Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: The Memory Retrieval Debate Revisited: Is it Spreading Activation or Compound-Cue? Jennifer Williams ([email protected]) C. Dominik Guss ([email protected]) F. Dan Richard ([email protected]) Department of Psychology, 4567 St. Johns Bluff Road South Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA Keywords: Spreading activation; compound-cue; priming. words were created through use of Word Gen (Duyck, Desmet, Verbeke, & Brysbaert, 2004). Spreading Activation and Compound-Cue Theories Priming Experiment Ninety-eight undergraduate psychology students participated in the priming portion of the study. To test for any bias in the two- and three-step mediated primes, two paired-samples t- tests were run comparing the two-step items with the unrelated items and the three-step items with the unrelated items. The significance level was lowered to .025 to control for family-wise Type I errors. Results indicated that the two- step mediated words were not more related (M = .058) than the unrelated pairs (M = .043), t(15) = -1.67, p = .12. The three-step mediated pairs were no more related (M = .029) than the unrelated pairs, t(15) = -1.76, p = .10. These findings indicate that any three-step priming effects observed could not be the direct result of the previously viewed primes. Primary results indicate that response times were significantly shorter in response to the three-step mediated pairs (M = 578.81 ms) than to the unrelated word pairs (M = 598.65), t(86) = 3.35, p = .001, d = .22. Results indicated that a sig- nificant three-step priming effect did occur. Two major competing theories explaining the process of memory retrieval are Spreading Activation (e.g., Anderson, 1983) and Compound Cue (e.g., Ratcliff & McKoon; 1994). The theories disagree on whether the retrieval process begins with the activation of a particular concept in long-term memory or with formation of a retrieval cue in short-term memory. Three-step priming can be explained by spreading activation but not by compound-cue theories. Thus, the pre- sent study tested for the occurrence of three-step mediated priming. Generation of Word Pairs Participants in a free association task were 77 undergraduate psychology students. 144 words (taken from McNamara & Altarriba, 1988) were divided into six lists containing 24 words each. Each participant was randomly given one of the six lists, and instructed to write down as many associates as possible for each word on the list. Participants were given 45 seconds to list responses to each word. On average, par- ticipants listed 5-10 words for each word. Based on the results of the free-association task, 160 pos- sible three-step mediated word pairs and 100 possible unre- lated word pairs were constructed. Words listed as associates for each of the 144 words used in the free-association task were considered to be direct associates if they appeared more than two times. To construct the three-step mediated word pairs, chains of four words were constructed on the basis that words 1 and 2, words 2 and 3, and words 3 and 4 in the chain were direct associates. No association was allowed between words 1 and 3, 2 and 4, and 1 and 4. For the 100 possible unrelated word pairs, no association was allowed. Unrelated word pairs were also checked for possible mediators, and were discarded if a possible mediating chain was detected. All 260 word pairs were individually entered into LSA in order to determine if any underlying relationships existed. Results of a paired samples t-test indicated that there was no significant difference in relationship strength between three-step mediated pairs and unrelated pairs, t(39) = -.86, p = .40. In addition to the 40 mediated and 40 unrelated word pairs, one list each of 50 neutral words and 50 pronounceable non- Discussion and Conclusion Shorter reaction time for three-step mediated priming com- pared to unrelated words provides strong support for spreading activation theories over the current versions of compound-cue theories of memory retrieval. References Anderson, J. R. (1983). A spreading activation theory of memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, Duyck, W., Desmet, T., Verbeke, L., & Brysbaert, M. (2004). WordGen: Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 36(3), 488-499. McNamara, T., & Altarriba, J. (1988). Depth of spreading activation revisited: semantic mediated priming occurs in lexical decisions. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (1994). Retrieving information from memory: Spreading activation theories versus com- pound-cue theories. Psychological Review, 101, 177-184.
Authors: Jennifer Williams, C. Dominik Güss, F Richard
Institution: University of North Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2587525883