Effects Of Retention Interval Research Articles

The role of US novelty in retention interval effects in single-element taste-aversion learning

Retention interval effects are seen in taste-aversion learning when single-element aversions are significantly weaker 24 h after conditioning compared with tests at later intervals. This report contains three experiments which suggest that the source of the increased drinking at the 1-day interval is nonassociative interference produced by the novel conditioning episode. In Experiment 1, a parametric analysis demonstrated that aversion strength increased monotonically over a 30-h period following conditioning, and that by 48 h after conditioning it was stabilized. In Experiment 2, a single US preexposure was used to reduce the novelty of the US prior to conditioning. As a result, animals preexposed to the US had stronger taste aversions than did non-preexposed controls at a 1-day retention interval; however, no differences were seen at a 5-day interval. Experiment 3 investigated whether the counterintuitive outcome of Experiment 2 was due to the summation of environment-illness and taste-illness associations at the 1-day test. The results ruled out the summation argument; the US preexposure did not need to be presented in the conditioning context to strengthen the aversion at the 1-day interval. Collectively, these results suggest that the presentation of a surprising US can interfere with the retrieval of the taste-illness association for a short period after conditioning, and that this contributes to the retention interval effect.

Learning to Reminisce: A Case Study

Abstract This study examined mother-child conversation about past events as a context in which children acquire the discourse skills for talking about the past and develop the ability to recall past events. Conversations about past events were recorded in one mother-child dyad from 20 to 28 months. Analyses focused on changes in the structure and content of the conversation over time as well as on the effects of retention interval on long-term memory. In addition, effects of repeated memory conversations about the same events were examined. Over time, the child was more active in participating in and then initiating conversa-tions about the past. Her contributions also became more evaluative with age. Repeated memory conversations did not affect the child's recall of the particular events that had been previously discussed, but over the 8 months she was able to recall more about events in general. These results suggest that early autobio-graphical memory development involves learning how to remember, not what to remember; the skills for retrieving and talking about memories emerge, but the specific content of repeatedly recalled events varies over retelling. (Psychology)

Changes in Memory for Stimulus Attributes: Implications for Tests of Morphine Tolerance

One major class of evidence indicating that associative processes contribute significantly to the development of morphine tolerance is based on the context specificity of the phenomenon: Changing the stimulus context correlated with drug administration diminishes tolerance. If this outcome is analogous to stimulus generalization decrement in traditional learning studies, then the flattening of generalization gradients over time may modulate the traditional test for tolerance. Accordingly, the effect of retention interval on context specificity of tolerance in rats was investigated. A hot-plate pain sensitivity test indicated that a context shift disrupted tolerance after a short, but not a long, retention interval. Methodological implications for assessment of learning processes in tolerance are noted.

Effect of retention interval on implicit and explicit memory for pictures

A picture-fragment completion task and a yes-no recognition task were used to determine whether rates of forgetting in perceptual (implicit) and episodic (explicit) memory systems were the same. In Session 1, identification thresholds for 60 fragmented pictures were measured. In Session 2, which occurred after one of four delay periods (immediate, 2 days, 7 days, or 14 days), the subjects were presented with half of the pictures shown in the previous session mixed with an equal number of new pictures, and their identification thresholds were measured. A yes-no recognition test for the picture names (90 names of pictures shown in the picture-fragment completion task, 30 new-picture names) was given after the identification phase, and both speed and accuracy of recognition were measured. Perceptual learning was measured by relative savings in identification of repeated, compared to new, pictures. Episodic learning was measured in two ways: by the corrected recognition score for names of pictures presented in Session 1 alone (hits minus false alarms) and by the difference in hit reaction times between Session 1 pictures and the new pictures presented for identification in Session 2. These three learning measures showed approximately equal rates of forgetting; furthermore, the episodic learning measure based on accuracy showed more similarity to the perceptual learning measure than it did to the episodic learning measure based on reaction time. Accordingly, the results of this experiment do not support functional dissociation of implicit and explicit memory systems by different forgetting rates.

The bizarre mnemonic: The effect of retention interval and mode of presentation

Two experiments are reported, in which subjects were told to use visual images to help them remember lists of words. Both experiments yielded the typical results with immediate free recall: In mixed lists, words in bizarre contexts are remembered better than those in common contexts, but no such advantage exists for pure lists. In Experiment 1, memory was also tested after 48 h, and no evidence was found to suggest that the advantage for bizarre contexts continued to increase during this longer retention interval, or that it is even present for groups tested only after this delay. That is, the bizarre context effect (BCE) appears to be limited to brief retention intervals. In Experiment 2, words presented with pictures were found to be remembered better than those presented with sentences, but there was no interaction of this picture advantage with the BCE. In Experiment 1 no correlation between extroversion and BCE magnitude was found, and Experiment 2 yielded no correlation between mental image ability and BCE magnitude. However, subjects with high mental-image ability scores remembered more from pure bizarre lists than did those with low mental-image scores.

