ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we summarize two lines of work that relate closely to Ben Murdock's interests and to his approach to research. The first line of work uses ROC curves to test fundamental properties of the recently proposed global memory models (Gillund & Shifrrin, 1984; Hintzman, 1986, 1988; Murdock, 1982, 1983). The second uses empirical results to support a compound cue interpretation of priming phenomena (implemented in global memory models, Ratcliff & McKoon, 1988). While these two lines are quite independent, they form a nice contrast between two of the different kinds of research issues that arise from theoretical modeling, one concerning the search for critical tests with which to evaluate complicated and non-intuitive models (cf. Hintzman, this volume), and the other concerning the role of models in guiding and developing new explanations of known phenomena.