A theory of interpretive clustering in free recall

Francesco Fumarola

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arXiv · 1611.08928

A theory of interpretive clustering in free recall

Francesco Fumarola

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Abstract

A stochastic model of short-term verbal memory is proposed, in which the psychological state of the subject is encoded as the instantaneous position of a particle diffusing over a semantic graph with a probabilistic structure. The model is particularly suitable for studying the dependence of free-recall observables on semantic properties of the words to be recalled. Besides predicting some well-known experimental features (contiguity effect, forward asymmetry, word-length effect), a novel prediction is obtained on the relationship between the contiguity effect and the syllabic length of words; shorter words, by way of their wider semantic range, are predicted to be characterized by stronger forward contiguity. A fresh analysis of archival data allows to confirm this prediction.

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Francesco Fumarola. 2016-11-27. A theory of interpretive clustering in free recall. https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.08928

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