Unveiling asymmetry in the Contiguity Effect: The role of performance, study list reduction, and event segmentation in the probed recall task

Date

2025-5

Author

Kaşgöz, Elif

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In episodic memory, individuals tend to recall items studied in close temporal proximity consecutively, a phenomenon known as the contiguity effect. This effect typically exhibits a forward asymmetry, indicating that forward transitions are more probable, and it remains time-invariant, suggesting it is also seen in long time scales. Models explaining this effect can be classified into two categories: causal and non-causal. Causal models propose that each recalled item serves as a cue for subsequent recall, whereas non-causal models attribute the effect to the similarity between study and test contexts. To challenge this assumed similarity, the probed recall task was developed. Previous findings using this task reported a symmetrical short-term contiguity effect and a long-term contiguity effect, supporting causal accounts. This thesis aimed to optimize the probed recall task by manipulating the number of study lists and event segmentation across four experiments. In all studies, both short-term and long-term contiguity effects were observed, supporting causal explanations. Additionally, results indicated that when correct list recall rates increased, the expected forward asymmetry became evident. This suggests that prior findings of symmetrical effects may have been due to low overall performance rather than an inherent absence of asymmetry in this task.

Subject Keywords

Episodic memory, Memory modeling, Probed recall task, Event segmentation, Contiguity effect

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114947

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis