Memory for temporal order in novel sequential action

ABSTRACT

Order is critical for many daily activities. Developmental research has shown that memory for order in action is the least prioritised in a processing hierarchy, and is sensitive to deviant input. The current research investigated these aspects of sequence learning are also present in adults. Participants learned a novel sequence across several exemplars with either easy- or difficult-to-categorize items, which either did or did not involve a deviant order on one exemplar, and were later asked to recall the sequence. Memory for individual sub-actions and order was stronger in the easy conditions, and the deviant order significantly deteriorated ordered recall in the difficult condition only. These findings support the theorised processing hierarchy, with the presence of a deviant order having a larger effect on memory when the load at the earlier item stage is increased. These results have implications for theories of working memory and learning in real-world contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Memory
• temporal order
• sequential memory
• deviant information
• imitation

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada awarded to the first author. We are thankful to two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, JL, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 The animal nature videos were used to break up the presentation of the videos, and also served as a general memory check at the end of the experiment. All participants remembered seeing each of the animal videos.

2 A small number of participants (n = 4) in the deviant conditions at this point asked questions about “Which sequence” (e.g., “Which one? Cause there were like 3 of them”). They were told to perform “the one you saw in the videos”, without acknowledging that there were different sequences.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.