Trace synthesis in cued recall
Type
Several memory models propose that recall may combine traces of different memories. Such models predict blend errors during cued recall. To examine memory blending during recall, four experiments were performed. In each experiment, subjects rated the plausibility of several sentences, many of which shared words with one other sentence. Later, they were asked to recall words from a single sentence to complete partial-sentence cues. When the cue matched two study sentences, subjects made blend errors, recalling one word from each study sentence more frequently than in a control condition. Blend errors were relatively infrequent, however, occurring on about 5% of opportunities. A good account of the results was provided by a stochastic interactive activation model that causes blend errors by synthesizing traces during retrieval.