Peterson and Peterson (1959)
- Created by: Em
- Created on: 29-03-16 17:13
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- Peterson and Peterson (1959)
- Aim
- To investigate how long information can be retained in the STM
- Procedure
- Participants were presented with sets of nonsense trigrams to learn
- To prevent rehearsal they had to count backwards in threes from a given 3-digit number
- Participants were aware that they would be asked to recall the trigrams in the correct order
- A delay of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds was introduced before recall
- To prevent rehearsal they had to count backwards in threes from a given 3-digit number
- Participants were presented with sets of nonsense trigrams to learn
- Results
- After 3 seconds 80% of the trigrams were successfully recalled. 50% for 6 seconds, 30% for 9 seconds and after 18 seconds recall fell to around 10%
- Conclusion
- STM lasts no more than 20 seconds and without rehearsal will fade quickly
- Evaluation
- Everyday distractions are often far less focused than counting backwards in three's and do not cause the high level of interference of the study
- Findings cannot be applied to everyday memory as we would not respond to meaningful information in the same way
- Lab experiment so low ecological validity and participants knew they had to recall trigrams so therefore demand characteristics may be present
- Aim
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