The effect of retention interval upon hemispheric processes in recognition memory

Simple concrete nouns were presented unilaterally in a continous recognition memory procedure. Each word was presented twice in a session, and subjects were required to signal the second occurrence of a word. Retention interval was manipulated by varying the lag separating word presentations, and lags of 1, 4, 8, and 32 items were employed in the design. Words were projected, on first and second presentations respectively, to the following visual fields: LL, LR, RR, and RL. No visual field effects were observed at lag 1, but an advantage for RVF probes was evident from lag 4 onwards. At lag 8, a relative superiority emerged from uncrossed versus crossed presentation. The results support the idea that lateral asymmetries develop as processing engages deeper and more complex levels of representation. There was also evidence that memory representations are more salient following direct, rather than transcallosal, stimulation of a hemisphere.

Effect of Retention Interval on the Cue Repetition Effect

Cue repetition can interfere with cued recall (Overton & Adolphson, 1979). In two experiments we showed that in agreement with a contextual change hypothesis this effect is reduced when the interval between the repetition of the cue and the test is lengthened. Contrary to this hypothesis, there was no increase in interference when the interval between studying the pair and the repetition of the cue was increased. The relationship between the cue repetition effect and other interference effects is discussed, and it is argued that cue repetition is potentially a very useful procedure to investigate interference.

Memorability as a measure of processing: a unit analysis of prose and list learning.

The percentage of subjects recalling each unit in a list or prose passage is considered as a dependent measure. When the same units are recalled in different tasks, processing is assumed to be the same; when different units are recalled, processing is assumed to be different. Two collections of memory tasks are presented, one for lists and one for prose. The relations found in these two collections are supported by an extensive reanalysis of the existing prose memory literature. The same set of words were learned by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different conditions. Included were intentional free-recall tasks, incidental free recall following lexical decision, and incidental free recall following ratings of orthographic distinctiveness and emotionality. Although the nine free-recall tasks varied widely with regard to the amount of recall, the relative probability of recall for the words was very similar among the tasks. Imagery encoding and recognition produced relative probabilities of recall that were different from each other and from the free-recall tasks. Similar results were obtained with a prose passage. A story was learned by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different conditions. Eight free-recall tasks, which varied with respect to incidental or intentional learning, retention interval, and the age of the subjects, produced similar relative probabilities of recall, whereas recognition and prompted recall produced relative probabilities of recall that were different from each other and from the free-recall tasks. A review of the prose literature was undertaken to test the generality of these results. Analysis of variance is the most common statistical procedure in this literature. If the relative probability of recall of units varied across conditions, a units by condition interaction would be expected. For the 12 studies that manipulated retention interval, an average of 21% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of retention interval, 17% by the main effect of units, and only 2% by the retention interval by units interaction. Similarly, for the 12 studies that varied the age of the subjects, 6% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of age, 32% by the main effect of units, and only 1% by the interaction of age by units.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Effects of Contextual Interference and Retention Intervals on Transfer

The acquisition and transfer effects of contextual interference (Battig, 1979) were investigated with 54 female subjects over three retention intervals on a coincidence anticipation task. The experimental task involved predicting the arrival of a light at a predetermined intercept. A range effect was observed during both acquisition and transfer such that marked undershooting (early responses) was found for slower speeds and late responses were noted for faster speeds. As expected from prior work, responses under a blocked acquisition context (low contextual interference) were significantly more accurate and less variable than under a random context (high contextual interference). Significant improvement was found over-all from the first to the second block of trials. For multiple dependent measures there were no significant effects of retention interval by acquisition context. This ran counter to Battig's (1979) recommendation that the use of longer retention intervals would increase the effect of acquisition context on retention and intratask transfer. Recommendations are discussed for further investigations to observe the effects of long retention intervals on acquisition context.

Effects of retention interval and gonadectomy on sex differences in passive avoidance behavior

Female rats show more response suppression in aversively motivated learning when the effect of presentation of an aversive stimulus upon subsequent responding is measured immediately, whereas males show more suppression in procedures in which the effect of an aversive stimulus is measured after longer intervals. To test whether this divergence can indeed be attributed to temporal parameters, step through passive avoidance was studied using various intervals between shock and retention trial. In contrast to the hypothesis, males showed more response suppression than females when tested directly after shock presentation. This sex difference was also observed at longer intervals. The highest levels of passive avoidance was observed at a 15 minute interval in all groups. Ovariectomy had no effect on the performance of females, but castration of males significantly decreased their performance. These findings demonstrate that the presence of testosterone in adulthood is critical for the masculine pattern of this behavior.

