plausibility of this mechanism both as a form of auditory memory and when viewed in the context of a larger hearing, speech and language understanding system

When distraction benefits memory through semantic similarity

The processing of the relation between targets and distracters which underpins the impairment in memory for visually presented words when accompanied by semantically related auditory distracters—the between-sequence semantic similarity effect—might also disambiguate category membership of to-be-remembered words, bringing about improved memory for these words at recall. In this series of experiments the usual impairment of the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is reversed: we show that related distracters can improve memory performance when multiple-category lists are studied and a category-cued recall test is used at retrieval. The results indicate not only that irrelevant speech distracters are routinely processed for meaning, but also that semantic information gleaned from this stream is retained until recall of the memoranda is cued. The data are consistent with a revised interaction-by-process framework

Does short-term memory develop?

Such is the consistency by which performance on measures of short-term memory (STM) increase with age that developmental increases in STM capacity are largely accepted as fact. However, our analysis of a robust but almost ignored finding – that span for digit sequences (the traditional measure of STM) increases at a far greater rate than span for other verbal material – fundamentally undermines the assumption that increased performance in STM tasks is underpinned by developmental increases in capacity. We show that this digit superiority with age effect is explained by the relatively greater linguistic exposure to random sequences of digits versus other stimuli such as words. A simple associative learning process that learns incrementally from exposure to language accounts for the effect, without any need to invoke an STM mechanism, much less one that increases in capacity with age. By extension, using corpus data directed at 2-3 year old children, 4-6 year old children, and adults, we show that age-related performance increases with other types of verbal material are equally driven by the same basic associative learning process operating on the expanding exposure to language experienced by the child. Our results question the idea that tests such as digit span are measuring a dedicated system for the temporary maintenance and manipulation of verbal material, and as such have implications for our understanding of those aspects of typical and atypical development that are usually accounted for with respect to the operation of such a system

Examining the similarities between immediate serial recall and immediate free recall : the effects of list length and output order

This thesis examines the similarities and differences between two widely-used immediate memory tasks: immediate serial recall (ISR) and immediate free recall (IFR). Until recently these two tasks were explained by separate theories, but recent researchers have encouraged greater integration by showing considerable similarities under identical list lengths (LL) and methods. Eight experiments are presented in three chapters. Chapter 2 examines strategy use in the two tasks. Participants were shown not to use LL-specific strategies in IFR (Experiment 1) or ISR (Experiment 2). Indeed, encoding strategy use was similar in both tasks: participants showed no effect of test-expectancy (Experiment 3). These findings show that participants encode ISR and IFR in similar ways, irrespective of knowledge of the LL, and that differences between the tasks are due to retrieval. Chapter 3 examines why participants tend to initiate IFR of short lists with the first word in the list. I looked at three putative mechanisms for generating the primacy effect in IFR: covert rehearsal (Experiment 4), selective attention (Experiment 5), and temporal distinctiveness (Experiment 6). I found that no manipulation abolished primacy. Chapter 4 showed similar effects of modality (Experiment 7) and temporal isolation (Experiment 8) on ISR and IFR when examined under the same methodology. In summary, this thesis has shown that when LL is equated ISR and IFR are more similar than previously thought. Due to the growing evidence that both tasks are underpinned by common memory mechanisms I conclude that there is a need for greater theoretical integration between the two tasks. I relate my results to different theories of ISR and IFR, and provide a verbal description of a preferred explanation of the data.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Data for: Temporal Isolation Effects in Immediate Recall

The file contains the raw data for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, along with the recall errors made