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Theories of why humans forget have been challenged by the newly discovered list-length/output-interference paradox, in which--under certain testing conditions--learning is not harmed by the amount of verbal material studied, whereas retrieval of that material becomes more difficult with increases in the number of items tested. The latter finding is...
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... Much of this has been in the context of debates regarding the nature and prevalence of strategic within-list bias shifts, but some have investigated less controllable sources of trial-by-trial response variability, such as sequential dependencies (Dopkins et al., 2010;Marken & Sandusky, 1974) and random noise in the decision process (Benjamin, 2013;Benjamin et al., 2009). Unlike sensitivity and other accuracy measures, which typically decline over the course of a recognition test (although the sources of this decline remain open to debate; see e.g., Malmberg et al., 2012), we are not aware of any consistent effects of test position on response bias. Examples can be found of bias becoming increasingly liberal (Berch & Evans, 1973;Donaldson & Murdock, 1968) or conservative (Osth et al., 2018;Potter et al., 2002;Ratcliff, 1978) over the course of a single recognition test, and of more nuanced patterns such as an initial liberal shift followed by stabilization (Criss et al., 2011). ...
When old/new recognition memory is tested with equal numbers of studied and nonstudied items and no rewards or instructions that favour one response over the other, there is no obvious reason for response bias. In line with this, Canadian undergraduates have shown, on average, a neutral response bias when we tested them on recognition of common English words. By contrast, most subjects we have tested on recognition of richly detailed images have shown a conservative bias: they more often erred by missing a studied image than by judging a nonstudied image as studied. Here, in an effort to better understand these materials-based bias effects (MBBEs), we examined changes in hit and false alarm (FA) rates (and in sensitivity and bias) from the first to fourth quartile of a recognition memory test in eight experiments in which undergraduates studied words and/or images of paintings. Response bias for images tended to increase across quartiles, whereas bias for words showed no consistent pattern across quartiles. This pattern could be described as an increase in the MBBE over the course of the test, but the underlying patterns for hits and FAs are not easily reconciled with this interpretation. Hit rates decreased over the course of the test for both materials types, with that decline tending to be steeper for images than words. For words, FA rates tended to increase across quartiles, whereas for paintings FA rates did not increase across quartiles. We discuss implications of these findings for theoretical accounts of the MBBE.
... Decrements in performance through recognition testing. One of the more recent lines of research that has been used to argue for models where item noise is the bulk of interference in recognition memory concerns the decrease in performance across test trials in a recognition memory test, which has been robustly observed in many experiments (Annis, Malmberg, Criss, & Shiffrin, 2013;Criss et al., 2011;Gillund & Shiffrin, 1984;Kim & Glanzer, 1995;Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012;Murdock & Anderson, 1975;Peixotto, 1947;Ratcliff & Hockley, 1980;Ratcliff & Murdock, 1976;Schulman, 1974). Although this finding had been known for some time, it was unclear whether the observed decrease was because of the experience of the test items or the increase in retention interval because of the passage of time. ...
... A more recent result that has been used to argue for an item noise interpretation of the testing decrement comes from an inves-tigation that used blocked categories at test. Malmberg et al. (2012) conducted an experiment where all studied words came from two semantic categories and included a blocked condition where the test list was divided into two blocks of 150 2AFC trials where each block tested a different semantic category. Performance decreased monotonically through the test list until the category switch point, at which point performance increased considerably and subsequently decreased over further test trials. ...
... In a control condition, all category exemplars were randomized through the test block, performance decreased monotonically through testing. Malmberg et al. (2012) argued that these results are not only consistent with item noise theories, which predict that the magnitude of interference is dependent on the similarity of the cues to the contents of memory, but are also comparable with the release from proactive interference (PI) results of Wickens and colleagues (D. D. Wickens, 1970;D. ...
