Dissociating memory accessibility and precision in forgetting [Collection]
Forgetting involves the loss of information over time. While
previous research has focussed on the rate of information loss, we know less about
the form this loss takes. For example, are memory representations remembered
with less precision, or do they instead become less accessible? Here we use
‘precision’ measures of memory, and probabilistic mixture models, to investigate
the loss of both precision and accessibility of word-location associations over
time. Importantly, we are able to directly compare these two measures by
converting precision and accessibility into a common scale – information
entropy. Using online testing, we will assess the extent to which forgetting is
driven by a loss in either precision or accessibility. Further, we will assess
how forgetting is modulated by shared content. Does learning multiple similar
experiences decrease information loss for either precision or accessibility?