Supplementary material for the paper "The DRM illusion in short-term memory: Opposite effects of retention interval on true and false recognition"

A short-term memory (STM) version of the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was employed to investigate how true and false recognition evolved as STM contents were lost over a short time-window immediately after initial encoding. Presentation of six-word DRM lists were followed by list-specific recognition tests applied either immediately or after a distractor-filled retention interval of 3, 9, or 27 s. Results showed that the probability of true recognition decreased, and the probability of false recognition increased as the retention interval grew longer. Based on the fuzzy-trace theory, we suggest that this pattern emerged from the different durability in STM of item-specific phonological representations, which would play the dual role of supporting true memory and preventing false recognition, and integrative semantic representations, whose overlap with the critical items would give rise to the DRM illusion.

本研究采用迪西/罗迪格-麦克德莫特（Deese/Roediger-McDermott，DRM）范式的短时记忆（short-term memory，STM）版本，旨在探究初始编码后即刻的短时间窗内，随着短时记忆内容随时间衰退，真实再认与错误再认的演化规律。实验中，先呈现由6个单词组成的DRM词表，随后立即开展词表特异性再认测试，或在设置了干扰任务的3秒、9秒、27秒保持间隔后进行测试。结果显示，随着保持间隔延长，真实再认概率逐渐降低，而错误再认概率则逐步升高。基于模糊痕迹理论（fuzzy-trace theory），本研究提出该现象源于两类表征在短时记忆中具有不同的持久性：一类是项目特异性语音表征，其兼具支持真实记忆与抑制错误再认的双重功能；另一类是整合性语义表征，其与关键诱饵项目的语义重叠会引发DRM错觉效应。