Psychological Review 1968, Vol. 75, No.

6, 522-536

TOWARD A THEORY OF MEMORY AND ATTENTION 1

DONALD A. NORMAN University of California, San Diego A theoretical structure is described to account for a variety of phenomena encountered in the study of perception, attention, and memory. A storage system is proposed which has 2 different modes of activation : a temporary excitation, called short-term or primary storage, and a permanent excitation, called long-term or secondary storage. The storage is assumed to be organized so that access to stored information can be made directly from a sensory code. Thus, the initial interpretation of sensory events can be performed automatically, allowing attention to be directed to events on the basis of their meaning and momentary psychological pertinence. A retrieval process is described to handle the problem of deciding when an item that is recovered from storage is that which was sought. The output from storage is accepted as valid only if it can lead back naturally to the original query of memory. If it cannot, the retrieval process continues, using the initial query together with each intermediate output to guide the direction of search.

Usually the word "memory" means the remembrance of a past event, but in that remembrance may things are involved. To be remembered, information must first be acquired, then retained in a storage system, and, finally, be retrieved when sought. To understand memory we must understand all of its stages. In order to construct a comprehensive picture of the processes of remembering, we must select our theories from experimental and theoretical studies of perception, attention, memory, and information processing systems. Some of these studies provide us with incomplete information, some of these theories may be wrong, and

some are not necessarily relevant to human behavior. Yet it is possible to organize theories of the various components into one consistent structure which, even if not accurate, may be of some use in guiding further thinking and exploration. The purpose of this paper is to form a comprehensive theory of attention, storage, and retrieval which is consistent with existing data. Three different stages or processing are described. First, an attention mechanism is described which selects among the various sources of sensory information only after they have activated their representation in storage. The process of choosing among sources is, thus, com1 Supported by Research Grant NBO7454 bined with the process of interpreting from the National Institute of Neurological each input. Second, a storage system Diseases and Blindness, United States Public is described which may be activated Health Service. Many people have made temporarily (short-term or primary substantial comments about earlier versions of this paper. In particular, the author memory) or more permanently (longwishes to thank Donald Broadbent, Anthony term or secondary memory). Third.it Deutsch, Ralph Haber, Peter Lindsay, Molly is proposed that retrieval occurs Potter, and Nancy Waugh. Obviously, the through repeated queries of the storways in which their suggestions have been followed may not always be satisfactory to age system until a satisfactory output is obtained. all of these people.
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MEMORY AND ATTENTION All the proposals of this paper are speculative, some are difficut to document, and critical experimental tests are either difficult to do or not yet possible. Hopefully, these proposals will elicit further discussion and research. Because of the ways in which each of the proposed stages of processing interacts with the other it is not possible to discuss one stage without first discussing them all. Thus, in the sections that follow, first each of the theoretical ideas is discussed briefly, then, when the major points have been mentioned, we return to discuss each process in more detail and specific experimental predictions. In this paper most emphasis is directed towards the types of operations and situations encountered in the study of memory and divided attention, with very little mention of sensory or perceptual tasks. This distinction is made primarily to simplify the discussion, for although these other areas are not discussed explicitly, much of what follows will have important implications for them. In particular, it should be emphasized that the problems of interest here are the ways that meaning and context interact with the perception, storage, and retrieval of sensory information. Thus, we start the story after a good deal of physiological operations have already been performed on information received at the sense organs. Indeed, for visual information, we might consider that the present story begins where the visual information storage (Sperling, 1967) or iconic storage (Neisser, 1967) leaves off. Selection and Attention A common framework for theories of attention is that man's capacity to process information is limited. The manner in which this limitation acts has been the subject of much debate, with

