Memory: Lawless but principled?

Abstract

Roediger (2008) argued that none of the general laws of learning and memory have stood the test of time, and when making any generalizations about memory one must add that it depends. Undaunted, Surprenant and Neath (2009) have proposed seven principles of memory: cue-dependence, encoding-retrieval, cue-overload, reconstruction, impurity of tasks and processes, relative distinctiveness, and cue specificity. In this review, these principles are briefly outlined, and the universality and usefulness of these principles for our understanding of memory are discussed. Although the principles differ in terms of their theoretical precision, empirical support, and their applicability, they do provide basis for considering what memory does depend upon. Keywords: principles of memory, cue dependence, encoding specificity, distinctiveness Principles of Memory by Aimee M. Surprenant and Ian Neath. New York: Psychology Press (Taylor & Francis Group), 2009, pp. i-ix, 1-191. ISBN 978-1-84169-422-1, Hardback. Surprenant and Neath begin by noting, as others have done (e.g., Roediger, 2008), that after 120 years of scientific research we do not have any widely accepted laws of memory, and perhaps only one generally acknowledged principle - Tulving and Thomson's (1973) encoding-specificity principle - which the authors prefer to term the encoding-retrieval principle.1 In addition to this principle, they go on to promote six other characteristics or features of memory to the status of principle: cue dependency, cue overload, reconstruction, fhe impurity of tasks and processes, distinctiveness, and context or cue specificity. As the authors consider in their final chapter, their set of principles overlaps relatively modestly with die different sets of principles that have previously been proposed. The set of principles outlined in this volume is much more comprehensive than has been proposed before. At first blush this monograph appears to largely review set of quite familiar and well-known properties of memory. Benj afield, Smilek, and Kingstone (2010) list four of their seven principles in the glossary or subject index of their introductory cognition text. Surprenant and Neadi acknowledge at the outset that few, if any, of [their] principles are novel (p. 7). Indeed, they have handpicked their principles with die perspective of Monday morning quarterback. But such general characterization of this monograph would be unjust. In separate chapters, Surprenant and Neath consider how each principle can be applied to the different memory systems proposed by Schacter and Tulving (1994) because, in their definition principle must be bodi empirically true and universal, and thus must apply to all types of memory. The result is monograph that provides succinct, organized and coherent tour of the study of human memory with number of interesting insights and controversies highlighted along the way. It would be of interest to all researchers of memory, and would provide an engaging and reflective framework for memory seminar for senior undergraduate and graduate students. The following review is divided into three parts. First, the seven principles are briefly outlined. Then the issue of the universality of the principles is discussed. Finally, I consider how useful these principles are for our understanding of memory. The Principles Greene (2007) suggested that a principle does not have to be ambitious to be useful. Sometimes, principles can make contribution by explaining single, troublesome phenomenon (p. 55). Surprenant and Neath's definition of principle is much broader than Greene's as they argue that principle must be universal in nature. Thus, their definition is more aligned with what many would consider psychological law rather than principle. The authors argue that each of their principles has at least one (and ideally more than one) of three crucial properties: (a) state an important empirical regularity; (b) serve as an intermediary explanation; and (c) provide useful information on the operation or nature of memory. …