Journal Article

Evidence for similar principles in episodic and semantic memory: The presidential serial position function

Neath, Ian

2010

Overview

When people recall a list of items that they have just experienced (an episodic memory task), the resulting serial position function looks strikingly similar to that observed when people are asked to recall the presidents of the United States (a semantic memory task). Despite the similarity in appearance, there is disagreement about whether the two functions arise from the same processes. A local distinctiveness model of memory, SIMPLE, successfully fit the presidential data using two underlying dimensions: one corresponding to item (or presidential) distinctiveness and the other to order (or positional) distinctiveness. According to the model, presidential primacy and recency are due to the same mechanisms that give rise to primacy and recency effects in both shortand long-term episodic memory. All of these primacy and recency effects reflect the relative distinctiveness principle (Surprenant & Neath, 2009): Items will be well remembered to the extent that they are more distinct than competing items at the time of retrieval.

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Amnesia / Attention / Behavioral Science and Psychology / Biological and medical sciences / Cognition & reasoning / Cognitive Psychology / Distinctiveness / Episodic memory / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / Human / Humans / Learning. Memory / Memory / Mental Recall / Presidents / Primacy / Principles / Product recalls / Psychology / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychology. Psychophysiology / Recall / Recall of government officials / Recency / Retention (Psychology) / Retrieval / Semantic memory / Semantics / Serial Learning