Information,Similarity and Vocalization in Short-Term Recognition Memory for Numbers

Abstract

32 men and 32 women were given a memory-recognition task involving either quinary or decimal numbers. One half of Ss in each group vocalized the presented items, while the other half read them silently. The design was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial. Quinary numbers resulted in a greater number of errors of omission and commission than did decimal numbers. Vocalization resulted in greater number of errors of commission in women but the difference did not occur with errors of omission. Recognition was discussed in terms of the amount of transmitted information. The difference in transmitted information between quinary and decimal numbers was analyzed into components accruing from the difference in the number of bits per item and from the difference in the formal interitem similarity.