SOP: A Model of Automatic Memory Processing in Animal Behavior

The central thesis has been that the immediate behavior, as well as the learning, occasioned by an external stimulus is dependent on the course of “ active” representation of the stimulus in a short-term memory (STM) store. The more active the representation at some moment, or the longer active during some episode, the more vigorous will be the subject’s immediate response, the more persistent will be evidence of memory for the stimulus, and the more associative learning may be witnessed between the stimulus and other contemporaneous events (Wagner, 1976, 1978). Added to this thesis was the notion that two states of activation in STM could be distinguished, an especially active state (dubbed “ rehearsal,” after the terminology of Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968) and a less active state (given no special label). Then, it was importantly assumed that, whereas the presentation of a stimulus de nova normally would lead to a state of rehearsal of its representation in STM, the presentation of a stimulus that was already represented, or “ prim ed,” in STM would not provoke this specially active state (Wagner, 1976, 1978).