Cognitive Biases in Short-Term Memory for Serial Order

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

Contemporary positional models of short-term memory struggle to explain why the ordering of items can influence the accuracy of recall. This thesis explores such sequential constraints in different domains of short-term memory, focussing on three main questions: a) What is the source of sequential constraints in short-term memory (i.e., are they learnt or innate?) b) Through what mechanism(s) do they have their effect (i.e., chunking or redintegration?) and c) Where do they have their effect (i.e., over the whole sequence or smaller groupings of items?).

These questions were investigated in sixteen empirical experiments, with quantitative analysis and computational modelling of different potential memory mechanisms. It is the first time that iterated learning (similar to Chinese Whispers or Telephone) has been applied to serial recall of words, numbers, and spatial locations, in order to magnify and examine any cognitive biases involved.

The results indicated that there are sequential constraints in all three domains under investigation, influencing the accuracy of recall and biasing responding. Constraints were based on both previous learning and structural representations of sequences (e.g., a mental number line for numerical sequences). There was evidence for independent chunking and redintegration mechanisms; and that sequential constraints are imposed on the whole sequence as well as smaller groupings of items.

This thesis demonstrates that iterated learning can provide a valuable first step in exploring cognitive biases in short term memory. It also outlines how models of short-term memory could be extended to include sequential constraints from long-term representations via chunking and redintegration mechanisms acting over multiple items.
Date of Award14 May 2013
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Bristol
SupervisorSimon Farrell (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Serial order
  • Short-term memory
  • Long-term memory

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