The diffusion model of reaction time for recent negative probes

The study investigates the problem of information displacement from short-term memory. In two experiments, reaction times for recent negative probes were analyzed in the Sternberg’s memory scanning task. The diffusion model of reaction times was used with parameters estimated with the fast-dm software. It was found (experiment 1) that recent negative probes are characterized by a reduction in the speed of information accumulation (drift rate). This suggests residual activation of irrelevant cognitive representation in memory after they have been displaced from short-term memory. It was also found (experiment 2) that negative probes semantically related to items in a preceding target set (semantic recent negative probes) are characterized by a similar decrease in the drift rate. This suggests activation spreading from irrelevant cognitive representations displaced from short-term memory along semantic connections and identifies activated long-term memory as the target of information displacement from short-term memory. Additional mechanisms of short-term memory scanning (negative priming and dynamic decision thresholds) are discussed.