Peak Shift in Remembering

In behavioural terms, to remember a stimulus is torespond to that stimulus at a later time. Rememberingcan thus be seen as discriminative behaviour alongthe stimulus dimension of time. This implies thatphenomena such as stimulus generalisation, which havebeen shown to occur in discrimination learning alongmany other stimulus dimensions, may occur also indiscrimination along the stimulus dimension of time,i.e. in remembering. Data from operant studies withpigeons and hens have supported this. This bookreports a highly novel finding, namely the firstevidence for the occurrence of peak shift in aremembering process. When hens were poorly rewardedfor correct remembering after a short delay, butrichly rewarded for correct remembering after alonger delay, they remembered best after an evenlonger delay. This phenomenon was not predicted byany traditional theory of memory, and cannot beexplained by the century-old standard construct ofmemory trace decay. This work will interest a widerange of researchers in psychology, cognitiveneuroscience, biology, or anyone interested inchallenging their thinking with a radically differentview of the nature of memory.