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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
Regularization in short-term memory for serial order
Matthew Botvinick1, Lauren M Bylsma
1Department of Psychiatry and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6241, USA. mmb@mail.med.upenn.edu
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that short-term memory for serial order can be influenced by background knowledge concerning regularities of sequential structure. Specifically, it has been shown that recall is superior for sequences that fit well with familiar sequencing constraints. The authors report a corresponding effect pertaining to serial recall errors. Undergraduate participants performed immediate serial recall on sequences of pseudowords generated on the basis of an artificial grammar. After extensive experience with this material, recall errors displayed a bias toward regularizing responses, response sequences more probable, with respect to the artificial grammar, than the originally presented stimulus sequence. This regularization effect squares well with recent trace redintegration and Bayesian models of serial recall, and appears to represent an analog of the schema-based error patterns observed in other domains of memory.
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