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TY - UNPB ID - cogprints8127 UR - http://cogprints.org/8127/ A1 - Tarnow, Dr. Eugen TI - Reactivation of Short Term Memory Y1 - 2012/03/20/ N2 - The reactivation mechanism of short term memory is studied. In recognition and cued recall, reactivation is externally driven and accounts for the linear relationship between recognition probability and response time. In free recall the reactivation is internal. The free recall initial item distribution indicates that the mechanism is imprecise and reactivates several memory items at the same time. A competition ensues and the winners are the items which can be reactivated the quickest. Those items that take longer to reactivate are heavily suppressed. The internal reactivation mechanism also activates erroneous items, proportional to the internal reactivation time, in effect erasing memory while searching it. We find no discontinuities in the error rate which challenges the notion of a limited capacity, ?quantized,? working memory. Internal reactivation of long term memory does not seem to have the same erasure effect. AV - public KW - short term memory KW - reactivation of memory KW - long term memory KW - errors KW - memory search ER -