Effects of retention interval and modality on sensory and semantic trace information

Subjects studied a long list of individual words that were presented either visually or auditorily. Recall was tested immediately or after a filled delay by using either word endings or taxonomic categories as extralist retrieval cues. Two interactions were of particular interest. First, word ending cues were just as effective as taxonomic cues on the immediate test. On the delayed test, however, ending cues were less effective. This result suggests that sensory information encoded about a word decays at a faster rate than semantic information. Second, although modality had no observable influence on the taxonomic cues, word ending cues were more effective when all items were shown visually than when they were presented auditorily. Taken together, these findings indicate that the visual features of words are encoded at study and that this information can be accessed during test if it is recapitulated by the retrieval cue shortly after acquisition.

Extinction and reacquisition performance alternations of the conditioned nictitating membrane response

The present experiment assessed extinction-reacquisition alternation and retention interval effects upon the performance of the rabbit’s classically conditioned nictitating membrane response. The study revealed that the membrane conditioned response (CR) decremental rate on the third extinction set following reacquisition was enhanced. Reacquisition performance of the membrane CR was consistently accompanied by a large savings effect and was not influenced by alternated exposures to extinction. Finally, the imposition of retention intervals in lieu of extinction produced no differential effects upon membrane CR reacquisition. This pattern of results suggests that a conditioned stimulus may simultaneously retain excitatory and inhibitory learning properties with the expression of each determined by the presence (for excitation) and absence (for inhibition) of the unconditioned stimulus.

Auditory-verbal short-term memory effects of retention interval on proactive inhibition when interpolated interference is eliminated.

Auditory-verbal short-term memory effects of retention interval on proactive inhibition when interpolated interference is eliminated.

Effects of Retention Interval on Pupillary Responses during a Simple Discrimination

Responses from 6 subjects show that pupillary changes observed during short-term information processing with retention intervals of 0, 5, and 10 sec. delay occur during recognition memory for tones as well as recall of 7-digit numbers.

Recognition memory retention interval and information load

Two experiments were conducted to study the effect of retention interval and information load on short-term recognition memory in retarded subjects. The task consisted of an input trial of 1–15 pictures followed by a test trial of one picture, with the subject having to press different levers to indicate whether the probe picture had been present on the input trial. Retention intervals between input trial and test trial were manipulated over a range of 1–24 sec. Both accuracy and latency of response were measured. Results showed that latency increased and accuracy decreased as a function of both retention interval and number of stimuli. In addition, number of stimuli interacted with retention interval such that accuracy was not affected by retention interval when information input was small, but decreased quite dramatically at longer retention intervals when input was larger. The results were discussed in terms of current memory search models for both normal and retarded subjects.

The effects of retention interval on preschool children's short-term memory of verbal items

The short-term recall of word-triads was tested, comparing retention over three types of intervals within 24 preschoolers. Retention was significantly lower in the 16 sec unfilled interval condition than in the immediate test condition. This result, predicted from preschoolers' rehearsal deficiency, differs from those obtained in previous adult and child studies. A filled interval condition, requiring irrelevant verbal activity during the 16 sec period, significantly reduced recall from that of the unfilled interval condition. Recognition of the word items on a subsequent recognition test was greater than chance and was not affected by interval condition. This suggests that the condition effects in short-term recall did not disrupt the long-term storage of the items.

Effect of retention interval, retroactive inhibition, and proactive inhibition on mediating associations.

Effect of retention interval, retroactive inhibition, and proactive inhibition on mediating associations.

Effects of retention interval on recall by mentally retarded subjects.

The length of the interval between the stimulus and response (retention interval) was varied in an automated task involving recall of a threeletter word. The length of the retention interval was not as important a variable as the sequence of presentation of retention intervals of different lengths for 32 mentally retarded residencs of the Austin Stare School. Results suggest that their performance on the automated task might improve if practice is under retention intervals that are longer initially but then decrease during performance.

Task coherence, training time, and retention interval effects on skill retention.

Task coherence, training time, and retention interval effects on skill retention.

TYPE OF INTERPOLATED ACTIVITY AND SHORT-TERM MEMORY.

This study was designed to determine the effects of retention interval (0, 4, 8, or 16 sec.), trials, and type of interpolated material (nothing, numbers, consonants, or CVCs) on STM. The results indicated that: (1) retention is inversely related to similarity of test and interpolated items, and (2) similarity interacts with both length of the retention interval and the number of practice trials.