Effects of Amount of Interpolated Activity in Short-Term Memory
- 1 October 1967
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Reports
- Vol. 21 (2) , 393-399
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1967.21.2.393
Abstract
A short-term memory (STM) experiment attempted to separate the effects of interference due to interpolated activity (IA, digit counting) and elapsed time in a retroactive inhibition (RI) paradigm, whereas in previous studies IA and elapsed time have been confounded. A further intent was to assess the effects of rate of information processing (rate of counting) on the retention of individual items. Two levels of word frequency (high and low) were combined factorially with three retention intervals (3, 9, and 18 sec.) and two levels of forced counting (1.3 and 2.25 digits/sec.); 20 Ss were assigned at random to each of the 12 conditions. Word frequency, retention interval, and rate of counting were significant sources of variation. The results indicated the importance of rate of information processing, as opposed to amount of IA, and elapsed time in the retention of individual items in STM. Results were discussed in terms of their relevance to the decay theory of forgetting up to 9 sec. Rate of information processing can be viewed as an effective means of filling S‘s “rehearsal space,” thus reducing implicit rehearsal during the retention period.Keywords
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