A powerful theoretical framework for exploring recognition memory is the global matchingframework, in which a cue’s memory strength reflects the similarity of the retrieval cuesbeing matched against the contents of memory simultaneously. Contributions at retrievalcan be categorized as matches and mismatches to the item and context cues, including theself match (match on item and context), item noise (match on context, mismatch on item),context noise (match on item, mismatch on context), and background noise (mismatch onitem and context). We present a model that directly parameterizes the matches andmismatches to the item and context cues, which enables estimation of the magnitude ofeach interference contribution (item noise, context noise, and background noise). Themodel was fit within a hierarchical Bayesian framework to ten recognition memory datasetsthat employ manipulations of strength, list length, list strength, word frequency, study-testdelay, and stimulus class in item and associative recognition. Estimates of the modelparameters revealed at most a small contribution of item noise that varies by stimulusclass, with virtually no item noise for single words and scenes. Despite the unpopularity ofbackground noise in recognition memory models, background noise estimates dominated atretrieval across nearly all stimulus classes with the exception of high frequency words,which exhibited equivalent levels of context noise and background noise. These parameterestimates suggest that the majority of interference in recognition memory stems fromexperiences acquired prior to the learning episode.
... This means that there are no data regarding the dynamics of learning as it occurred, and so inferences about the mechanisms of learning are made retroactively, based on participants' accuracy on offline tests. The forced-choice offline tests that were used are explicit and meta-cognitive, and as such they might be interfering with what was learned during exposure and they might be tapping into explicit learning mechanisms that could obscure the subtle, implicit differences in the dynamics of learning between the two conditions that we are interesting in measuring (see Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012;Siegelman et al., 2017, for discussions of the limitations of offline measures of statistical learning). ...
How do children learn language in a way that allows generalization -- producing and comprehending utterances that have never been heard before? A prominent view is that this is achieved through learning the statistical distributions of linguistic forms in the input. There is extensive evidence that humans are sensitive to the statistics of the input, but the exact nature of the learning mechanism that underpins it is unclear. In this thesis, a discriminative approach to learning is taken, whereby language learning is a process of reducing uncertainty about the form and the meaning of the message by discriminating between informative and uninformative cues in the environment and in the utterance itself. This process is driven by key principles of learning theory -- prediction error and cue competition, which are available to differing degrees in different learning contexts. Specifically, (1) learning suffixes provides greater cue competition than prefixing, which facilitates generalization via discriminative learning; (2) learning pre fixes, on the other hand, facilitates the processing of upcoming parts of the utterance, because the pre fix smoothes information content over the whole utterance, which promotes better learning of the utterance itself compared to suffixing. This thesis tests these predictions in a series of artifi cial language learning experiments (with adult native speakers of English), which are either "suffixing" or "prefixing". Support for (1) was found across multiple experiments, but no consistent evidence for (2) was found. On the whole, the thesis demonstrates that discriminative learning provides a coherent theoretical basis for testing specific predictions about language, and identifies avenues for future work to address (2) more appropriately.
... Decrements in performance through recognition testing. One of the more recent lines of research that has been used to argue for models where item noise is the bulk of interference in recognition memory concerns the decrease in performance across test trials in a recognition memory test, which has been robustly observed in many experiments (Annis, Malmberg, Criss, & Shiffrin, 2013;Criss et al., 2011;Gillund & Shiffrin, 1984;Kim & Glanzer, 1995;Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012;Murdock & Anderson, 1975;Peixotto, 1947;Ratcliff & Hockley, 1980;Ratcliff & Murdock, 1976;Schulman, 1974). Although this finding had been known for some time, it was unclear whether the observed decrease was because of the experience of the test items or the increase in retention interval because of the passage of time. ...
... A more recent result that has been used to argue for an item noise interpretation of the testing decrement comes from an inves-tigation that used blocked categories at test. Malmberg et al. (2012) conducted an experiment where all studied words came from two semantic categories and included a blocked condition where the test list was divided into two blocks of 150 2AFC trials where each block tested a different semantic category. Performance decreased monotonically through the test list until the category switch point, at which point performance increased considerably and subsequently decreased over further test trials. ...
... In a control condition, all category exemplars were randomized through the test block, performance decreased monotonically through testing. Malmberg et al. (2012) argued that these results are not only consistent with item noise theories, which predict that the magnitude of interference is dependent on the similarity of the cues to the contents of memory, but are also comparable with the release from proactive interference (PI) results of Wickens and colleagues (D. D. Wickens, 1970;D. ...
Episodic memory involves remembering not only what happened but also the context of the event such as where and when it happened. This multi-component nature of episodic memory introduces different sources of interference, each of which may cause forgetting or memory distortions. However, it is unclear how different sources of interference change across development and what causes the changes. Here, we tested 4-5-year-olds, 7-8-year-olds, and adults in a series of recognition tasks with a comprehensive set of manipulations, and decomposed different sources of interference using a computational model. Results showed that interference stemming from other items during study rapidly decreases early in development, while interference from pre-experimental contexts gradually decreases throughout adulthood and remains as the major source of interference. The model accounts for this change through an early development in the ability to discriminate items and a more gradual development in the ability to discriminate contexts.
