Organizing Factors and Immediate Memory Span

Abstract

In a series of four experiments, the processes used in decoding visual inputs were studied, with particular attention given to the influence of organizing factors in immediate memory span. In one experiment, the effect of variations in the number of alternatives per item of input was studied. In a second, the effect of different grouping procedures was evaluated. In a third, variations in internal organization of the input strings were introduced in order to show that recoding is more likely when naturally pronounceable units are available. The final experiment focused on the effect of prior knowledge of the length of the stimulus strings. The results confirmed the difficulty of applying informational measures to immediate memory span and the importance of other variables that influence the ability of Ss to recode complex inputs into more manageable units.