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Serial Order Depends on Item-Dependent and Item-Independent Contexts

March 2023
Psychological Review 130(6)

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We address four issues in response to Osth and Hurlstone’s (2022) commentary on the context retrieval and updating (CRU) theory of serial order (Logan, 2021). First, we clarify the relations between CRU, chains, and associations. We show that CRU is not equivalent to a chaining theory and uses similarity rather than association to retrieve contexts. Second, we fix an error Logan (2021) made in accounting for the tendency to recall ACB instead of ACD in recalling ABCDEF (fill-in vs. in-fill errors, respectively). When implemented correctly, the idea that subjects mix the current context with an initial list cue after the first order error correctly predicts that fill-in errors are more frequent than in-fill errors. Third, we address position-specific prior-list intrusions, suggesting modifications to CRU and introducing a position-coding model based on CRU representations to account for them. We suggest that position-specific prior-list intrusions are evidence for position coding on some proportion of the trials but are not evidence against item coding on other trials. Finally, we address position-specific between-group intrusions in structured lists, agreeing with Osth and Hurlstone that reasonable modifications to CRU cannot account for them. We suggest that such intrusions support position coding on some proportion of the trials but do not rule out CRU-like item-based codes. We conclude by suggesting that item-independent and item-dependent coding are alternative strategies for serial recall and we stress the importance of accounting for immediate performance.

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THEORETICAL NOTE

Serial Order Depends on Item-Dependent and Item-Independent Contexts

Gordon D. Logan

and Gregory E. Cox

Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University

Department of Psychology, University at Albany, State University of New York

We address four issues in response to Osth and Hurlstone’s (2022) commentary on the context retrieval and

updating (CRU) theory of serial order (Logan, 2021). First, we clarify the relations between CRU, chains,

and associations. We show that CRU is not equivalent to a chaining theory and uses similarity rather than

association to retrieve contexts. Second, we ﬁx an error Logan (2021) made in accounting for the tendency

to recall ACB instead of ACD in recalling ABCDEF (ﬁll-in vs. in-ﬁll errors, respectively). When

implemented correctly, the idea that subjects mix the current context with an initial list cue after the ﬁrst

order error correctly predicts that ﬁll-in errors are more frequent than in-ﬁll errors. Third, we address

position-speciﬁc prior-list intrusions, suggesting modiﬁcations to CRU and introducing a position-coding

model based on CRU representations to account for them. We suggest that position-speciﬁc prior-list

intrusions are evidence for position coding on some proportion of the trials but are not evidence against item

coding on other trials. Finally, we address position-speciﬁc between-group intrusions in structured lists,

agreeing with Osth and Hurlstone that reasonable modiﬁcations to CRU cannot account for them. We

suggest that such intrusions support position coding on some proportion of the trials but do not rule out

CRU-like item-based codes. We conclude by suggesting that item-independent and item-dependent coding

are alternative strategies for serial recall and we stress the importance of accounting for immediate

performance.

Keywords: serial order, context retrieval, chaining, error ratio, prior-list intrusions

Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000422.supp

Serial order is one of the most fundamental problemsin psychology

andneuroscience(Lashley, 1951). It challenges our ability to perceive

structure in the world, to act coherently in sequential tasks, and to

remember the order of our experiences (Logan, 2021). We solve these

practical problems routinely in daily life but despite a century and

a half of research on serial order (Ebbinghaus, 1885;Ladd &

Woodworth, 1911;Nipher, 1878), there is no theoretical consensus

on how we solve them. In the last 30 years, research on serial order in

memory has focused primarily on serial recall tasks, like the memory

span task (for comprehensive reviews, see Hurlstone et al., 2014;

Lewandowsky & Farrell, 2008). Early theories based on simple

chains of associations between successive items (Lewandowsky &

Li, 1994;Lewandowsky & Murdock, 1989;Murdock, 1982,1993,

1995;Shiffrin & Cook, 1978) were challenged by Henson et al.

(1996), who showed that chaining theories cannot recover from

errors, respond appropriately to manipulations of phonological

similarity, produce transpositions to earlier list positions, or pro-

duce position-speciﬁc intrusions from previous lists or from

different groups in the same list. As a result, theories that assume

serial order is based on associations between items and position

codes—contexts that are independent of the items—have come to

dominate the ﬁeld (Anderson & Matessa, 1997;Brown et al., 2000,

2007;Burgess & Hitch, 1999;Farrell, 2006;Hartley et al., 2016;

Henson, 1998;Lewandowsky & Farrell, 2008;Oberauer et al., 2012).

