If God Handed Us the Ground-Truth Theory of Memory, How Would We Recognize It?

Speaker: Ven Popov

Zurich University, Switzerland

September 27, 2023
11:15 AM - 1 PM U.S. Eastern Time

Abstract
What makes a scientific theory convincing? We have many formal models of human memory, but no agreement about which is the right one. If anything, we agree that they are all wrong. Despite important theoretical milestones, models of human memory are fragmented, most often explaining single paradigms or memory types; they are incompatible with each other; they lack precision in their predictions, and due to our current parameter fitting approach, they are often little more than proof of concept exercises. I fear that our current way of developing and evaluating theoretical models of memory and cognition is getting us nowhere, because we have no clear goal. To address this, I propose the Principle of Completeness: we will be convinced by a theory of memory only when it is able to make precise point predictions for individual people’s behavior in any new memory task, manipulation, or paradigm we could construct, without refitting parameters to do so or only by estimating its parameters for each individual on an independent standardized battery of tests. Such a theory would not only be able to accurately describe lab-based empirical effects but would also be practically useful. I highlight how some of our current model development and evaluation practices might be holding us back and outline some important empirical steps necessary to evaluate theories by this standard. I will conclude with a discussion about the implications for the broader theory crisis in psychology.

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