Evidence for decay in verbal short-term memory: a commentary on Berman, Jonides, and Lewis (2009).

In search of decay in verbal short-term memory.

Is forgetting in the short term due to decay with the mere passage of time, interference from other memoranda, or both? Past research on short-term memory has revealed some evidence for decay and a plethora of evidence showing that short-term memory is worsened by interference. However, none of these studies has directly contrasted decay and interference in short-term memory in a task that rule...

Psychological and Neural Mechanisms of Short - term Memory

Decay versus interference: a new look at an old interaction.

A question that has been fought over for at least 80 years is whether memory traces decay with time or interfere with one another (McGeoch, 1932). This question is central to interpretations of forgetting and memory capacity and to understanding the design of the human cognitive architecture. There are two camps, which take turns declaring victory (e.g., there is " no temporal decay in verbal s...

The mind and brain of short-term memory.

The past 10 years have brought near-revolutionary changes in psychological theories about short-term memory, with similarly great advances in the neurosciences. Here, we critically examine the major psychological theories (the "mind") of short-term memory and how they relate to evidence about underlying brain mechanisms. We focus on three features that must be addressed by any satisfactory theo...

Neuroscientific Evidence on the Distinction between Short- and Long-term Memory