... A release from output interference design allows us to test these two potential mechanisms for a filter. In a typical design (Criss, Saolmão, Malmberg, Aue, & Claridge, 2018;Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012), participants study a list of words from two different categories and are then tested on that list. Performance decreases with test trial. ...
The primary aim of this paper is to elucidate the mechanisms governing output interference in cued recall. Output interference describes the phenomenon where accuracy decrease over the course of an episodic memory test. Output inference in cued recall takes the form of a decrease in correct and intrusion responses and an increase in failures to response across the test. This pattern can only be accounted for by a model with two complementary mechanisms: learning during retrieval and a response filter that prevents repeated recall of the same item. We investigate how a retrieval filter might operate by manipulating the similarity of words. The data are consistent with a retrieval filter that does not operate by a global match of a potential target to previously recalled items. Results are discussed within the search of associative memory theory.
... In the experiment by Malmberg et al. (2012) participants viewed 150 words divided evenly between (for example) countries and professions. There followed 150 trials of 2AFC recognition. ...
This paper re-analyses the data from the experiments by Lansdale and Laming (Lansdale, M. & Laming, D. (1995). Evaluating the fragmentation hypothesis: The analysis of errors in cued recall. Acta Psycholgica, 88, 33-77) ab initio to reach a quite different set of conclusions:
(i) Every event (a stimulus or response or just a retrieval) to which the participant attends is separately recorded in memory, creating an ordered record of those events that have engaged the participant's attention.
(ii) The compilation of the record is automatic; while attention to a stimulus is at the participant's disposal, the consequent entry into memory is not.
(iii) The retrieval of a candidate response from memory is spontaneous; a retrieval becomes an overt response if it is compatible with the cue.
Repeated errors may be retrieved as pairs of responses or triples. Repetitions show the recency that is already known from free recall. Confidence in a response depends, not on whether the response is retrieved from a stimulus, but on the number of like cue-response combinations previously recorded in memory. The latencies are exponential.
The repetition of previous errors (and equally correct responses) generates data that suggest all-or-none learning and the fragmentation hypothesis, without those models characterising the underlying process correctly. It also has application to several contemporary issues in memory research.
... OI is present if slope is negative. To evaluate whether there is a release from OI when the perceptual form of test items changed, we conducted a 2 (bin4/ bin5) × 2 (mixed/blocked) ANOVA (following Criss et al., 2018;Malmberg et al., 2012). Release from OI is present if OI was detected and accuracy in Bin 5 is higher than accuracy in Bin 4 in the blocked condition. ...
... OI was observed in eight out of 12 conditions. In no case was a release from OI observed when perceptual form of (Criss et al., 2018;Malmberg et al., 2012) and suggests that perceptual information does not contribute to OI. However, OI was not observed in several conditions, making the results difficult to interpret. ...
... This would cause any test cue to be remembered less well as trials (or time) pass, reducing performance. While reasonable, this account fails to explain release from OI (Criss et al., 2018;Malmberg et al., 2012). On the other hand, context drift may be due to external factors related to the stimulus, such as perceptual form. ...
Retrieval from episodic memory has consequences (Malmberg, Lehman, Annis, Criss, & Shiffrin, The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 61; 285–313, 2014). In some cases, the consequences are beneficial, as in the improvement in memory for items that were already retrieved (Izawa, 1970, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 83(2, Pt.1), 340–344; Izawa, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 89(1): 10–21, 1971; Roediger & Karpicke, Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255, 2006). In other cases, the consequences are negative, as in the case of output interference (OI; Wickens, Borne, & Allen, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2, 440–445, 1963). OI is the decrease in accuracy in episodic memory with increasing test trials. A release from OI is observed when accuracy rebounds following a switch in the category of item being tested (Criss, Salomão, Malmberg, Aue, Kilic, & Claridge, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(4): 316–326, 2018; Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, Psychological Science, 23(2): 115–119, 2012). In all reports thus far, a release from OI was observed when the conceptual information of stimuli was switched. Here, we evaluate the possibility that changing perceptual information causes a release from OI by presenting items in two perceptual forms (image, audio recording or printed text of the corresponding word) either mixed or blocked at test. A release from OI was observed only for images. We discuss the roles of conceptual and perceptual information in producing OI within the retrieving effectively from memory modeling framework.
