Abstract
Three experiments are reported that represent a reexamination of the missing-number method (Buschke, 1963b) of estimating short-term memory span. The missing-number task involved presenting a random sequence of all but one of the numbers of a known reference set and asking subjects to identify the missing number. Experiment 1 introduced a modified missing-number task that included two missing items and two choices made by the subject. With a large decline in performance for the second choice relative to the first, it is possible that only the second choice was subject to output or retrieval interference. An alternative explanation is that subjects output the number with the weakest memory representation as their first response. By postcuing subjects to report their two choices in a forward or backward sequence, Experiment 2 provided evidence against the importance of output interference and support either for the importance of retrieval interference or for the “weakest-first” hypothesis. However, with a paradigm that replaced only correctly identified missing numbers, a prediction that subjects would select the number with the weakest memory representation as their first response was not confirmed in Experiment 3. Instead, retrieval interference was implicated to explain the first-choice-superiority found in Experiments 1 and 3. The results were interpreted in terms of the TODAM model of Murdock (1982, 1987, in press).
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This research was supported in part by United States Air Force Human Resources Laboratory Contract VE5744-022-00I and United States Army Research Institute Contracts MDA9O3-86-K-0155 and MDA9O3-90-K-0066 to the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Grant APA 146 to the University of Toronto.
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Hadley, J.A., Healy, A.F. & Murdock, B.B. Output and retrieval interference in the missing-number task. Mem Cogn 20, 69–82 (1992). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208255
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208255