Recently, Logan and colleagues proposed a context retrieval and

updating (CRU) model of serial-order tasks, including serial recall,

that does not assume position codes (Logan, 2018,2021;Logan &

Cox, 2021;Logan et al., 2021). Instead, it assumes that serial order is

represented by associating items with contexts that are built from

fading traces of earlier items, inspired by Howard and Kahana’s

(2002) temporal context model (TCM) of free recall and its des-

cendants (Lohnas et al., 2015;Polyn et al., 2009;Sederberg et al.,

2008). Logan (2021) applied CRU to serial recall, whole-report, and

copy-typing tasks, showing that it accounts for several phenomena

in these tasks, including list-length effects, serial position curves,

transposition gradients, lag conditional recall probabilities, distribu-

tions of errors, recovery from errors, and the effects of repeating

items in a single list. Logan (2021) found that CRU does not predict

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

This article was published Online First March 9, 2023.

Gordon D. Logan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8301-7726

This research was funded by National Science Foundation Grant BCS

2147017 to Gordon D. Logan.

Data and code for ﬁts and simulations are available on the Open Science

Framework at https://osf.io/3kr5d/. The study was not preregistered; no new

data were collected.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gordon

D. Logan, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

37204, United States or Gregory E. Cox, Departme nt of Psychology, University

at Albany, State University of New York, 1400 Washington Avenue,

Albany, NY 12222, United States. Email: gordon.logan@vanderbilt.edu

or gregcox7@gmail.com

Psychological Review

ISSN: 0033-295X https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000422

1672

A Retrieved Context Model of Serial Recall and Free Recall

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A full characterization of memory must include how participants use exogenous and endogenous cues to guide retrieval. In free recall, in which endogenous cues play a large role, retrieved context theories have emerged as a leading explanation of data on the dynamics of memory search (Lohnas & Healey, Psychology of Learning and Motivation , 75 , 157–199, 2021). More recently, Logan and colleagues have advanced a retrieved context model to explain data on serial recall and motor production (Logan, Psychological Review, 125 (4), 453–485, 2018, Psychological Review, 128 (1), 1–44, 2021; Logan & Cox, Psychological Review, 128 (6), 1197–1205, 2021, Psychological Review, 130 (6), 1672–1687, 2023; Osth & Hurlstone, Psychological Review , 130 (2), 213–245, 2023). Comparisons of recall transitions have further highlighted similarities among these tasks (e.g., Bhatarah et al., Memory & Cognition , 36 (1), 20–34, 2008; Golomb et al., Memory & Cognition , 36 (5), 947–956, 2008). Here, I evaluate retrieved context theory’s ability to simultaneously account for data from these classic recall procedures. I show how a serial version of the context maintenance and retrieval model (termed sCMR) can account for dissociations between serial position curves and temporal clustering effects. I also show how sCMR can account for grouping effects using similar assumptions across recall procedures. The sCMR model provides a common theoretical framework to harmonize the disparate phenomena studied using these classic memory procedures, but also reveals the distinctions between serial and free recall through their relative dependence on different model-based mechanisms.

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In tasks that measure serial-order memory, it is common to observe a “fill-in tendency”—when a person skips an item, the next item they report is more likely to be the skipped item (a fill-in response) than the next list item (an infill response). They tend to “fill in” the blank they skipped. The fill-in tendency has informed the modeling of serial-order memory—it presents strong evidence against associative chaining accounts because they predict more infill responses than fill-in responses. Despite the failures of associative chaining theories, evidence grows for the use of chaining-like item-dependent cues in serial-order memory. In this paper, we analyzed fill-in and infill responses from nine serial learning experiments (one new experiment and eight previously published experiments) that used variants of the spin list procedure and found strong evidence of item-dependent retrieval cues in serial-order memory. The current analyses revealed a fill-in tendency in all lists—even in those in which item-dependent cues were suspected to have been used. However, in those lists the likelihood of infill responses was higher, and consequently, the fill-in tendency was weaker. Our results expose a flaw in the conventional understanding of fill-in and infill responses. That is, the presence (or absence) of the fill-in tendency is not a strong test of item-dependent cues. Instead, changes in the magnitude of the fill-in tendency—more specifically, an increase in the likelihood of infill responses—across task conditions seem to better indicate the use of item-dependent cues.

