Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2013 Jan;39(1):253-69. doi: 10.1037/a0028875. Epub 2012 Aug 27.
There is an intensive debate on whether memory for serial order is symmetric. The objective of this study was to explore whether associative asymmetry is modulated by memory task (recognition vs. cued recall). Participants were asked to memorize word triples (Experiments 1-2) or pairs (Experiments 3-6) during the study phase. They then recalled the word by a cue during a cued recall task (Experiments 1-4) and judged whether the presented 2 words were in the same or in a different order compared with the study phase during a recognition task (Experiments 1-6). To control for perceptual matching between the study and test phase, participants were presented with vertical test pairs when they made directional judgment in Experiment 5. In Experiment 6, participants also made associative recognition judgments for word pairs presented at the same or the reversed position. The results showed that forward associations were recalled at similar levels as backward associations and that the correlations between forward and backward associations were high in the cued recall tasks. On the other hand, the direction of forward associations was recognized more accurately (and more quickly) than backward associations, and their correlations were comparable to the control condition in the recognition tasks. This forward advantage was also obtained for the associative recognition task. Diminishing positional information did not change the pattern of associative asymmetry. These results suggest that associative asymmetry is modulated by cued recall and recognition manipulations and that direction as a constituent part of a memory trace can facilitate associative memory.
对于序列顺序记忆是否对称，存在激烈的争论。本研究的目的是探讨联想不对称是否受到记忆任务（识别与提示回忆）的调节。在学习阶段，参与者被要求记忆单词三元组（实验 1-2）或单词对（实验 3-6）。然后，他们在提示回忆任务中通过提示回忆单词（实验 1-4），并在识别任务中判断呈现的 2 个单词是否与学习阶段的单词相同或不同顺序（实验 1-6）。为了控制学习阶段和测试阶段之间的感知匹配，当参与者在实验 5 中进行方向判断时，他们被呈现垂直测试对。在实验 6 中，参与者还对以相同或相反位置呈现的单词对进行联想识别判断。结果表明，正向联想以相似的水平被回忆，而在提示回忆任务中，正向联想和反向联想之间的相关性很高。另一方面，正向联想的方向比反向联想更容易被准确识别（并且更快），并且在识别任务中，它们的相关性与控制条件相当。在联想识别任务中也获得了这种正向优势。位置信息的减少并没有改变联想不对称的模式。这些结果表明，联想不对称受到提示回忆和识别操作的调节，并且记忆痕迹的组成部分方向可以促进联想记忆。
