MEMORY TRACE DEVELOPMENT ALONG A COARSE-TO-FINE DIMENSION - A STUDY SUPPORTING A PROGRESSIVELY FINER ATTRIBUTES THEORY

This study presents two experiments that demonstrate that the memory t race of a to-be-remembered item develops along a dimension (continuum) from coarse/general to fine/specific. Similarly, forgetting is shown to be a reverse movement along this dimension from fine to coarse, as increasingly less fine attributes are lost. The attribute acquisition pattern of this Progressively Finer Attributes Theory is robust and pr edictable, valid for experimentally unstructured (Experiment 2) as wel l as experimentally structured (Experiment 1) material.