An Ecological Model of Redintegration

An Ecological Model of Redintegration=

Stephen E. = Robbins

Metavante C= orporation

In 1732, Christian Wolff coined the term “redintegration” for the elementary phenomenon wherein an aspect of the “pattern”= ; of a present event causes the recall of a past event defined by a similar pattern. For example, a slight rustle in the grass causes us to remember an experience of encounter= ing a snake. Redintegration is ubiquitous in memory research, underlying numerous research paradigms and models, but the critical scientific task of describing these “event patterns” has been ignored in memory theory. One theory, however, has been devo= ted to describing these patterns - Gibson’s.

A model is described here in which redintegration rests upon the invar= iance structure of events, where an invariance structure is defined as the transformations and structural invariants specifying an event and rendering= it a virtual action (Robbins, 2002, 2004, 2006a, 2006b, 2008). The fundamental working principle = is: the re-instantiation of an event invariance structure within a present even= t or “cue” (E’) reconstructs a past event (E) with a similar invariance structure. Stated simply, E’->E. =

This principle is reviewed in verbal tasks (VTs), particularly the paired-associate learning paradigm, and in research findings on the effect = of imagery in PA learning (e.g., Paivio, 1971). The mathematics of event invariance structures allows the parametric variation of cues or cue events and a numb= er of future research extensions of this are noted, together with a review of the= implicit use of parametric variation already in experimentation exemplified by Freyd (1987) and others. The principle comes to the fore in the recent, and very ecological, memory research program on Subject Performed Tasks (SPTs) and Experimenter Performed Tasks (EPTs) (Engelkamp, 1998; Zimmer & Cohen, 2001), for which the VTs can be seen as a special case. Finally, the phenomenon of priming (e.g., Lustig & Hasher, 2001) can be seen as subject to the same general principle.

References<= /span>

Engelkamp, J. (1998). Memory= for Actions. East Sussex: Psychology Pre= ss.

Freyd, J.J. (1987)= . Dynamic mental representations. Psychological Review, 94, 427-438.

Lustig, C., & Hasher, L. (2001). Implicit memory is not immune to interference. Psychological Bulle= tin, 127, 618-628.

Paivio, A. (1971) Imagery and verbal processes. New= York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.<= /o:p>

Robbins, S. E. (2002). Semantics, experience and time. Cognitive Systems Research, 3, 301-33= 5.

Robbins, S. E. (2004). On time, memory and dynamic form. Consciousness and Cognition, 13, 762-788.

Robbins, S. E. (2006a). On the possibility of direct memory. In V. W. Fallio (Ed.), New Developments in Consciousness Research= . New York: Nova Science Publishing, 1-64. <= /span>

Robb= ins, S. E. (2006b). Bergson and the holographic theory of mind. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Scienc= es, 5, 365-394.

Rob= bins, S. E. (2008). Semantic redintegration: Ecological invariance.&nbs= p; (Commentary on T. Rogers and J. McClelland, Precis of Semantic Cognition: A Parallel Distrib= uted Processing Approach). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 726= -727.

Zi= mmer, H. D., & Cohen, R.L. (2001). Remembering actions: A specific type of memory? In H= . D. Zimmer & R. L. Cohen (Eds.), Me= mory for Actions: A Distinct Form = of Episodic Memory? Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-24.