Biomedical subjects

M Glanzer

Publications and source records attributed to M Glanzer.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1991

Forgetting and the mirror effect in recognition memory: concentering of underlying distributions.

The mirror effect is a strong regularity in recognition memory: If there are two conditions, A and B, with A giving higher recognition accuracy, then old items in A are recognized as old better than old items in B, and also new items in A are recognized as new better than new items in B. The mirror effect is explained by attention/likelihood theory, which also makes several new, counterintuitive predictions. One is that any variable, such as forgetting, that affects recognition changes the responses to new as well as old stimuli. In terms of underlying distributions, forgetting produces concentering, the bilateral movement of distributions, both new (noise) and old (signal), toward a midpoint. Data from two forced-choice experiments are reported that support the prediction of concentering and other predictions drawn from the theory. It is argued that current theories of memory, which are strength theories, cannot handle these regularities.

Attention↗

PubMed1990

The mirror effect in recognition memory: data and theory.

The mirror effect is a regularity in recognition memory that requires reexamination of current views of memory. Five experiments that further support and extended the generality of the mirror effect are reported. The first two experiments vary word frequency. The third and fourth vary both word frequency and concreteness. The fifth experiment varies word frequency, concreteness, and the subject's operations on the words. The experiments furnish data on the stability of the effect, its relation to response times, its extension to multiple mirror effects, and its extension beyond stimulus variables to operation variables. A theory of the effect and predictions that derive from the theory are presented.

Humans↗

PubMed1990

An examination of the continuous distractor task and the "long-term recency effect".

The continuous distractor task has yielded a so-called "long-term recency effect" that appears to call into question the dual-storage explanation of serial position effects in free recall. In this study, we show that the "long-term recency effect" is really a short-term storage effect, resulting from adaptation to the repeated presentation of a particular type of distractor throughout the list. This adaptation, a time-sharing process, permits short-term storage to carry out its normal functions. Experiment 1 shows that an appropriate postlist distractor task does in fact eliminate the "long-term recency effect." This finding supports the assertion that the effect is a product of short-term storage. Experiment 2 demonstrates the benefits and costs of the time-sharing process, relative to standard free recall, for both long-term and short-term storage. The findings support the time-sharing hypothesis. Experiment 3 replicates Experiment 2, with a change in procedure that rules out output interference as a mechanism responsible for the results of Experiment 2. Data are also presented on the development of the adaptation over trials. It is concluded that the adaptation and time-sharing processes need to be included in the dual-storage model of short-term storage.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Free recall and word finding ability in normal aging and senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type: the effect of item concreteness.

This study examined the effect of item concreteness on free recall and word finding ability in three groups: young adults, normal old adults, and individuals with senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type (SDAT). The results of Experiment 1 showed, in addition to an overall decline in recall across the three groups, an attenuation with normal aging of the memory advantage of concrete over abstract words. The SDAT group, however, did not show this attenuation. Experiment 2 compared word finding ability for concrete and abstract items. Word finding was significantly impaired in SDAT but not in normal aging. Furthermore, the SDAT group did much worse on the abstract items. This difficulty with the retrieval of abstract words can explain the unexpected concreteness effect in the SDAT group in Experiment 1. The attenuation of the concreteness effect was predicted on the basis of the communication hypothesis of age-related cognitive decline, which attributes age deficits to a breakdown of the memory network. The results are consistent with the reduced activation of information in this network.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1979

The pattern of memory loss resulting from intravenously administered diazepam.

A word recognition task was designed to determine the stage in memory affected by a single 10-mg intravenous injection of diazepam and the duration of the effect. Injection in three experimental subjects produced an anterograde amnesia for the 14 to 24-minute period immediately after injection. Memory loss resulted from impaired storage, the stage during which information is entered into memory. Retention and retrieval stages of memory were unaffected. This temporary amnesia may result from increased inhibition in the hippocampal system produced by diazepam, which shares many properties with the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid.

Amnesia↗