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different theorists taking different views. The basic problem is this. Suppose that we are presented with two different verbal messages simultaneously and asked to perform some task (such as shadowing) on the material of one message. We find that we are unable to recall many of the features of the other, nonattended message (Cherry, 1953) and have little memory for any of the words (Moray, 1959), unless the shadowing task itself was momentarily disrupted when the second message was presented (Mowbray, 1964). These results alone would imply that there was only a single channel of attention, which accepted the material contained in one message and rejected the information in the other. This is not the case, for it turns out that we are able to switch our attention from one message to another when it is important to do so (Gray & Wedderburn, 1960; Treisman, I960, 1964a, 1964b). Obviously, we would not know when important information had arrived on rejected channels unless we had performed some analyses on them: Therefore, we would like the selection mechanism to analyze arriving signals well enough to allow for efficient selection among them without using any of the limited processing of the attention mechanism itself. The problem of specifying the properties of selection could be resolved if the initial analysis of the signal were performed automatically, without any need for sophisticated cognitive processes. When we say that a signal has been interpreted, presumably we mean that the physical characteristics of the signal have been matched with those of some representation which is stored in memory. This representation guides us to information stored about the meaning of the signal. The problem, therefore, is to determine how this in-

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Storage Much research, as well as our introspections, supports the notion that the storage of events has at least two different modes of operation: a transient mode for immediate memories and a permanent mode for long-term memories. Our immediate memories of events are perfectly clear and complete, as far as we can tell. Yet within a few seconds they fade to the point where they are but a bare outline of the actual happening. Recovering an event that has just been experienced is a far different operation from recovering one from the past. One process is automatic and apparently effortless; the other requires much mental work. The difference in the quality of a very recent memory from that of a long past one so impressed William James that he thought they ought not to be described in similar ways. The one he called "primary"; the other, "secondary." Primary memory consists of those events in the span of consciousness itself; it provides a continuous link to the present moment of time. Recent evaluation of this description is provided by Waugh and Norman (1965). Although logically there appear to be two storage systems, they need not be physically different. A theory that requires two separate physical storages could be called a "box" theory; this implies that material is temporarily stored in one box (primary storage) before 2 The phrases "location in storage" and it can be transferred to the other. The "the address of the information" should be in- trouble with such a theory lies in the terpreted to mean that however information assumed separation between the two is represented in human storage, there is some systems. Perceptual recognition of systematic method of getting access to it. words and of familiar sensory inputs is The method of getting to any particular stored representation is called its address. almost immediate. The recognition of There may be several addresses for each particular sensory inputs requires, at stored representation, but according to the the least, that we be able to find some present theory, only one representation for representation of the inputs in secondeach address. No implication should be If the box theory is to drawn about the actual method, form, or ary storage. specificity of storage from the use of these hold, there must be sufficient interconphrases. nections between the storages to allow

terpretation can be performed automatically. One solution to the problem of automating the interpretation process is to let the initial access to storage be based entirely on the sensory features of the signal. This means that the initial analysis of the input consists of a simple, linear progression of operations: First the signal is transduced from its physical form into some physiological representation; then, various transformations and operations extract special features of the signal; finally, the special features uniquely determine the address in human storage at which the signal representation is found.2 Full interpretation of the signal requires a knowledge of the context in which it was presented, but it is clear that the starting point of any analysis must come from the simple matching of the signal with its stored representation. The process described here is similar to that involved in finding information in a dictionary. First, the physical form of the item (i.e., the ordering of its letters) determines the address of the information relevant to the interpretation of the item (i.e., the location of the definitions in the dictionary). The proper interpretation may still be ambiguous, however, because several possible alternatives might be available. To clear up the ambiguity we must add information about context and expectations. We return to this point later.

MEMORY AND ATTENTION a comparison of the just-perceived sensory events with the collection of previously experienced perceptions. This intercommunication must be so direct and complete that formal distinctions between the two storage systems become difficult to make. In fact, with sufficiently complex interactions, the two systems become equivalent to one. It seems better to say simply that there appear to be operational differences between the storage systems and to avoid the problem of physical representation for a while. Several features of primary storage imply a strong relationship between primary and secondary memories. For one, the capacity of primary memory seems to be determined by the number of meaningful units within it, rather than by the duration or length of the physical representation of the items (Craik, 1967; Miller, 1956; Waugh & Norman, 1965). For another, errors in immediate memory for verbal material appear to be acoustically related to the correct items, even if the items were originally presented visually (Conrad, 1964). Neither of these features would be observed unless the items in primary storage had already been transformed from a form which reflected their physical properties into a representation which depended upon information which could only be contained in secondary storage. There are a number of differences, as well as similarities, between information stored in the two systems, aside from the obvious features already mentioned. For example, retention of material in primary storage is affected by acoustical similarity among the items which are to be retained, whereas in secondary memory, semantic similarity has the same effect (Baddeley, 1966). A picture of a dual-process storage system is easy to devise. Let secondary and primary storage be different

