The influence of long-term memory factors on immediate serial recall: An item and order analysis

In immediate serial recall, an error can occur because the presented item is not recalled (item error) or because it is recalled at the wrong serial position (order error). Even if these two types of information can be selectively influenced, in most current studies, a global performance measure confounding item and order information is used. Here, the issues associated with the measure of memory for item and order information are discussed. First, it is argued that in some circumstances it is very important that item information be controlled for when measuring order retention, by for example, conditionalizing order memory on memory for item information. Second, using such measures, it is shown that long-term memory factors recently investigated in immediate serial recall produce a different pattern of results than what is predicted by most current models: Semantic similarity, word frequency, and lexicality all influence item recall, but only lexicality affects order information. These findings are discussed in the light of a retrieval-based account suggesting that degraded phonological traces must undergo a reconstruction process calling upon long-term knowledge of the to-be-remembered items.