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Logan (2021) presented an impressive unification of serial order tasks including whole report, typing, and serial recall in the form of the context retrieval and updating (CRU) model. Despite the wide breadth of the model's coverage, its reliance on encoding and retrieving context representations that consist of the previous items may prevent it from being able to address a number of critical benchmark findings in the serial order literature that have shaped and constrained existing theories. In this commentary, we highlight three major challenges that motivated the development of a rival class of models of serial order, namely positional models. These challenges include the mixed-list phonological similarity effect, the protrusion effect, and interposition errors in temporal grouping. Simulations indicated that CRU can address the mixed-list phonological similarity effect if phonological confusions can occur during its output stage, suggesting that the serial position curves from this paradigm do not rule out models that rely on interitem associations, as has been previously been suggested. The other two challenges are more consequential for the model's representations, and simulations indicated the model was not able to provide a complete account of them. We highlight and discuss how revisions to CRU's representations or retrieval mechanisms can address these phenomena and emphasize that a fruitful direction forward would be to either incorporate positional representations or approximate them with its existing representations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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It has long been understood that associations can form between items that are paired (Ebbinghaus, 1885), but it is commonly assumed that previously retrieved items are not used when remembering items in serial order. We present a series of experiments that test this assumption, using a serial learning procedure inspired by Ebenholtz (1963). In this procedure, participants practiced recalling ordered lists of letters, and the order of the letters was manipulated. Half of the lists were scrambled such that the serial positions and relative positions of the letters were inconsistent over practice. The other half of the lists were spun (e.g., ABCDEF → FABCDE), making the serial positions inconsistent but preserving the relative positions of the letters over practice. In Experiment 1, participants learned to recall spun lists more accurately than the scrambled lists with practice. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants recalled new lists more accurately when they shared the relative order of previously learned spun lists. In Experiments 4 and 5, the influences of motor and perceptual representations were removed and shown to have little impact on the advantage for spun lists. Experiment 6 extended our findings to the more traditional Hebb (1961) learning procedure. The results of our experiments indicate that the commonly held assumption is incorrect-previously retrieved items can contribute to memory for serial order. Previously retrieved items best serve serial memory when there is ample opportunity to strengthen item-to-item associations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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From the beginning of research on serial memory, chaining theories and position coding theories have been pitted against each other. The central question is whether items are associated with each other or with a set of position codes that are independent of the items. Around the turn of this century, the debate focused on serial recall tasks and patterns of error data that chaining models could not accommodate. Consequently, theories based on other ideas flourished and position coding models became prominent. We present an analysis of a retrieved context model that integrates chains and position codes. Under some parameter values, it produces classic chains. Under most parameter values, it produces context representations that contain information sufficient to specify the position codes in position coding theories. We suggest three ways to extract position codes from context representations and show the codes they produce are mathematically equivalent to the codes in position coding models. The extracted position codes can be substituted for the position codes in position coding models and run through their machinery to mimic their predictions exactly. We suggest that chains, position codes, and retrieved contexts may reflect different strategies for extracting desired information from a common set of memory representations, and we emphasize the value of considering item-dependent context representations that are made from fading traces of past items encoded or retrieved. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Episodic Flanker Effect: Memory Retrieval as Attention Turned Inward

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This article tests the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward by developing an episodic flanker task that is analogous to the well-known perceptual flanker task and by developing models of the spotlight of attention focused on a memory list. Participants were presented with a list to remember (ABCDEF) followed by a probe in which one letter was cued (# # C # # #). The task was to indicate whether the cued letter matched the letter in the cued position in the memory list. The data showed classic results from the perceptual flanker task. Response time and accuracy were affected by the distance between the cued letter in the probe and the memory list (# # D # # # was worse than # # E # # #) and by the compatibility of the uncued letters in the probe and the memory list (ABCDEF was better than STCRVX). There were six experiments. The first four established distance and compatibility effects. The fifth generalized the results to sequential presentation of memory lists, and the sixth tested the boundary conditions of distance and flanker effects with an item recognition task. The data were fitted with three families of models that apply space-based, object-based, and template-based theories of attention to the problem of focusing attention on the cued item in memory. The models accounted for the distance and compatibility effects, providing measures of the sharpness of the focus of attention on memory and the ability to ignore distraction from uncued items. Together, the data and theory support the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward and motivate further research on the topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Automatic Control: How Experts Act Without Thinking

