For 120 years, cognitive psychologists have sought general laws of learning and memory. In this review I conclude that none has stood the test of time. No empirical law withstands manipulation across the four sets of factors that Jenkins (1979) identified as critical to memory experiments: types of subjects, kinds of events to be remembered, manipulation of encoding conditions, and variations in test conditions. Another factor affecting many phenomena is whether a manipulation of conditions occurs in randomized, within-subjects designs rather than between-subjects (or within-subject, blocked) designs. The fact that simple laws do not hold reveals the complex, interactive nature of memory phenomena. Nonetheless, the science of memory is robust, with most findings easily replicated under the same conditions as originally used, but when other variables are manipulated, effects may disappear or reverse. These same points are probably true of psychological research in most, if not all, domains.

中文翻译：

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记忆的相对性：记忆定律为何消失。

120年来，认知心理学家一直在寻求学习和记忆的一般规律。在这篇评论中，我得出结论，没有人经受住时间的考验。詹金斯（Jenkins（1979））确定的对记忆实验至关重要的四组因素中，没有任何经验定律能承受操纵：受试者类型，要记住的事件种类，编码条件的操纵以及测试条件的变化。影响许多现象的另一个因素是条件的操纵是否发生在随机的，受试者内部的设计中，而不是受试者之间（或受试者内部，封闭的）设计中。简单定律不成立的事实揭示了记忆现象的复杂，互动性质。尽管如此，记忆的科学性很强，大多数发现都可以在与原始条件相同的条件下轻松复制，但是当操纵其他变量时，效果可能消失或反转。对于大多数（如果不是全部）领域的心理学研究，这些观点可能是正确的。