Sperling's Experiment and Sensory Memory

In Sperling’s experiment he showed people arrays of letters for a very short period of time and asked them to report what they saw. What conclusion did Sperling learn from the immediate partial report method?

• a. Sensory memory can capture a very limited amount of perceptual experience, but it lasts for a very long time

• b. Sensory memory can capture most of perceptual experience, but only it only lasts for a brief amount of time, which can limit how much is recalled

• c. Since people remembered the same proportion of letters in the whole report and partial report methods, hearing the sounds during learning must not help memory

• d. People did better in the whole report method because it’s easier to recall more letters at once

• e. I don’t know

In Sperling’s experiment he showed people arrays of letters for a very short period of time and asked them to report what they saw. What conclusion did Sperling learn from the immediate partial report method?

• Sensory memory can capture a very limited amount of perceptual experience, but it lasts for a very long time

• Sensory memory can capture most of perceptual experience, but only it only lasts for a brief amount of time, which can limit how much is recalled

• Since people remembered the same proportion of letters in the whole report and partial report methods, hearing the sounds during learning must not help memory

• People did better in the whole report method because it’s easier to recall more letters at once

According to Sperling’s experiment on sensory memory, what is the Whole report method?

• Reporting as many letters as possible from 12 shown at once

• Reporting only one row of letters as cued by tone

• Reporting letters after a delay

• Reporting only the first letter seen

In the Partial report method of Sperling’s experiment, how many letters could participants typically recall from a cued row?

• 1 letter

• 2 letters

• 3-4 letters

• 12 letters

Fill in the blank: In the Delayed partial report method, participants could remember a maximum of ___ second(s) after the letters disappeared.

• 1

• 2

• 5

• 10

In Sperling’s Whole report method, participants could remember all 12 letters shown at once.

• True

• False

In this example, you are relying on multiple components of working memory. Your friend’s directions would be processed by the ______________.

In this example, you are relying on multiple components of working memory. Your mental image of the route is processed by the ______________.

In this example, you are relying on multiple components of working memory. Your ability to coordinate these different sets of information while tuning out the irrelevant sounds from the radio depends on the ______________.

• Central executive

• Phonological loop

• Visuospatial sketchpad

• Episodic buffer

What are the three main components of the Baddeley model of working memory?

• Phonological loop, Central executive, Visuospatial sketch pad

• Sensory memory, Short-term memory, Long-term memory

• Episodic buffer, Semantic memory, Procedural memory

• Visual memory, Auditory memory, Motor memory