| This thesis broadly explores the representations of multiple items within short-term memory, on one hand, and attention, on the other. In two chapters, we explore the relationship between recognition, that is a general sense of familiarity, and recollection, recall of specific information. In particular, we used a probed-identification procedure with short study lists comprising visual texture patterns, the similarity relations of which are measurable and manipulatable. We carried out a pair of experiments to determine whether summed probe-study item similarity and inter-list item similarity, which strongly influence recognition had a similar effect on serial position memory. Both similarity-related variables affected identification similarly to their effects on recognition. The results suggest recognition gates serial position identification. To further test the proposed linkage between recognition and serial-position identification, we reanalyzed data from a published probed-identification study (Yotsumoto, Kahana, McLaughlin, & Sekuler, 2008a), examining several attributes of the receiver operating characteristics derived from recognition judgments and from serial-position identifications. Recognition-based zROCs slopes were greater than one, confirming Yotsumoto et al.'s finding. zROC slopes for correct identification of serial position were also greater than one. In the last chapter, we investigated a somewhat different cognitive process, attention. Experiments investigating attention have been primarily focused on locations or static objects. Only a handful of papers have explored the physiological correlates of attention to many moving objects. We investigate how attention to multiple objects changes over time and over the number of objects required to track. We find that there is an attentional enhancement of tracked objects at low loads, but there is not an enhancement at a higher load, particularly at the end of the tracking period. |
