TY - GEN
T1 - How memory biases affect information transmission
T2 - 22nd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NIPS 2008
AU - Xu, Jing
AU - Griffiths, Thomas L.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Many human interactions involve pieces of information being passed from one person to another, raising the question of how this process of information transmission is affected by the capacities of the agents involved. In the 1930s, Sir Frederic Bartlett explored the influence of memory biases in "serial reproduction" of information, in which one person's reconstruction of a stimulus from memory becomes the stimulus seen by the next person. These experiments were done using relatively uncontrolled stimuli such as pictures and stories, but suggested that serial reproduction would transform information in a way that reflected the biases inherent in memory. We formally analyze serial reproduction using a Bayesian model of reconstruction from memory, giving a general result characterizing the effect of memory biases on information transmission. We then test the predictions of this account in two experiments using simple one-dimensional stimuli. Our results provide theoretical and empirical justification for the idea that serial reproduction reflects memory biases.
AB - Many human interactions involve pieces of information being passed from one person to another, raising the question of how this process of information transmission is affected by the capacities of the agents involved. In the 1930s, Sir Frederic Bartlett explored the influence of memory biases in "serial reproduction" of information, in which one person's reconstruction of a stimulus from memory becomes the stimulus seen by the next person. These experiments were done using relatively uncontrolled stimuli such as pictures and stories, but suggested that serial reproduction would transform information in a way that reflected the biases inherent in memory. We formally analyze serial reproduction using a Bayesian model of reconstruction from memory, giving a general result characterizing the effect of memory biases on information transmission. We then test the predictions of this account in two experiments using simple one-dimensional stimuli. Our results provide theoretical and empirical justification for the idea that serial reproduction reflects memory biases.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84863370413&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84863370413&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84863370413
SN - 9781605609492
T3 - Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 21 - Proceedings of the 2008 Conference
SP - 1809
EP - 1816
BT - Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 21 - Proceedings of the 2008 Conference
PB - Neural Information Processing Systems
Y2 - 8 December 2008 through 11 December 2008
ER -