... There are two competing recognitionmemory theories that are relevant to the present purpose, the item noise and the context noise model. According to the class of item noise models of recognition memory derived from the concept of global matching as the process of recognition (Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012;Gillund & Shiffrin's, 1984 SAM;Hintzman's, 1988 MINERVA;Neely, Schmidt, & Roediger, 1983;Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997 RAM;see Clark & Gronlund, 1996 for a review), the more numerous, and the more similar, the items on the study list are, the greater the item noise in memory, and the poorer the recognition performance will be. According to the context noise model (Dennis & Humphreys, 2001), the more numerous and the more similar the test contexts in which a test probe is previously presented, the more noise or interference the recognition of that probe will suffer and the lower the recognition accuracy for that probe will be. ...
Subjects studied Deese-Roediger-McDermott semantic-associate lists and took a recognition test. The makeup and number of test probes were manipulated. In Experiments 1 and 2A, one of three or all three distractors were semantically related to the list theme. In Experiment 2B, 6 or 30 related probes were used at test. Results showed that semantically related distractors and a longer list of test words both had a beneficial effect on the accurate discrimination of the prototype lures from the studied semantic associates and on the discrimination of studied from unstudied prototype words. These findings are inconsistent with predictions of memory interference and activation theories. We propose that the counterintuitive findings can be explained by the notion of old/new recognition as categorization learning and that relatedness and a larger number of test probes provide more accurate information about the prototype lure as a distractor, thereby improving its classification as a distractor.
... Almost universally, recognition memory performance decreases throughout the course of testing. This finding was first reported by Peixotto (1947), but has frequently been replicated in the decades since (Annis, Malmberg, Criss, & Shiffrin, 2013;Averell, Prince, & Heathcote, 2016;Criss, Malmberg, & Shiffrin, 2011;Kiliç, Criss, Malmberg, & Shiffrin, 2017;Malmberg, Criss, Gangwani, & Shiffrin, 2012;Murdock & Anderson, 1975;Schulman, 1974). However, despite its status as an empirical regularity, theoretical interest in the nature of the testing effect has emerged only more recently (e.g.; Criss et al., 2011;Osth & Dennis, 2015). ...
A robust finding in recognition memory is that performance declines monotonically across test trials. Despite the prevalence of this decline, there is a lack of consensus on the mechanism responsible. Three hypotheses have been put forward: (1) interference is caused by learning of test items (2) the test items cause a shift in the context representation used to cue memory and (3) participants change their speed-accuracy thresholds through the course of testing. We implemented all three possibilities in a combined model of recognition memory and decision making, which inherits the memory retrieval elements of the Osth and Dennis (2015) model and uses the diffusion decision model (DDM: Ratcliff, 1978) to generate choice and response times. We applied the model to four datasets that represent three challenges, the findings that: (1) the number of test items plays a larger role in determining performance than the number of studied items, (2) performance decreases less for strong items than weak items in pure lists but not in mixed lists, and (3) lexical decision trials interspersed between recognition test trials do not increase the rate at which performance declines. Analysis of the model's parameter estimates suggests that item interference plays a weak role in explaining the effects of recognition testing, while context drift plays a very large role. These results are consistent with prior work showing a weak role for item noise in recognition memory and that retrieval is a strong cause of context change in episodic memory.
... Based on research, interference output occurs when two categories are tested separately rather than tested together [9]. This is in accordance with the case of students in this research, ie students are not only difficult to distinguish the problems done using sequences and arithmetic series but also sequences and geometry series when displayed together. ...
This research aims to describe interference thinking in constructing students' knowledge to solve mathematical problems. Interference thinking in solving problems occurs when students have two concepts that interfere with each other's concept. Construction of problem-solving can be traced using Piaget's assimilation and accommodation framework, helping to know the students' thinking structures in solving the problems. The method of this research was a qualitative method with case research strategy. The data in this research involving problem-solving result and transcripts of interviews about students' errors in solving the problem. The results of this research focus only on the student who experience proactive interference, where student in solving a problem using old information to interfere with the ability to recall new information. The student who experience interference thinking in constructing their knowledge occurs when the students' thinking structures in the assimilation and accommodation process are incomplete. However, after being given reflection to the student, then the students' thinking process has reached equilibrium condition even though the result obtained remains wrong.
