Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Psychology
Date of Award
6-1972
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
Physical Description
28 pages, 2 Figures
Subjects
Memory, Hearing, Vision
DOI
10.15760/etd.1557
Abstract
A probe-stimulus recognition technique was used to test hypothesized differences in visual and auditory sensory memory storage. Lists of alphabetical letters were presented visually or auditorially, each followed by a visual or auditory probe. Performance on the auditory lists was predicted to be better than on the visual lists. Moreover, auditory lists followed by a visual probe (AV) were expected to show a decrement in performance in comparison to auditory 1istaud~tory probe tasks (AA). Visual lists followed by an auditory probe (VA) were likewise expected to result in a decrement in performance in comparison to visual list-visual probe tasks (VV). An hypothesis of performance oydering in the form AA>AV>(VV,VA) was tested and supported. Delay periods of 1/2 and 2 1/2 seconds were used between presentation of the last item of the list and presentation of the probe. It was hypothesized that the shorter delay would substantially increase the probability of a correct response in the auditory list conditions as a function of the contribution of a pre-perceptual acoustic store. This hypothesis was also supported. Performance hypotheses in the form AA>AV and VV>VA for the 2 1/2 second delay were not confirmed. The possibility of rehearsal was cited. The results of this study support the memory models which distinguish between auditory and visual sensory stores with respect to length of decay. Information is made available longer from auditory sensory memory than from visual sensory memory and retrieval from these stores is facilitated when the probe item is in the same mode as the list.
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10634
Recommended Citation
Richardson, James Barr, "Auditory and Visual Sensory Stores: a Recognition Task" (1972). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1558.
https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1558
10.15760/etd.1557