The Nature of Short Term Memory

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Star Study: Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Describe aims and procedures of one study of the nature of short term memory (3+3)

Aims: Peterson and Peterson (1959) aimed to explore the duration of short term memory. They believed that short term memory is very fragile and that without rehearsal items would be forgotten rapidly. They aimed to see the rate at which the memory trace decays. They wanted to discover the maximum length of time that items could be recalled without rehearsal and they wanted to design a new paradigm for short term memory research.

Procedure: The Petersons used a laboratory experiment with repeated measures to investigate duration of STM. They invented a new testing procedure which became known as the Brown-Peterson technique as another researcher called Brown was also using a siialr technique around the same time. They asked their Pps to recall trigrams (sets of 3 consonants which had to be recalled with 100% accuracy and in the correct order known as serial recall). They prevented their participants from rehearsing the trigrams by asking them to count backward out loud in 3s, from a three digit number. The DV was the percentage of trigrams correctly recalled. Their IV was the length of time that they were asked to count backwards. There 6 levels, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 secs.

Describe findings and conclusions of one study of the nature of short term memory (3+3)
Findings: The Peterson’s discovered that there was a rapid rate of forgetting from STM as the duration without rehearsal increased. They found that with 3 seconds of interference 80% of trigrams were accurately recalled in the correct order. At 6 secs as many as 50% were recalled with accuracy but with 18 seconds of interference only 10% of trigrams remained in tact within the STM. After this point, very little would remain.