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properties of the same physical device. Initial activation of the storage causes temporary traces to appear which dissipate unless some action is taken to maintain them. This activity is primary memory. Permanent changes in storage occur when there has been prior activation of temporary (primary) traces and, probably, cognitive action as well: for example, selection, attention, and rehearsal. Thus primary and secondary storage use the same physical structures. As a result, they exhibit some of the same logical properties. Primary storage will have quite different temporary phenomena than secondary storage, however. Because primary traces are continually changing whereas secondary traces are passive and permanent, the two storage modes may appear to have quite different retrieval properties. Primary and secondary storage do not necessarily represent the only type of storage used in processing information. Any analysis of complex dataprocessing devices indicates the need for numerous storage devices. Temporary storage mechanisms are needed to maintain the results of intermediate steps of analyses. Small "buffer" memories are needed at each interface of peripheral equipment to the central system to improve the efficiency of operations. Although these concepts can be criticized as being relevant solely to the computer technology from which they derive, it is more likely that the need for numerous types of temporary memory systems is a true general property of any large scale system. In the system postulated here, it is quite likely that some form of sensory storage would improve performance by maintaining an image of the signal during the time required to match the input with its corresponding stored representation. In terms of this paper, Sperling's visual information storage

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FIG. 1. An outline of selection and attention. (Sensory inputs, <r, after undergoing physiological processing, excite their representations in storagei, j, and k in the figure. Simultaneously, higher-level cognitive factors have determined what stored representatives are most pertinent to the psychological processes that are going on at the moment. These representativesg, h, and j in the figurereceive a pertinence input, ir. The item which is selected for further processing by an attention mechanism corresponds to the stored representation which received the greatest combination of pertinence and sensory activation the shaded item, i, in the figure.)

(1967) and Neisser's echoic memory and iconic storage (1967) represent a sensory storage, while their auditory information storage (Sperling) and active verbal memory (Neisser) are the same as primary storage. SELECTION AND ATTENTION We have now finished our initial discussion of selection, attention, and storage. At this point, we return to the discussion of some other properties of selective attention. In the discussion of the storage process we have let the logical addresses of information be given by its sensory representation. Thus, the sensory information can activate its image in storage without any intervening cognitive processes. As a result, it is possible to see how an attention mechanism might select for further processing those sensory inputs that seem most important and relevant

by considering stored attributes of each input as well as physical attributes. The problem that remains is to discuss how the selection process might be accomplished. Figure 1 serves as an outline to the description of the process. Sensory inputs (after a number of stages of processing) activate their representation in storage. In Figure 1, the sensory inputs are shown to have activated the representations of Items i, j, and k. This activation is the first step in interpreting the inputs. We need some way, however, to guide our selection of the inputs, and this must come from other, extrasensory considerations. As we have seen, selection is determined by contextual, grammatical, and meaningful cues, as well as by the physical form of the inputs. To account for these properties, some measure of the pertinence of each input must be added

MEMORY AND ATTENTION to the selection process. Pertinence is based on the expectations of future inputs and the properties of the presently attended channel of information, Pertinence must be determined before or as the input is being analyzed and selected, it cannot be determined after the selection has taken place. Certain classes of inputs, such as the sound of one's name, can be expected to have a permanently high level of pertinence, others might have permanently low levels, but most will continually fluctuate with the expectation and analyses of ongoing events. In Figure 1, pertinence inputs are shown to have activated the representations of Items g, h, and i. Of the items in storage, only one (the shaded item) received both sensory and pertinence activation. The output of the storage consists of the different levels of activation of any stored item being determined by the combination of sensory activation and pertinence (labeled o-i and TTi, respectively, in Figure 1). The outputs of the storage system which have the highest levels of activation are then selected for further processing.3 This system may appear unneces8 The actual way in which selection of the activated items takes place is not important at this stage in the development of the model, for different combination and decision rules lead to very similar predictions. For example, if we use detection (or strength) theory, we would let the output level for Item i, iat], be given by <rt + irt. If we used Luce's choice theory (1959), iai am. Detection and strength theory would have us always choose the largest wi. Luce's ratio rule would have the item with the largest at be the most likely choice. In practice, the numerical predictions of choice probabilities from these and other theories are very similar. Because these different procedures make similar predictions, more precision in the statement of the present system would gain us nothing. In the absence of any theoretical arguments for preferring one scheme over the other, we should use whichever is more convenient.

