Geoffrey White K
University of Otago, New Zealand.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2018 Jan;109(1):70-86. doi: 10.1002/jeab.298. Epub 2018 Jan 2.
Atypical forgetting functions have been demonstrated in several recent studies of delayed matching to sample, in which experimental conditions are altered partway through the retention interval. The forgetting functions are atypical in that accuracy or discriminability is not always a negatively accelerated monotonic function of increasing retention interval duration, but may increase at later times in the retention interval. Atypical forgetting functions reflect changes in levels of discrimination. A switch from a lower level to a higher level of discrimination, or vice versa, can occur at any time in the retention interval. The behavioral theories of remembering proposed by Nevin, Davison, Odum, and Shahan (2007), and White and Brown (2014), offer quantitative predictions of forgetting functions that differ in intercept or slope. Both theories are able to account for atypical forgetting functions, by assuming time-independent changes in the mediating effect of attending to sample and comparison stimuli (in Nevin et al.'s model) or in the direct effect of the context of reinforcement of the conditional discrimination (in White & Brown's model). Despite differences in their main assumptions, the theories have an edge over any theory that assumes that forgetting is time-dependent.
在最近几项关于延迟匹配样本的研究中，已经证明了非典型遗忘功能，其中实验条件在保持间隔的中途发生改变。遗忘功能是非典型的，因为准确性或可辨别性并不总是随着保持间隔持续时间的增加而呈负加速单调函数，而是可能在保持间隔的后期增加。非典型遗忘功能反映了辨别水平的变化。在保持间隔的任何时候，都可能发生从较低辨别水平到较高辨别水平的转换，反之亦然。内文、戴维森、奥登和沙汉（2007年）以及怀特和布朗（2014年）提出的记忆行为理论提供了在截距或斜率上不同的遗忘功能的定量预测。这两种理论都能够通过假设在关注样本和比较刺激的中介效应（在内文等人的模型中）或在条件辨别强化背景的直接效应（在怀特和布朗的模型中）中与时间无关的变化来解释非典型遗忘功能。尽管它们的主要假设存在差异，但这些理论比任何假设遗忘与时间相关的理论更具优势。
