Consolidation in Short-Term Remembering in Humans and Non-human Animals

Abstract

In a major review of research on human memory over the last century, Wixted (2004) argued that forgetting is caused by consolidation failure due to interference before enough time has passed for the memories to consolidate. Previous studies with humans and non-human animals have reported evidence for consolidation only with intermediate or long-term memory. The present study examined whether consolidation can be demonstrated in short-term memory. In a short-term memory task, human participants were more accurate when interference occurred at the end of the retention interval than when interference occurred early in the retention interval. That is, consolidation was evident in human short-term memory. In an analogous task for pigeons, delayed matching to sample accuracy was reduced when interference (an extraneous task or house-light illumination) was interpolated in the retention interval. In the task for pigeons, however, accuracy was not greater when the house-light was illuminated at the end of the retention interval compared to when it was illuminated at the beginning. That is, there was no evidence for consolidation in short-term memory for pigeons. The results were discussed in relation to temporal distinctiveness theory as an alternative to consolidation.