Reversing the signaled magnitude effect in delayed matching to sample: delay-specific remembering.

Pigeons performed a delayed matching-to-sample task in which large or small reinforcers for correct remembering were signaled during the retention interval. Accuracy was low when small reinforcers were signaled, and high when large reinforcers were signaled (the signaled magnitude effect). When the reinforcer-size cue was switched from small to large partway through the retention interval, accuracy accordingly changed from low to high. The opposite happened when the cue was switched from large to small. This dissociation of forgetting from the passage of time raises the possibility that remembering is delay-specific. The reversal of the signaled magnitude effect during the retention interval is consistent with an attentional account in which the stimulus control of remembering is influenced by extraneous events.