Grouping effects in immediate reconstruction of order and the preconditions for long-term learning

Guitard, Dominic, Saint-Aubin, Jean and Cowan, Nelson 2022. Grouping effects in immediate reconstruction of order and the preconditions for long-term learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 75 (1) , pp. 70-97. 10.1177/17470218211030825

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Abstract

One commonly acknowledged role of working memory is to set up conditions for new learning. Yet, it has long been understood that there is not a perfect correspondence between conditions leading to good immediate recall from working memory and conditions leading to good delayed recall from long-term memory. Here, in six experiments, we investigated the relation between grouping effects in immediate and delayed reconstruction of order for word lists. There has been a striking absence of tests of grouping effects in long-term memory. In the first four experiments, items within groups are presented concurrently, which encourages associations between items in a group. Despite that presumably favourable situation for group learning, in Experiments 1 and 2 we found effects of grouping only in immediate order reconstruction and not in delayed reconstruction. When more processing time was allowed (Experiments 3 and 4), grouping effects in both immediate and delayed order reconstruction were obtained. Experiment 5 showed that, with items presented one at a time, but with roughly the same amount of processing time and spatial separation as the previous two experiments, grouping effects were obtained neither in immediate order reconstruction nor in delayed reconstruction. However, in Experiment 6 with a more salient manipulation of grouping, effects of grouping were obtained in immediate order reconstruction, but not in delayed reconstruction. In sum, we demonstrated for the first time that there are mechanisms of temporal grouping that assist working memory but are relatively ineffective for long-term learning, in contrast to more effective, concurrent presentation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	{SAGE} Publications
ISSN:	1747-0218
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 October 2022
Date of Acceptance:	27 May 2021
Last Modified:	17 May 2023 01:43
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153418

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