title: An exemplar-familiarity model predicts short-term and long-term probe recognition across diverse forms of memory search.
abstract: Experiments were conducted to test a modern exemplar-familiarity model on its ability to account for both short-term and long-term probe recognition within the same memory-search paradigm. Also, making connections to the literature on attention and visual search, the model was used to interpret differences in probe-recognition performance across diverse conditions that manipulated relations between targets and foils across trials. Subjects saw lists of from 1 to 16 items followed by a single item recognition probe. In a varied-mapping condition, targets and foils could switch roles across trials; in a consistent-mapping condition, targets and foils never switched roles; and in an all-new condition, on each trial a completely new set of items formed the memory set. In the varied-mapping and all-new conditions, mean correct response times (RTs) and error proportions were curvilinear increasing functions of memory set size, with the RT results closely resembling ones from hybrid visual-memory search experiments reported by Wolfe (2012). In the consistent-mapping condition, new-probe RTs were invariant with set size, whereas old-probe RTs increased slightly with increasing study-test lag. With appropriate choice of psychologically interpretable free parameters, the model accounted well for the complete set of results. The work provides support for the hypothesis that a common set of processes involving exemplar-based familiarity may govern long-term and short-term probe recognition across wide varieties of memory- search conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Nosofsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Gregory E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Cox
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Shiffrin
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008960:Models, Psychological; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013995:Time; D014796:Visual Perception