The fill-in effect in serial recall can be obscured by omission errors

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Memory

Background:

• Chaining models of serial recall predict forward progression after errors.
• Henson (1996) demonstrated a
• fill-in
• effect, where skipped items are revisited.
• Recent studies suggest open sets reverse this fill-in effect.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if open sets of items cause fill-in effects in serial recall.
• To compare serial recall with open and closed sets, and with a reconstruction of order task.
• To examine the influence of allowing/prohibiting response skipping on fill-in effects.

Main Methods:

• Compared serial recall using open vs. closed item sets.
• Manipulated whether participants could skip responses.
• Utilized a reconstruction of order task for comparison.
• Equated omission rates across conditions for further analysis.

Main Results:

• Fill-in effects were observed across most conditions.
• The fill-in effect was absent only when participants were not encouraged to skip responses.
• When omission rates were equalized, a fill-in effect was present in all conditions without omissions.
• High omission rates in open-set designs obscured the fill-in effect.

Conclusions:

• Open-set designs and high omission rates can mask the fill-in effect in serial recall.
• The fill-in effect is robust when omission rates are controlled and participants are encouraged to respond.
• Caution is advised when interpreting forward recall patterns after skipped responses in serial recall tasks.