Topic 2.2 part 2 PDF

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Summary

in depth notes of the topics covered in the introduction to psychology module...

Description

Peterson and Peterson (1959) Short-term Retention of Individual Verbal Items (2.2.2)

Background • STM

Lloyd + Margaret Peterson conducted a lab experiment to investigate duration of

• As we can hold info in STM by rehearsing it, they could only test true duration of STM trace by interfering w rehearsal process •

To prevent ppts from rehearsing, ppts counted backwards in threes

Aim •

To test true duration of STM

Procedure •

24 students tested individually

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Each student asked to repeat out loud a set of letters they heard

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Letters (trigrams) were read by monotonous voice to a metronome

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Each person told to stop/go using traffic lights

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Letters were 3 consonants (trigram)

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Asked to repeat trigram

• Immediately afterwards, they were asked to say out loud a three-digit number read to them by experimenter, then count backwards in 3s or 4s •

E.g. trigram BFP would be repeated then 709, 706, 703 and so on

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When signalled by red light, each student had to recall trigram

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Each student had to recall trigram 8 times

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Done w time delays of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 secs of interference task

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In total, procedure repeated 48 times using diff trigrams

• Second experiment asked ppts to do same tasks, but some were given time to repeat trigram (silently or vocally) before counting backwards

Results

• The longer each student had to count backwards, the less able they were to accurately recall trigram • When asked to count backwards after 3secs, they remembered over 80% of trigrams correctly •

After 18secs, percentage of correct recall was...