How Delay Influences Search Processes at Test

Kliegl, Oliver and Carls, Tarek and Baeuml, Karl-Heinz T. (2019) How Delay Influences Search Processes at Test. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION, 45 (12). pp. 2174-2187. ISSN 0278-7393, 1939-1285

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

Delay-induced forgetting refers to the finding that memory for studied material typically decreases as the delay between study and test is increased. The results of 3 experiments are reported designed to examine whether this form of forgetting is primarily caused by interference effects or contextual drift effects when people engage in neutral distractor tasks during the delay. Response latency analysis was used to contrast predictions of the interference and the contextual drift view of the forgetting. The results demonstrated that prolonged delay between study and test of a list of items reduced both recall rates and mean response latencies. Because mean latency provides a reliable index of the size of people's mental search set at test. the findings suggest that prolonged delay impeded people's ability to include studied items into the search set. The results also showed that (a) mental context reinstatement before test can eliminate this effect, and (b) younger and older adults differ in their susceptibility to interference effects but show comparable delay-induced forgetting. The findings indicate that, with neutral distractor tasks, delay-induced forgetting is primarily mediated by contextual drift. Such drift reduces people's mental search set at test and, thus, decreases both recall rates and response latencies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: RETRIEVAL-PROCESSES; CHANGE ACCOUNT; LONG-TERM; MEMORY; INTERFERENCE; RETENTION; CONTEXT; GENERATION; SELECTION; RECOVERY; delay; forgetting; contextual drift; interference; response latencies
Subjects: 100 Philosophy & psychology > 150 Psychology
Divisions: Psychology and Pedagogy > Institut für Psychologie
Psychology and Pedagogy > Institut für Psychologie > Lehrstuhl für Psychologie IV (Entwicklungs- und Kognitionspsychologie) - Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Bäuml
Depositing User: Dr. Gernot Deinzer
Date Deposited: 24 Mar 2020 06:31
Last Modified: 24 Mar 2020 06:31
URI: https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/25771

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item