From Brown-Peterson to continual distractor via operation span: A SIMPLE account of complex span.
Three memory tasks-Brown-Peterson, complex span, and continual distractor-all alternate presentation of a to-be-remembered item and a distractor activity, but each task is associated with a different memory system, short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory, respectively. SIMPLE, a relative local distinctiveness model, has previously been fit to data from both the Brown-Peterson and continual distractor tasks; here we use the same version of the model to fit data from a complex span task. Despite the many differences between the tasks, including unpredictable list length, SIMPLE fit the data well. Because SIMPLE posits a single memory system, these results constitute yet another demonstration that performance on tasks originally thought to tap different memory systems can be explained without invoking multiple memory systems.
Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Ian
I
Neath
Department of Psychology, University of West Florida.
Lisa A
LA
VanWormer
Psychology Department, The College of New Jersey.
Tamra J
TJ
Bireta
Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Aimée M
AM
Surprenant
D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology; D012691:Serial Learning; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary