The item versus the object in memory: on the implausibility of overwriting as a mechanism for forgetting in short-term memory

Beaman, C. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5124-242X and Jones, D. (2016) The item versus the object in memory: on the implausibility of overwriting as a mechanism for forgetting in short-term memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. 341. ISSN 1664-1078 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00341

Abstract/Summary

The nature of forgetting in short-term memory remains a disputed topic, with much debate focussed upon whether decay plays a fundamental role (Berman et al., 2009; Altmann and Schunn, 2012; Barrouillet et al., 2012; Neath and Brown, 2012; Oberauer and Lewandowsky, 2013; Ricker et al., 2014) but much less focus on other plausible mechanisms. One such mechanism of long-standing in auditory memory is overwriting (e.g., Crowder and Morton, 1969) in which some aspects of a representation are “overwritten” and rendered inaccessible by the subsequent presentation of a further item. Here, we review the evidence for different forms of overwriting (at the feature and item levels) and examine the plausibility of this mechanism both as a form of auditory memory and when viewed in the context of a larger hearing, speech and language understanding system.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/58643
Identification Number/DOI	10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00341
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Cognition Research (CCR)
Publisher	Frontiers Media
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