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sarily complex and unwieldy. It follows, however, as a logical outgrowth of suggestions by Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) that for proper assessment all input information must have access to storage, suggestions by Treisman and Geffin (1967) that an adjustable threshold presensitizes the organism to sensory information of high relevance or pertinence, and the selective filter model of Broadbent (1958), which now appears as the selection-attention system. It is very closely related to a recent suggestion of Broadbent (1967) that selection biases (TT in this model) play an important role in some "perceptual" phenomena. The system is also somewhat similar to the "pandemonium" model (Selfridge, 1959; Selfridge & Neisser, 1960) in pattern recognition studies. We return to some other features of the system later. William James warns us that "there is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time [1890]." This warning may be too severe. We are all aware of the difficulty of sustaining thought on one topic for any length of time, and it is in this topic that James is most interested. But this is attention in the absence of relevant sensory input and, thus, according to the present model, on the basis of pertinence information alone. This lack of sustained attention, then, is no surprise. When pertinence excites a particular stored item, it also must activate other associations through the interconnected structure of storage. The establishment of pertinence is a cognitive process, and not a sensory one. If we allow some variability in determining pertinence (and perhaps represent pertinence inputs by stochastic variables), it follows that the output of memory will continually fluctuate in ways not always related to the sensory input in any obvious fashion,

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raised (or the level of all others lowered). We perceive best what we expect to perceive. The theory proposed this far has behavioral consequences. For one, all sensory inputs, whether attended to or not, excite their representation in primary memory. This means that subjects should retain in primary storage material which has been presented to them, even if not attended to at the time of presentation.4 The material in primary memory decays rather rapidly, however (Norman, 1966; Waugh & Norman, 1965), and has effectively disappeared after four or five other items have been presented. Thus, Moray's (1959) study showing essentially a complete absence of memory for material which was not attended to at the time of presentation is not a proper test of this prediction because in his experiment he delayed the test of memory for 30 seconds after the presentation. Another feature of the theory is that it states that changes in detection, perception, recognition, or memory of events results from bias factors, not from true changes in sensitivity. Thus, we hear the material on a channel to which we are attending more clearly than on others because of increased pertinence (or bias) towards that material, not because our sensory system is more sensitive. In this sense, the theory is quite different from the attenuation hypothesis proposed by Treisman and Geffin (1967), for they predict true sensitivity changes. Broadbent's (1967) recent discussion of the effect of biases on the word-frequency effect on the auditory detection of words received in noise is very similar to the theory proposed here. The apparent decrease in our detection threshold for common words over un4 Note added in proof: This point has now been demonstrated. See Norman (in press).

The virtues of the organization outlined in Figure 1 lie in its flexibility. If all possible input representations receive equal pertinence, the system reduces exactly to Broadbent's (1958) original formulation. If unequal pertinence levels are assigned, the system can be biased towards certain inputs. Several points should be understood about the proposed organization. First, strength, either of pertinence or sensory input, should not be confused with stimulus intensity; there need be no relationship. Second, raising the levels of the pertinence values for certain items is completely equivalent to lowering the threshold for the sensory inputs corresponding to these items. Third, the automatic matching of a stimulus with its stored representation does not imply immediate knowledge of everything related to that stimulus. Some aspects will require the more extensive analysis that only the attention mechanism itself can provide and some aspects will not be noticed because the pertinence level for that particular direction of interpretation will be too low. Fourth, the fact that sensory and pertinence inputs have access to storage does not necessarily mean that they themselves are permanently stored. The temporary activation of storage is itself a temporary storage. Fifth, it is presumed that nonattended inputs remain only partially interpreted. Thus, sound might be decoded into morphemes or words, but the temporal integration of these basic units into more meaningful structures is not performed in the absence of selection. The combination of the increased activation and increased processing which attended inputs undergo should serve to increase their distinctness over those inputs which do not receive attention. Inputs which do not receive high a priori pertinence may not be recognized until their pertinence level has been

