James S. Nairne

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.

The nature of remembering: Essays in honor of Robert G. Crowder.

This festschrift in honor of Robert G. Crowder presents thought-provoking new research for scientists in the field of memory and cognition. Authors discuss Crowders far-reaching influence in the field of memory and cognition.

Adaptive Memory The Comparative Value of Survival Processing

We recently proposed that human memory systems are “tuned” to remember information that is processed for survival, perhaps as a result of fitness advantages accrued in the ancestral past. This proposal was supported by experiments in which participants showed superior memory when words were rated for survival relevance, at least relative to when words received other forms of deep processing. The current experiments tested the mettle of survival memory by pitting survival processing against conditions that are universally accepted as producing excellent retention, including conditions in which participants rated words for imagery, pleasantness, and self-reference; participants also generated words, studied words with the intention of learning them, or rated words for relevance to a contextually rich (but non-survival-related) scenario. Survival processing yielded the best retention, which suggests that it may be one of the best encoding procedures yet discovered in the memory field.

Word-length effects in immediate memory: Overwriting trace decay theory.

Memory is worse for items that take longer to pronounce, even when the items are equated for frequency, number of syllables, and number of phonemes. Current explanations of the word-length effect rely on a time-based decay process within the articulatory loop structure in working memory. Using an extension of Nairne’s (1990) feature model, we demonstrate that the approximately linear relationship between span and pronunciation rate can be observed in a model that does not use the concept of decay. Moreover, the feature model also correctly predicts the effects of modality, phonological similarity, articulatory suppression, and serial position on memory for items of different lengths. We argue that word-length effects do not offer sufficient justification for including time-based decay components in theories of memory.

The myth of the encoding-retrieval match

Modern memory researchers rely heavily on the encoding-retrieval match, defined as the similarity between coded retrieval cues and previously encoded engrams, to explain variability in retention. The encoding-retrieval match is assumed to be causally and monotonically related to retention, although other factors (such as cue overload) presumably operate in some circumstances. I argue here that the link between the encoding-retrieval match and retention, although generally positive, is essentially correlational rather than causal—much like the link between deep/elaborative processing and retention. Empirically, increasing the functional match between a cue and a target trace can improve, have no effect, or even decrease retention performance depending on the circumstance. We cannot make unequivocal predictions about retention by appealing to the encoding-retrieval match; instead, we should be focusing our attention on the extent to which retrieval cues provide diagnostic information about target occurrence.

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.

A framework for interpreting recency effects in immediate serial recall.

A descriptive framework is offered for the interpretation of recency effects in immediate serial recall. Basic to the framework is a distinction between two types of trace features: (1) modality dependent features, which represent the perceptual qualities of presentation, and (2) modality independent features, which result from the set of encoding operations known as the “inner voice.” Recency and modality effects emerge because certain types of modality-dependent (i.e., language based) features are typically not subject to postlist interfering events and are likely to be sampled as discriminative cues in recall. The framework is used to interpret problematic findings in the modality effect literature, such as the effects of visual presentation, lipreading, mouthing, and stimulus class on the recall of recency items.

Adaptive Memory Remembering With a Stone-Age Brain

If memory evolved, sculpted by the processes of natural selection, then its operating characteristics likely bear the “footprints” of ancestral selection pressures. Psychologists rarely consider this possibility and generally ignore functional questions in their attempt to understand how human memory works. We propose that memory evolved to enhance reproductive fitness and, accordingly, its systems are tuned to retain information that is fitness-relevant. We present evidence consistent with this proposal, namely that processing information for its survival relevance leads to superior long-term retention—better, in fact, than most known memory-enhancement techniques. Even if one remains skeptical about evolutionary analyses, adopting a functional perspective can lead to the generation of new research ideas.

Adaptive Memory: Evolutionary Constraints on Remembering

Abstract Human memory evolved subject to the constraints of natures criterion—differential survival and reproduction. Consequently, our capacity to remember and forget is likely tuned to solving fitness-based problems, particularly those prominent in the ancestral environments in which memory evolved. Do the operating characteristics of memory continue to bear the footprint of natures criterion? This is ultimately an empirical question, and I review evidence consistent with this claim. In addition, I briefly consider several explanatory assumptions of modern memory theory from the perspective of natures criterion. How well-equipped is the toolkit of modern memory theory to deal with a cognitive system shaped by natures criterion? Finally, I discuss the inherent difficulties that surround evolutionary accounts of cognition. Given there are no fossilized memory traces, and only incomplete knowledge about ancestral environments, is it possible to develop an adequate evolutionary account of remembering?

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.