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Related Experiment Video

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Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
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Order is ordinal in serial memory.

Simon D Lilburn1, Gordon D Logan1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|November 13, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Memory order relies on sequence, not precise spacing. Experiments show that changing the spatial arrangement of items does not affect memory recall accuracy, supporting ordinal theories of memory.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Human Memory Research
  • Perception and Memory

Background:

  • Understanding how humans represent order in memory is crucial for cognitive theories.
  • Existing theories of serial memory differ on whether order is based on ordinal or metric relationships.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of metric (spatial) relationships in memory for order.
  • To differentiate between ordinal and metric theories of serial memory representation.

Main Methods:

  • Four experiments employed a cued recognition procedure.
  • Participants matched a cued letter from a probe array to a memory list.
  • Spacing between letters in memory lists and probe arrays was manipulated (same vs. different).
  • Memory performance was compared to perceptual matching performance under identical spacing conditions.

Main Results:

  • Memory performance remained consistent regardless of changes in item spacing.
  • Perceptual matching performance was significantly affected by spacing changes, worsening when spacing differed.
  • This indicates a dissociation between perceptual and memorial representations of order.

Conclusions:

  • Order in perception is based on metric relationships, while order in memory is not.
  • Results support ordinal theories of serial memory.
  • Metric information, if stored, is not essential for memory retrieval.