MEMORY AND ATTENTION common ones is, in fact, simply a result of our increased bias (pertinence) for common words. The present theory predicts more than did Broadbent's, however. Consideration of contextual cues can do more than bias us towards certain possibilities; it can also reduce the number of alternatives that need be considered. Hence a reduction in the number of possible alternatives can improve performance (and, therefore, the apparent sensitivity) in ways not simply accounted for by response biases. For example, Savin (1963) has shown how the detection of partial information about a word presented in noise can improve the recognition of that word by reducing the number of alternatives that must be considered. Green and Birdsall (1964) have shown how the apparent detectability of a word presented in noise changes with the size of the set of alternatives when, in fact, the detection theory measure of detectability (d'~) remains constant. The theory proposed in this paper can be formulated in precise mathematical terms simply by combining the results of Green and Birdsall with those of Broadbent. Unfortunately, although this is conceptually easy, it leads to some rather messy equations. The best way to test these ideas is to examine pure cases: First, the case where pertinence does not reduce the number of possible alternatives, then the case where pertinence changes only the number of alternatives while maintaining equal activation of those alternatives. Savin (1963) points out that word size is a primary cue used by subjects to reduce the set of alternatives which they must consider. Thus, although Broadbent's results (1967) might appear to contradict the predictions of this theory, they actually are in good agreement. Broadbent carefully kept the length of his words fixed, so his experiment can be considered a

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satisfactory test of the effect of pertinence when number of alternatives are held constant. To see what happens when the size of the set of alternatives is changed, we can look at the experiment of Miller, Heise, and Lichten (1951). The results of their experiment were reanalyzed by Green and Birdsall (1964) who showed that detectability could be considered to remain constant with changes in vocabulary size, even though performance did vary. Thus, in these two simple cases, the present theory works. In a recent paper, Morton (in press) has proposed a model for linguistic analysis which has many features in common with the model described here, although with a different emphasis. Morton uses Luce's ratio rule (see Footnote 3) to derive numerous numerical predictions for the probability of perceiving words presented with and without accompanying contextual information. Although the models proposed in these two papers differ in their detailed structure, the basic ideas are very similar. Thus, Morton's derivations of the way that response biases, word-frequency effects, and contextual information interact with the sensory image of the signal to yield selection of a unique stored representation (which he calls a "logogen") provide a formal quantitative description and test of these aspects of both our models. In particular, Morton shows how the wellestablished fact that the perceptual recognition of words is enhanced when they are embedded within a sentence (see, for example, Miller & Isard, 1963; Tulving, Mandler, & Baumal, 1964) can be used as a strong point of evidence favoring our models. ANALYSIS OF THE STIMULUS The initial access to stored information must be based on the physical attributes of the stimulus, for that is all

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DONALD A. NORMAN preted to mean that because some characteristics of the signal are not used in the analyses they are lost. The details of the inputsuch as accent and type fontare often important. But they must be distinguished from the formal content of the stimulus, even though they play a part in our perception. Although simple analyses of the stimulus are not sufficient for an unambiguous interpretation, there is no reason why more complex analyses cannot be performed. Analyses based solely on the presently available input are not sufficient for the proper decomposition of the stimulus, but more information is available through the mechanism proposed to perform the assessment and selection on incoming information. The selection analysis can be recursive; it can start with some preconceptions and expectations. As the analysis progresses, it can modify its assessment of the situation and, hence, its interpretation of the stimulus. The structure described here is a special form of an analysis by synthesis. It assumes that expectations (synthesis) of the incoming stimuli play an important role in our interpretation of them. This means that the analysis must proceed almost in real time; we must interpret events as they occur, not wait for them to be completed before we start to analyze them. Introspecspectively, real time analysis feels right, for it is a rare event when we postpone analysis of our sensations until we have received an entire meaningful unit. At times we discover we must reanalyze a sequencewe do a "double-take." But this means that our original analysis turns out to be inconsistent with later presented facts, not that we postponed the entire analysis. There must be a slight delay in the analysis of the stimulus, however, because the interpretation cannot take place until a reasonable amount of ma-

