Chapter 8 Update - September 2006
Neuroimaging the serial position curve
You read in Chapter 8 how cognitive psychologists have long debated the number of memory stores that we have – some view humans as having a short-term memory and long-term memory store (dual-store model), whereas others argue that the distinction between these two stores is blurred and that we have one flexible memory store that deals with short-term and long-term memory retrieval (single-store model). Dual-store models were (and are) based on a simple paradigm – participants recall items from a list; if they recall from the end of this list, these items are retrieved from STM; if the words are recalled from the beginning of the list, they are retrieved from LTM.
To determine whether this distinction was supportable, Talmi et al (2005) set up an fMRI experiment in which participants recognised words from a list while their brain activation was measured. Recognition of items appearing early in the list was associated with activity in regions of the brain associated with LTM (the hippocampus and related structures); recognition of items appearing later in the list was not associated with activation in these areas, providing some neuroimaging support for the dual-stores model.
Talmi, D., Grady, C.L., Goshen-Gottstein, Y. & Moscovitch, M. (2005).
Neuroimaging the serial position curve. Psychological Science , 16, 9, 716- 723.