Structure of the recall process

Abstract

It is often appropriate to analyse memory processes at a binary level corresponding to the individual item, which may be either remembered or not. But an alternative, considered here, is to study memory for material that is explicitly multicomponent in nature. This procedure is necessary in attempting to resolve some basic issues concerning memory representation. For example, the use as retrieval cues of differing combinations of components produces differing patterns of recall, in differing quantities. How may these distributions be accounted for? Similarly, what are the effects upon memory of varying the attention paid to different components, or combinations of components? In dealing with such questions, it is useful to distinguish direct and indirect retrieval routes. This distinction can be shown to be of particular service in elucidating the relation that recall bears to the other major index of memory retention, recognition.