there is at first. A simple analysis will not work, however. Let us examine spoken speech to see why. Linguistic analysis provides us with a formal decomposition of speech into words, morphemes, phonemes, and distinctive features. Unfortunately, real speech is not so easy to classify. There appear to be few distinctions in the physical waveform of spoken speech to help break sounds into words, let alone smaller units. Different words run into each other, with no necessary pause in the sounds which would allow us to find the divisions among them. Different phonemes are sometimes pronounced in the same way, and one phoneme may be pronounced in different ways, so that only the grammatical and semantic context of speech will allow us to decipher the sounds correctly (Miller, 1958). Different speakers pronounce words differently, yet the analysis of spoken speech does not seem to depend upon either the speaker's accent or any of the rather gross physical distortions that can be applied to the speech waveform with little change in intelligibility. The same discouraging story is true for other sources of information besides speech and other senses besides hearing. Different sensory inputs may have the same stored form. Visually and auditorially presented words must eventually reach the same stored representation, for we make no psychological distinctions in meaning based on this type of stimulus difference. Similarly, type font and accent do not have semantic content. Grammatical transformations of a stimulus (or lawful transformations of nonlinguistic inputs) must also be removed in the basic analysis, because the transformed input must refer to its canonical form if a proper interpretation is to be made. These arguments should not be inter-

MEMORY AND ATTENTION terial has been collected. Thus our analysis probably lags behind the stimulus input by some slight amount, perhaps by a morpheme or word. Miller (1962) suggests that we delay decisions about meaning until an entire phrasetwo or three wordshave been heard. His arguments for a delay seem eminently reasonable: the length of the delay he proposes does not. As soon as we have progressed sufficiently in understanding a message we can minimize the amount of lag needed to analyze a meaningful phrase. Indeed, rather than delay our analysis, we can often predict it (see Fant, 1967, for a further discussion of this point). RETRIEVAL In a large capacity storage system, organization must be determined by the retrieval process. The problem in retrieving information from storage is that neither the exact form nor the location of the sought-for information is known. As a result, a search must be initiated. The search cannot be random, for if it were it would take approximately N/2 attempts, on the average, to find any specific item if a total of N items were stored (assuming sampling without replacement). This is obviously impractical for large systems. Fortunately, it is not necessary to begin the search at random, for the starting point is given by the task itself. Our first step is to find the stored representation of the initial referent. Then we trace a path through the interconnections of stored information, starting at the original position and continuing until we reach a satisfactory solution. We see that two properties of the storage system are important: One is the ability to follow a logical trail of interrelations among the stored items; the other is the ability to recognize the valid solution and reject false ones. The recognition problem is not

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trivial. We must be able to assess the validity of the sought-for information without knowing much about it. After all, if we know the information which we seek, we do not need to look for it. Yet, if we do not know the information, how are we to recognize it when we find it ? One possible solution to the search and evaluation problem is to let each output of a retrieval guide us in our next attempt. Figure 2 serves as an outline for the description of this process. First, the initial referent is used to form a query of storage. Let us order (on a nominal scale) the various stored representations in memory, labeling the representations with the numbers 1 through N. The storage system itself consists of the stored representations and their interconnections. These interconnections can be described by various methods: associative networks, directed graphs, list structures, or matrices. Let us here represent the interconnections of storage by an N X N matrix, [S], where each entry % represents the weighted, directed connection from Element i to Element /. The initial query can be described by its representation in storage and, thus, by a 1 X TV row vector [0] (with at least one nonzero entry). Using [Q], we enter the storage network [S], yielding a set of memory outputs, the row vector [M], with [M] = [Q] X [S]. The first output of the storage system, [M] 1( consists of a number of items ordered according to their associative strength to the original query. If this output contains the answer to the query, we stop; otherwise we must go back into the storage system. To determine whether [M]i is a satisfactory answer to the query we can use it as an input to the storage system. If [M]i contains the proper information, it should lead naturally back to the original query [Q]i.

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FIG. 2. An outline of retrieval. (A query of storage excites some combination of stored representatives which are, in turn, associated with other representatives. The output of storage consists of the level of activation of stored representatives resulting from both the query of and associations among the stored items. A decision process tests the item which receives the greatest activationthe shaded item in the figureby reentering it into storage as if it were a query. If the output, used as a query, leads to the original query, the retrieval process is terminated. Otherwise the search is continued by examining new associations.)

