Remembering over the short-term: the case against the standard model. Nairne, J. S. Annu Rev Psychol, 53:53–81, 2002.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Psychologists often assume that short-term storage is synonymous with activation, a mnemonic property that keeps information in an immediately accessible form. Permanent knowledge is activated, as a result of on-line cognitive processing, and an activity trace is established "in" short-term (or working) memory. Activation is assumed to decay spontaneously with the passage of time, so a refreshing process-rehearsal-is needed to maintain availability. Most of the phenomena of immediate retention, such as capacity limitations and word length effects, are assumed to arise from trade-offs between rehearsal and decay. This "standard model" of how we remember over the short-term still enjoys considerable popularity, although recent research questions most of its main assumptions. In this chapter I review the recent research and identify the empirical and conceptual problems that plague traditional conceptions of short-term memory. Increasingly, researchers are recognizing that short-term retention is cue driven, much like long-term memory, and that neither rehearsal nor decay is likely to explain the particulars of short-term forgetting.
@Article{Nairne2002,
  author      = {Nairne, James S.},
  journal     = {Annu Rev Psychol},
  title       = {Remembering over the short-term: the case against the standard model.},
  year        = {2002},
  pages       = {53--81},
  volume      = {53},
  abstract    = {Psychologists often assume that short-term storage is synonymous with
	activation, a mnemonic property that keeps information in an immediately
	accessible form. Permanent knowledge is activated, as a result of
	on-line cognitive processing, and an activity trace is established
	"in" short-term (or working) memory. Activation is assumed to decay
	spontaneously with the passage of time, so a refreshing process-rehearsal-is
	needed to maintain availability. Most of the phenomena of immediate
	retention, such as capacity limitations and word length effects,
	are assumed to arise from trade-offs between rehearsal and decay.
	This "standard model" of how we remember over the short-term still
	enjoys considerable popularity, although recent research questions
	most of its main assumptions. In this chapter I review the recent
	research and identify the empirical and conceptual problems that
	plague traditional conceptions of short-term memory. Increasingly,
	researchers are recognizing that short-term retention is cue driven,
	much like long-term memory, and that neither rehearsal nor decay
	is likely to explain the particulars of short-term forgetting.},
  doi         = {10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135131},
  institution = {Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1364, USA. nairne@psych.purdue.edu},
  keywords    = {Cues; Humans; Memory, Short-Term, physiology; Psychological Theory; Retention (Psychology)},
  language    = {eng},
  medline-pst = {ppublish},
  pmid        = {11752479},
  timestamp   = {2012.06.19},
}

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