ABSTRACT

Immediate recall of lists of items in random serial order has been examined in thousands of studies throughout the history of experimental psychology. In most studies, though, there have been no repetitions of items within a list, or occasionally a single repetition. These stimuli differ from the common uses of item series, which often include multiple repetitions (e.g., identification numbers; orders of people at a restaurant table). To begin to understand such cases we presented lists that, in some trial blocks, were constructed with no restrictions on repetitions. Specifically, we examined immediate serial recall of visually-presented, nine-digit lists, either spatially separated into three separate groups of three digits (Experiment 1) or undivided (Experiment 2). Many of the lists included single or multiple repetitions of digits, with repeated digits either adjacent or non-adjacent in an unpredictable manner. We assessed theoretical expectations derived from prior research. Effects of repetition were often helpful but, when repetitions favoured a grouping that conflicted with the presented grouping into threes in Experiment 1, repetition was disadvantageous. We suggest a theoretical analysis in which participants can use presented grouping cues or, when those cues are absent, create their own groupings to exploit repetitions among the stimuli.

摘要

在整个实验心理学的历史中，数千项研究已经检查了以随机顺序排列的项目列表的立即回忆。然而，在大多数研究中，列表中的项目没有重复，或者偶尔会出现一次重复。这些刺激与项目系列的常见用途不同，项目系列通常包括多次重复（例如，识别号；餐厅餐桌上的人的订单）。为了开始理解这些案例，我们提出了一些列表，在一些试验块中，这些列表是在没有重复限制的情况下构建的。具体来说，我们检查了视觉呈现的九位数列表的立即连续回忆，这些列表在空间上分为三个独立的三位数组（实验 1）或未分割的（实验 2）。许多列表包括单个或多个重复的数字，以不可预测的方式相邻或不相邻的重复数字。我们评估了从先前研究中得出的理论预期。重复的效果通常是有帮助的，但是，当重复有利于与实验 1 中提出的三人分组相冲突的分组时，重复是不利的。我们建议进行理论分析，参与者可以使用呈现的分组提示，或者当这些提示不存在时，创建自己的分组以利用刺激之间的重复。