Modeling retrieval dependencies in episodic memory and beyond

• Applicant: Dr. Marcel Raphael Schreiner
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 580316327

Memories typically encompass several pieces of information that need to be bound together to enable coherent memory representations. Such binding is studied in various research domains, such as object memory, working memory, action control, source memory, and episodic memory. A comprehensive understanding of these binding processes requires adequate measurement tools. This project aims to advance a promising modeling approach grounded in item response theory for measuring stochastic retrieval dependencies. This approach enables the investigation of binding processes through the statistical modeling of retrieval dependencies within and between item groups. The project comprises simulation studies, empirical experiments, and software development. It is organized in four work packages, which aim at extending the modeling approach to multi-factorial designs, integrate polytomous data formats, derive person-level dependency estimates and improve estimation, and implement it in an R package. The project outcomes will enable the measurement of binding processes in a broader range of experimental contexts, open avenues for new research questions, improve the quality of measurement, and ease the application of the modeling approach, making it more accessible to the broader research community. The project will thus facilitate binding research in various research domains, and more generally provide and improve a tool to study stochastic dependencies within and between item groups.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants