Chapter 12 - Individual Differences in Memory

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the different amounts and kinds of knowledge that people possess influence their ability to acquire new knowledge; and how that knowledge is organized in long-term memory. The chapter examines the recent work differentiating implicit from explicit remembering. It also reviews how people differ in their ability to retrieve knowledge from long-term memory. The chapter discusses three realms of research that reflect the theoretical development in the area of working memory: memory span, information processing tasks, and working memory capacity. In summary, with respect to individual differences, memory span has received immense attention, far more than any other memory task. There is a reliably identified common factor relating memory span tasks across both sensory modalities and stimulus material. Furthermore, there are established individual differences in this factor that are at least moderately stable. One of the information processing task has been the visual search task (search). Here, a single item—a digit, letter, or word—is first presented to serve as the target for which the subject must search. This target is then followed by the simultaneous presentation of one to seven items, the set of items through which the subject must search. Subjects indicate, as quickly as possible, whether the search set includes the target. As in the scanning task, the dependent measure is response latency (search time). Most contemporary approaches to memory distinguish between an short-term memory (STM) storage buffer, as exemplified by simple immediate recall tasks such as memory span, and a “mental scratch pad” where processing is carried out.