If it does, the answer is sufficient; if it does not, we have to try again. The mechanics of this process are summarized in Figure 2. The query leads directly to three different stored representations. Each of these items is related to one or two other items. For the particular query illustrated, the shaded item has the highest associative strength to the query. It will be accepted as a valid output by the decision system only if its activation would lead back to the query. Suppose that the first output does not satisfy the original query. Obviously we must modify our query before we try again. It would not do to use the same query again: We would get the same response. But now we have more information, for the first output will usually be related to, yet different from, our original referent. In general, we can form a new query [Q]i + i from a combination of the ith output and the iih query. This process is recursive. Eventually it diverges,

loops, or finally reaches a solution. All three of these results seem intuitively satisfying. Sometimes we search memory for long periods of time, continually dredging up answers that we know are incorrect: The search is diverging. Sometimes our memories seem to follow a pattern, repeating themselves endlessly: The search is looping. Often we come up with the correct answer: The search converges. Thus, even though the proper information is in storage, it may not be found unless the proper query is selected. The amount of time (number of recursions) necessary to get to the solution, if it is found, also depends upon the initial query. This retrieval scheme describes how a mechanism might trace through the paths of storage and decide upon the accuracy of its outputs, it also shows how the retrieval can fail even though the desired information is in storage. The nature of the retrieval process is greatly affected by the success of the

MEMORY AND ATTENTION decision stage in assessing the memory output. The decision process determines the goodness-of-fit of the storage output to the desired output by reversing the search process and reconstructing the query. The reconstructed query need not always be an exact match to the actual query. In these cases, the decision process must decide how close the reconstructed query is to the actual one. Sometimes the strength of the output can be used directly by the decision process. In recognition tasks or recall from a limited set of alternatives it may often be more convenient to make the decision on the basis of the absolute strength of the stored associations rather than by reconstructing the query. This can be done either by comparing the observed strength with a decision criterion (recognition) or by choosing the item corresponding to the greatest strength observed (recall). This is the decision model studied by Green and Moses (1966) and Norman (1966). Recall and Recognition Recall and recognition represent two different forms of queries to the storage system. In a recall task, the initial query consists of the context surrounding the sought-for item; the task is to regenerate the item given its context ("What was the word you were shown yesterday?"). In recognition, the required task is just the reverse. Here the item itself is given; the question is whether the context surrounding the item is appropriate ("Is this the word you were shown yesterday?"). Note that the recognition task does not require the same type of search used in recall; the recursive query-output-decision-query chain is not needed. All that is required in recognition is an assessment of the appropriateness of the various associations surrounding a

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stored item to the association demanded by the query. The retrieval process proposed here seems capable of handling most of the phenomena described in the literature of (long-term) memory, including the "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon (Brown & McNeill, 1966). Unfortunately, at the moment there do not seem to be any testable aspects of the theory which would allow it to be distinguished from any other system that might be proposed to account for the same phenomena. ORGANIZATION Efficient retrieval of information requires that the distance from the query to the stored information decrease with each cycle of interrogation of the storage system. This requirement poses severe organizational constraints on storage, for it must allow a goal to be reached by a legitimate query, but minimize the number of irrelevant queries that reach the same goal. If insufficient associations exist in storage, some inputs will be denied access to their goal. If too many associations exist, then noise results, because every input query can retrieve every item of information; the system might as well be a completely unorganized, random selection device. Organization plays an important role in the acquisition of new information into storage. Proper organization takes time, for new information must be integrated into the system with retrieval cues that are both adequate and unique. The logical difficulties of forming new organization increase as more and more similar information is presented to the storage system. These difficulties are a form of proactive interference. When some item is present in primary storage, its incorporation into secondary storage becomes more difficult as later items divert the atten-

