creators_name: Tarnow, Eugen creators_id: etarnow@avabiz.com type: preprint datestamp: 2011-06-01 11:20:52 lastmod: 2011-06-01 11:20:52 metadata_visibility: show title: The free recall search process introduces errors in short term memory but apparently not in long term memory subjects: cog-psy full_text_status: public keywords: short term memory, memory search, memory errors, long term memory abstract: Here it is reported that the free recall search process increases the error rate for short term memory (about 1% per second in data from Murdock & Okada (1970)) but not for long term memory (in data from McDermott (1996)). If the short term memory search process introduces random excitations, which would account for the search errors, the subjects should be unaware of making such errors. This is in agreement with DRM findings (Gallo, 2010) and the new finding that the error terminated distributions in Murdock (1962) are the same as those terminated by studied items. date: 2011-05-05 date_type: submitted refereed: TRUE referencetext: Bartlett FC (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge, England: University Press. Deese J (1959) On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology 58(1) 17-22 Gallo DA, Roberts MJ, Seamon JG (1997) Remembering words not presented in lists: Can we avoid creating false memories? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 4(2) 271-276 Gallo DA (2010) False memories and fantastic beliefs: 15 years of the DRM illusion, Memory & Cognition, 38, 833-848. Kandel, E.R. (2001). The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses. Science, pp. 1030-1038. McDermott, K. B. (1996). The persistence of false memories in list recall. Journal of Memory & Language, 35, 212-230. Murdock B B (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology 64(5) 482-488. Murdock, B B and Okada R (1970). Interresponse times in single- trial free recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 86, 263-267. Posner MI (1994) Attention: The mechanisms of consciousness, PNAS 91, 7398-7403 Roediger, H. L., III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 803-814. Tarnow E (2008). Response probability and response time: a straight line, the Tagging/Retagging interpretation of short term memory, an operational definition of meaningfulness and short term memory time decay and search time. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 2 (4) p. 347-353. Tarnow E (2010). The initial free recall is different from subsequent recalls: offset and constant search time suggest context identification and/or clustering of items. Submitted for publication. Wixted JT, Rohrer D (1993). Proactive Interference and the Dynamics of Free Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 19(5) 1024-1039 Zaromb FM, Howard MW, Dolan ED, Sirotin YB, Tully M, Wingfield A, Kahana MJ (2006) Temporal Associations and Prior-List Intrusions in Free Recall, Journal of Experimental Psychology:Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32(4): 792-804. citation: Tarnow, Dr. Eugen (2011) The free recall search process introduces errors in short term memory but apparently not in long term memory. [Preprint] document_url: http://cogprints.org/7337/1/Free_recall_errors.pdf