Jonker Tanya R, MacLeod Colin M
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2015 May;41(3):831-40. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000069. Epub 2014 Oct 20.
McDaniel and Bugg (2008) proposed that relatively uncommon stimuli and encoding tasks encourage elaborative encoding of individual items (item-specific processing), whereas relatively typical or common encoding tasks encourage encoding of associations among list items (relational processing). It is this relational processing that is thought to result in better memory for the serial order of a study list. We report 4 experiments examining memory for order demonstrating that (a) both semantic and orthographic tasks can impair memory for order when performed on individual items, (b) item-specific processing is not necessary for impairment because even an item-generic key press task harms memory for order, (c) impaired memory for order is due primarily to distraction during the processing of an item rather than between list items, and (d) even an unusual processing task will preserve memory for order as long as that task encourages the encoding of item-to-item relations. These findings suggest that an encoding task will disrupt order memory only when it is both attention grabbing (either through its atypicality or by requiring an overt response) and nonrelational.
麦克丹尼尔和巴格（2008年）提出，相对不常见的刺激和编码任务会促使对单个项目进行精细编码（特定项目加工），而相对典型或常见的编码任务则会促使对列表项目之间的关联进行编码（关系加工）。正是这种关系加工被认为会导致对学习列表的顺序有更好的记忆。我们报告了4个关于顺序记忆的实验，结果表明：（a）当对单个项目执行语义和正字法任务时，这两种任务都会损害顺序记忆；（b）特定项目加工对于损害并非必要，因为即使是一个通用的按键任务也会损害顺序记忆；（c）顺序记忆受损主要是由于在处理一个项目时的分心，而不是在列表项目之间；（d）只要一个不寻常的加工任务鼓励对项目间关系进行编码，它就会保留顺序记忆。这些发现表明，只有当编码任务既吸引注意力（要么通过其非典型性，要么通过要求公开反应）又与关系无关时，它才会扰乱顺序记忆。
