The persistence of memory: contiguity effects across hundreds of seconds.
A contiguity effect-the finding that stimuli that occur close together in time become associated to each other--is observed between words that are separated by several seconds. The traditional account of contiguity effects is that item representations become associated to each other while active in a short-term memory buffer--a limited-capacity store that can hold a small, integral number of items. Participants studied and free recalled 48 lists of words. At the end of the session, participants were given a surprise final free recall test on all of the items from all of the lists. In addition to a standard contiguity effect between items presented at nearby serial positions, we simultaneously observed a contiguity effect between items presented in different lists. This latter contiguity effect extended over several lists, or several hundred seconds, well beyond the range that can be attributed to a buffer holding a small, integral number of items.
Howard
Marc W
MW
Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, New York 13244, USA. marc@memory.syr.edu
Youker
Tess E
TE
Venkatadass
Vijay S
VS
D032882:Comprehension; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012691:Serial Learning; D013067:Speech Perception; D014706:Verbal Learning