The Updating of Human Memory

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on certain selected aspects of the updating problem of human memory. Updating, even though well-established, may fail or break down at some later point under certain circumstances. The anecdote demonstrates that when the local retrieval context matches the storage context of out-of-date information better than it does the storage context of current information, it becomes susceptible to intrusions of out-of-date information. Subjects' recall of each type of list tested in three different ways. A recall test is administered either immediately, after a forced-choice recognition test is completed, or after an arithmetic task is completed. In the FR and (-)R conditions, subjects are asked to recall the last 16 words in the list. The forced-choice recognition test consisted of eight pairs of words. In each pair, subjects are asked to circle the word they thought had been presented in the second sublist of 16 words. The idea of structural updating does not have a natural representation in terms of interference theory. Structural updating presumes that the current input of information together with the series of preceding inputs is amenable to a longitudinal organization of some kind.