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Gordon D. Logan

Experts act without thinking because their skill is hierarchical. A single conscious thought automatically produces a series of lower-level actions without top-down monitoring. This article presents a theory that explains how automatic control is possible in skilled typing, where thinking of a word automatically produces a rapid series of keystrokes. The theory assumes that keystrokes are selected by a context retrieval process that matches the current context to stored contexts and retrieves the key associated with the best match. The current context is generated by the typist's own actions. It represents the goal ("type DOG") and the motor commands for the keys struck so far. Top-down control is necessary to start typing. It sets the goal in the current context, which initiates the retrieval and updating processes, which continue without top-down control until the word is finished. The theory explains phenomena of hierarchical control in skilled typing, including differential loads on higher and lower levels of processing, the importance of words, and poor explicit knowledge of key locations and finger-to-key mappings. The theory is evaluated by fitting it to error corpora from 24 skilled typists and predicting error probabilities, magnitudes, and patterns. Some of the fits are quite good. The theory has implications beyond typing. It argues that control can be automatic and shows how it is possible. The theory extends to other sequential skills, like texting or playing music. It provides new insights into mechanisms of serial order in typing, speaking, and serial recall. (PsycINFO Database Record

Taking Control of Cognition: An Instance Perspective on Acts of Control

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Cognitive control is often viewed as an ability or as an interaction between higher and lower level systems. This article takes an instance perspective, articulating the view that cognitive control is accomplished by a multiplicity of specific acts of control tailored to accomplish specific adjustments to the cognitive system in specific circumstances. Acts of control take states of the cognitive system and states of the world as inputs, perform computations, and produce changes in the state of the cognitive system as output. Acts of control take measurable time. They are voluntary and specific, and they can be learned. The article addresses acts of control for inhibiting responses, shifting attention, and switching tasks, describing how to measure their durations and assess whether they are voluntary and specific. It concludes by reconciling ability, interactive systems, and instance perspectives and considering implications for research and practice.

Chaining models of serial recall can produce positional errors

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Aug 2022
J MATH PSYCHOL

A major argument for positional-coding over associative chaining models of immediate serial recall has been the high probability that an error from a prior list will appear in its correct serial-position, so-called “protrusions.” Here we show that a chaining model can produce protrusions if it includes three characteristics that have been incorporated into published chaining models: (a) a “start-signal” item is associated with all first list-items, (b) memory is not cleared following each list, and (c) the retrieval cue for each item is always the full non-redintegrated retrieved information, regardless of the response. The model covertly recalls all studied lists in parallel (weighted by recency), such that when prior-list items intrude, they predominantly occur at the correct output position. In addition to fitting prior protrusion data, we report two new data sets that question the ubiquity of the simple protrusion-dominance characteristic. These findings show that protrusions cannot falsify an associative basis for serial-order memory and speak to the plausibility of mixture models.

Serial order in perception, memory, and action

Article

Aug 2020

Gordon D. Logan

This article asks whether serial order phenomena in perception, memory, and action are manifestations of a single underlying serial order process. The question is addressed empirically in two experiments that compare performance in whole report tasks that tap perception, serial recall tasks that tap memory, and copy typing tasks that tap action, using the same materials and participants. The data show similar effects across tasks that differ in magnitude, which is consistent with a single process operating under different constraints. The question is addressed theoretically by developing a Context Retrieval and Updating (CRU) theory of serial order, fitting it to the data from the two experiments, and generating predictions for 7 different summary measures of performance: list accuracy, serial position effects, transposition gradients, contiguity effects, error magnitudes, error types, and error ratios. Versions of the model that allowed sensitivity in perception and memory to decrease with serial position fit the data best and produced reasonably accurate predictions for everything but error ratios. Together, the theoretical and empirical results suggest a positive answer to the question: Serial order in perception, memory, and action may be governed by the same underlying mechanism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Sequential sampling models without random between-trial variability: the racing diffusion model of speeded decision making

Article

Feb 2020
PSYCHON B REV

Most current sequential sampling models have random between-trial variability in their parameters. These sources of variability make the models more complex in order to fit response time data, do not provide any further explanation to how the data were generated, and have recently been criticised for allowing infinite flexibility in the models. To explore and test the need of between-trial variability parameters we develop a simple sequential sampling model of N-choice speeded decision making: the racing diffusion model. The model makes speeded decisions from a race of evidence accumulators that integrate information in a noisy fashion within a trial. The racing diffusion does not assume that any evidence accumulation process varies between trial, and so, the model provides alternative explanations of key response time phenomena, such as fast and slow error response times relative to correct response times. Overall, our paper gives good reason to rethink including between-trial variability parameters in sequential sampling models

The problem of serial order in behaviour

Article

Jan 1951

K.S. Lashley

Serial Order Depends on Item-Dependent and Item-Independent Contexts

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