MBS 93-10
Analysis of Single Sequence of Words Retrieved from Long Term Memory
Tarow Indow
Subjects are asked to list all words belonging to a specified category.
Let tn be the time when n-th word is retrieved by a subject. Individual
retrieval sequence {tn} consisting of nmax words is analyzed in terms of
two searching processes, parallel and serial, both being based on the extreme
statistics of smallest values, the Weibull distribution. Suppose that a
large number of cues are attached to each word in the long-term memory
and, whenever one of these cues (the easiest one) is "hooked", that word
is retrieved. Twenty eight short sequences (nmax < 58) of various categories
were used as examples of single phase Weibull and five long sequences (nmax
from 75 to 153) as examples of multiple phase (composite) Weibull. It is
also discussed how to obtain information on the structure of cues attached
to each work. The structure changes according to position n in the retrieval
sequence.