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Abstract

Employee testing and evaluation often requires a sensitive measure of memory capability. Recognition memory is tested by those tasks which require the determination of the identity of previously presented information. In order to obtain an accurate estimate of one's discriminability in recognition memory, the decrement in sensitivity has to be distinguished from a mere criterion shift or response bias. Previous researchers found that vigilance decrements result from a decrease in perceptual sensitivity when signal discrimination loads memory and signal event rate is high. In the present study, discriminability over time was combined with various memory loads in a recognition memory experiment. Eight subjects were tested in two fifty-minute sessions, using 360 three-digit random numbers. A one-way ANOVA showed that the lag factor was significant for two parametric sensitivity measures. When the lag increased by five or more intervening numbers, a significant decrement in sensitivity was found. Below this level of memory load, no decrements in sensitivity were found.

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Effects of Task Loading and Time on Recognition Memory Performance

Abstract

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