Order Error Rate

Measure how often items are recalled at the wrong output position.

An order error occurs when a participant recalls a list item at the wrong output position. The item was on the study list but is produced in a serial position that does not match where it was originally studied. The order error rate curve plots these transposition errors at each study position.

Workflow

Code 
import os
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import warnings
from jaxcmr.analyses.order_error_rate import plot_order_error_rate
from jaxcmr.helpers import find_project_root, generate_trial_mask, load_data, save_figure

warnings.filterwarnings("ignore")
Code 
data_path = "data/RepeatedRecallsKahanaJacobs2000.h5"
figure_dir = "results/figures"
figure_str = ""
ylim = None
trial_query = "data['listLength'] > 0"
size = 3
confidence_level = 0.95
Code 
project_root = find_project_root()
figure_dir = os.path.join(project_root, figure_dir)
data_path = os.path.join(project_root, data_path)
data = load_data(data_path)
trial_mask = generate_trial_mask(data, trial_query)
Code 
plot_order_error_rate(datasets=data, trial_masks=trial_mask, size=size, confidence_level=confidence_level)
if ylim is not None:
    for ax in plt.gcf().axes:
        ax.set_ylim(ylim)
save_figure(figure_dir, figure_str)

Interpretation

The x-axis shows study position and the y-axis shows the proportion of recalls of that item that appear at the wrong output position. Key patterns:

  • Higher in the middle: middle-list items are more prone to transposition errors, consistent with weaker positional encoding.
  • Low at extremes: primacy and recency items tend to be recalled in the correct output position.

API Details

Notebook parameters

  • data_path — path to an HDF5 file containing a RecallDataset.
  • figure_dir — directory for saving figures.
  • figure_str — base filename for the saved figure. Leave empty to display without saving.
  • ylim — y-axis limits as a tuple, or None for automatic scaling.
  • trial_query — a Python expression evaluated against the dataset to select trials.
  • size — maximum number of study positions a single item can occupy.
  • confidence_level — confidence level for subject-wise error bars.