creators_name: Tarnow, Eugen
creators_id: etarnow@avabiz.com
type: preprint
datestamp: 2009-12-19 11:49:23
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:24
metadata_visibility: show
title: Short term memory decays and high presentation rates hurry this decay:  The Murdock free recall experiments interpreted in the Tagging/Retagging model
subjects: cog-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: free recall, short term memory, synaptic
abstract: I show that the curious free recall data of Murdock (1962) can be explained by the Tagging/Retagging model of short term memory (Tarnow, 2009 and 2008) in which a short term memory item is a tagged long term memory item.  The tagging (linear in time) corresponds to the synaptic process of exocytosis and the loss of tagging (logarithmic in time) corresponds to synaptic endocytosis.  The Murdock recent item recall probabilities follow a logarithmic decay with time of recall.  The slope of the decay increases with increasing presentation rate.  This is consistent with endocytosis since higher presentation rates lead to a higher frequency of exocytosis which increases the intracellular concentration of Ca ions which in turn increases the speed of the endocytosis process (Sankaranarayanan and Ryan, 2001).  The initial Murdock items, with an effective low presentation rate, decay with the slowest logarithmic slope.
If short term memory decays and this decay is hurried by increases in the item presentation rates, a slower presentation rate leads to a slower decaying short term memory.  Presentation rate is then presumably an important factor in determining the probability of items entering long term memory.   It suggests a basis for memory loss in busy adults, a basis for the importance of slow music practice, a basis for long term memory deficiencies for people with attention deficits who may be artificially increasing the presentation rates of their surroundings.
date: 2009-08-01
date_type: submitted
refereed: FALSE
referencetext: Anderson JR (1981) Interference: the relationship between response latency and response accuracy. J Exp Psychol [Hum Learn] 7:326–343.
Berman MG, Jonides J, Lewis RL (2009).  In search of decay in verbal short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning, Memory and Cognition 35 (2) 317-333.
Castellanos FX, Tannock R, Neuroscience of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Search for Endophenotypes. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience (3) 617-628.
Dobrunz, LE.  (2002) Release probability is regulated by the size of the readily releasable vesicle pool at excitatory synapses in hippocampus. : Int. J. Devl Neuroscience Vols. 20: 225-236. 
Kandel, E.R. (2001).  The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses. Science, pp. 1030-1038.
Murdock Jr., Bennet B.  The serial position effect of free recall.  Journal of Experimental Psychology. Vol 64(5), Nov 1962, 482-488.
Rubin DC, Hinton S, Wenzel A.(1999).  The Precise Time Course of Retention.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vols. 25:1161-1176.
Sankaranarayanan S, Ryan TA (2001). Calcium accelerates endocytosis of vSNAREs at hippocampal synapses.   Nature Neuroscience 4, number 2, 129-136.
Tarnow. (2008).  Response probability and response time: a straight line, the Tagging/Retagging interpretation of short term memory, an operational definition of meaningfulness and short term memory time decay and search time. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 2 (4) p. 347-353.
Tarnow. (2009) Short term memory may be the depletion of the readily releasable pool of presynaptic neurotransmitter vesicles of a metastable long term memory trace pattern.  Cognitive Neurodynamics.  


citation:   Tarnow, Dr. Eugen  (2009) Short term memory decays and high presentation rates hurry this decay: The Murdock free recall experiments interpreted in the Tagging/Retagging model.  [Preprint]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/6594/1/Free_Recall_Model_and_Tagging.pdf