Shortcomings of generic retrieval structures with slots of the type that Gobet (1993) proposed and modelled.

In this issue Gobet (2000) reports on his continued eåorts to compare computational models of expert’s superior memory of chess positions within the template theory (TT) framework (Gobet, 1997, 1998; Gobet & Simon, 1996, 1998), to Ericsson and Kintsch’s (1995) theoretical framework for long-term working memory (LTWM). Comparisons of theoretical frameworks can be very valuable and provide the broader scienti®c community with a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the competing theoretical proposals when the theories being compared share many basic assumptions and mechanisms. Unfortunately, it is di¬cult to compare LTWM’s general theoretical framework for how experts can acquire expanded working memory to support their superior performance in many domains of expertise to TT’s explicit computational mechanisms for simulating a speci®c type of performance, such as chess players’ memory for presented regular and random chess positions. As these two theoretical frameworks have been independently developed to account for diåerent empirical phenomena and also diåer in the speci®city of their proposed concepts and mechanisms, it becomes very di¬cult to compare them without making questionable interpretations and extrapolations. Anyone who is not familiar with the extensive literature on retrieval structures, templates, and LTWM, might reasonably (though incorrectly) assume that all papers use the term retrieval structures to refer to mechanisms with similar basic characteristics. This assumption may have been reinforced by the fact that the same issue of Psychological Review contained two diåerent papers, Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) and Richman, Staszewski, and Simon (1995). Both papers used Chase and Ericsson’s (1982) skilled memory theory and its proposed storage in long-term memory (LTM) through retrieval structures as their point of departure. Given that the two papers involved authors with long-standing collaborative relationships (Ericsson & Simon, 1980, 1984, 1993 ; Ericsson & Staszewski, 1989), it would make