Award Date

12-1-2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Committee Member

Colleen Parks

Second Committee Member

David Copeland

Third Committee Member

Joel Snyder

Fourth Committee Member

Lisa Bendixen

Abstract

Recent theories of forgetting posit that hippocampally-based memory representations are more prone to be forgotten due to decay, while extra-hippocampal representations are more likely to be forgotten due to interference (Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013; Sadeh & Pertzov, 2020). The current study examined this hypothesis by comparing the rate of forgetting between pattern separation, a hippocampally-based process, and item recognition, a process that is reliant on both hippocampal and extra-hippocampal structures. It was hypothesized that pattern separation would display more forgetting due to decay because it is a hippocampally-based process, while item recognition would display more forgetting due to interference since its processes are extra-hippocampally-dependent. Participants were tested over five consecutive days using the Mnemonic Similarity Task (Stark & Kirwan, 2019), an object recognition task that yields estimates of pattern separation and item recognition. Additionally, Wickelgren’s model (1975) was fit to the data to estimate forgetting rate due to decay and interference. Results indicate that pattern separation showed more forgetting due to decay, while item recognition showed more forgetting due to interference, supporting the current hypothesis. At the group level, Wickelgren’s model was able to fit the observed data and predicted future forgetting quite well. Importantly, the current study adds to the growing body of literature on forgetting and can be used to clarify mixed findings within the literature.

Keywords

Familiarity; Forgetting; Human Memory; Pattern Separation; Recognition Memory; Recollection

Disciplines

Cognitive Psychology

File Format

pdf

File Size

562 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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