Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1987

Publication Title

Animal Learning & Behavior

First Page

293

Last Page

300

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03200038

Abstract

Human subjects, sitting at the center of a circle of eight lights, were tested on analogues of radial-maze item-recognition (Roberts & Smythe, 1979) and order-recognition (Kesner & Novak, 1982) tasks. Subjects in the item-recognition condition saw a list of seven lights, and then the nonlist (eighth) light was tested against the first, fourth, or seventh light from the list. The sub- jects were required to point toward the non list light. Subjects in the order-recognition condition saw a series of eight lights, followed by a test of the first and second, fourth and fifth, or seventh and eighth serial positions. They were asked to point toward the light with the earlier serial position. Subjects' item-recognition serial-position curves exhibited a recency effect with a O-sec retention interval (Experiments 1 and 2), and were U-shaped (Experiment 1) or flat (Experiment 2) with a 30-sec retention interval. Subjects' order-recognition serial-position curves were U-shaped at both retention intervals. Subjects' reported mnemonics were, generally, unrelated to their choice accuracy. The results suggest analogous memory processes in animals and humans.

Rights

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03205022.

Download

Share

COinS