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DONALD A. NORMAN advance the set of possible signals to expect, perception of these signals is much improved because their representations can all receive high pertinence values. This improves our apparent sensitivity to these signals although, in fact, there is no actual sensitivity change, only a reduction in the number of signals that must be considered and a corresponding reduction in the possible errors that could be made. If we are not told about the message set until after the signal is presented, no change in perception can occur. Knowledge about the set of possible messages can have no effect on our memory of the message. To see this, consider, if you will, the specification of the message set as it affects the human receiver of these messages. Suppose we restrict the set of items to be memorized to a limited set size, for example, eight, and assure the subject that these and only these items will be used in the study. This reduction in the number of messages is perfectly accurate as far as the experimenter is concerned. The real question is whether it accurately reflects the behavior of the subject. The reduction is meaningless unless the processing the subject performs on incoming items is reduced as a result of prior information concerning the set of alternatives. Does the process of memoryof retaining information in the brainreally depend upon the number of possible items being transmitted? The whole analysis presented in this paper is contrary to this basic assumption. Were we able to restrict our processing of incoming stimuli to the minimum required by our knowledge of the stimulus set, we would require a special physiological coding for these stimuli, or else gain no advantage. If this code is especially conceived for a particular stimulus ensemble, keys must be constructed to enable the proper transla-

tion of the organization process from the prior input and divert the energies of the mechanism which prolongs the active memory trace. This is a form of retroactive interference. In the storage model presented here, most of the traditional variables studied in memory are really problems of incorporating the primary traces into the organization required for efficient secondary storage. Primary storage should suffer less from these classical difficulties than secondary storage. Because primary storage is a temporary excitation based on the initial analysis of the sensory input it should be subject to confusions and errors related to the canonical representation, such as acoustic confusions in retrieval. Because secondary storage is a permanent excitation it should be subject to any difficulties in the overall organization of material, so that retrieval errors are apt to have semantic relations to the correct items. Note that in this scheme or organization, every possible sensory input has a representation in storage, even if it has never occurred. To illustrate this point, consider mantiness. We know immediately that the word "mantiness" does not exist in our memory, not because we have performed an exhaustive search, but rather because the form of the word dictates its proper storage address, and that address is empty. According to this model, therefore, we do not store individual items, we only store the associations which relate them to one another. STIMULUS AND RESPONSE UNCERTAINTY Let us review the effect of knowledge of the possible signals. To do this, we need consider separately the effect of this knowledge on acquisition or perception of the signal, on retention, and on retrieval, If we know in

MEMORY AND ATTENTION tions among the physical characteristics of the stimulus set, the special encoding, our usual encoding, and the relevant output responses we make to the stimuli. The construction, storage, and use of these keys may be so difficult that it overshadows the possible savings in processing possible by the use of the code. It is quite one thing to tell the subject that the stimulus set is limited; it is quite another for the various levels of processing in the nervous system to make use of this limitation. Knowledge about the set of alternatives has appreciable effect on retrieval and response strategies, however, whether this information is received prior to the presentation of the signal or after. The quantitative effect of this knowledge operates in the same way as it does on our perception of a signal it biases the stored representatives of the possible itemsbut the temporal effects differ. Knowledge of the message set can aid perceptual processes only if received prior to the presentation of the signal, it can aid retrieval and response factors at any time, and it can have no effect on the actual retention of material in memory. SUMMARY In this paper a number of different interacting processes are proposed to account for the processing of information from its original acquisition to its later retrieval from storage. We have seen how both the original selection of the input and its final retrieval can be described by a recursive interaction with the organization of storage. A description is given of a possible mechanism by which an automatic analysis of sensory inputs might take place prior to the process of selection of important inputs for further attention. Selection is based on a combination of an analysis of the pertinence of the

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possible inputs and the actual inputs that have arrived. Retrieval requires a recursive query of storage until a decision process is satisfied. It is possible to summarize the structure of these various processes with the following simplified picture. There are two forms of storage: primary and secondary. These two forms are different aspects of one large storage system. Primary storage is the temporary activation of parts of this large storage by the sensory inputs. Secondary storage is a long-term excitation. Some of the properties of attention imply that we interpret all sensory inputs. This interpretation can be performed automatically if storage is organized so that access to stored information can be made directly from a sensory code. Complete interpretation of inputs and efficient selection among them require a continual reassessment of the permanently stored information associated with each input. This can be performed by a recursive process, aided by temporary memory traces. The simple analysis of each input signal is not sufficient to resolve ambiguities and establish a complete interpretation. This comes only when a pertinence input complements the sensory input. Thus, attention and selection use the primary storage activation of secondary storage to enable efficient selection among, and analyses of, sensory inputs. REFERENCES
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