A production system theory of serial memory.

Abstract

A theory is described that provides a detailed model of how people recall serial lists of items. This theory is based on the Adaptive Character of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) production system (J. R. Anderson, 1993). It assumes that serial lists are represented as hierarchical structures consisting of Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0033-295X/97/$3,00 groups and items within groups. Declarative knowledge units encode the position of items and of groups within larger groups. Production rules use this positional information to organize the serial recall of a list of items. In ACT-R, memory access depends on a limited-capacity activation process, and errors can occur in the contents of recall because of a partial matching process. These limitations conspire in a number of ways to produce the limitations in immediate memory span: As the span increases, activation must be divided among more elements, activation decays more with longer recall times, and there are more opportunities for positional and acoustic confusions. The theory is shown to be capable of predicting both latency and error patterns in serial recall. It addresses effects of serial position, list length, delay, word length, positional confusion, acoustic confusion, and articulatory suppression. In this article we describe our efforts to come to a detailed process understanding of the task involved in reproducing a serial list of items. This is certainly an area that has received a great deal of research, and a great many phenomena have

Cites (4)

1. Human Memory: A Proposed System and its Control Processes
   Atkinson, R.C., Shiffrin, R.M. · 1968 · Psychology of Learning and Motivation
2. A capacity theory of comprehension: individual differences in working memory
   Just, Marcel A., Carpenter, Patricia A. · 1992 · Psychological Review
3. Search of associative memory
   Raaijmakers, Jeroen G., Shiffrin, Richard M. · 1981 · Psychological Review
4. Order error in immediate recall of sequences
   Conrad, R. · 1965 · Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Show all 4 references

Cited by (8)

1. The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity
   Cowan, Nelson · 2001 · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2. The Mind and Brain of Short-Term Memory
   Jonides, John, Lewis, Richard L., Nee, Derek Evan, Lustig, Cindy A., Berman, Marc G., Moore, Katherine Sledge · 2008 · Annual Review of Psychology
3. A temporal ratio model of memory
   Brown, Gordon D. A., Neath, Ian, Chater, Nick · 2007 · Psychological Review
4. Working memory retention systems: A state of activated long-term memory
   Ruchkin, Daniel S., Grafman, Jordan, Cameron, Katherine, Berndt, Rita S. · 2003 · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
5. Memory for serial order across domains: An overview of the literature and directions for future research
   Hurlstone, Mark J., Hitch, Graham J., Baddeley, Alan D. · 2014 · Psychological Bulletin

See all 258