Retention in perceptual memory: A review of models and data

Abstract

Five contemporary models are surveyed and four experiments reanalyzed in a review of present knowledge of how the discriminability of two tones or of two lines of different lengths varies with the temporal interval (1 to 60 sec) between their presentations. Although discriminability (d') decreases roughly in proportion to the logarithm of the time elapsed, existing experiments have difficulty in discriminating between the alternative models, and there are practical constraints on repeating those experiments with significant improvements in precision. However, previous work suggests that all the models might fail at very short intervals (< 1 sec); certain experiments with auditory stimuli have found d' to decrease at these short intervals, reversing its principal trend. A fifth experiment attempts to replicate this finding with visual stimuli; one subject, but not the other, shows a clear maximum in discriminability at an interstimulus interval of 0.25 sec. This finding is compared, speculatively, with reminiscence and with specific psychophysical sensitivity to changes in the stimulus field. © 1985 Psychonomic Society, Inc.