Context and mediators in a theory of distributed associative memory (TODAM2)

Recent findings on the interactions of item and associative information have necessitated a revision of TODAM (a theory of distributed associative memory). Item information underlies the memory for individual items or events, and associative information allows one to relate or associate 2 separate items or events. The troublesome findings are the differential forgetting of item and associative information (item recognition falls off over retention intervals, whereas associative information does not) and the differential emphasis results (greater attention to items hurts pair recognition, but greater attention to pairs does not affect item recognition). The addition of context and mediators enables TODAM to account for these interactions.