Experiment 4

Title:

Memory Span for digit

Problem Statement

To study the forward and backward memory span for digit

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to test the memory span for digits. A 22 years old student

of Graduation served as a subject in the experiment. A list of digits was used to conduct the

experiment. Experiment was conducted in 2 phases. Subject had to respond to the correct

sequence of digits. It was hypothesized that auditory memory span is larger for forward digits

than the auditory memory span for backward digits and also that visual memory span is larger

than auditory memory span. Results supported the hypothesis since the calculated value of

auditory memory span for forward digits was 06 and for backward digits was 05 while calculated

value of visual memory span for forward digits was 07 and for backward digits was 06.
Introduction

Memory

According to Baron (1995), “Memory is the capacity to retain and later retrieve

information”. Memory is the process of maintaining information over time (Matlin, 2005).

According to Sherwood (2015), memory is vital to experiences and related to limbic systems; it

is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. According

to a classical definition, memory is the faculty of the mind by which information is encoded,

stored, and retrieved (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968).

Types of memory

According to Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), there are three types of memory; Sensory

Memory, Short-term Memory, Long-term Memory.

Sensory Memory

Sensory memory preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time,

usually only a fraction of a second.Sensory memory allows the sensation of a visual pattern,

sound, or touch to linger for a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over. This brevity

was demonstrated in a classic experiment by George Sperling (1960). His subjects saw three

rows of letters flashed on a screen for just 1/20 of a second. A tone following the exposure

signaled which row of letters the subject should report to the experimenter Subjects were fairly

accurate when the signal occurred immediately. However, their accuracy steadily declined as the
delay of the tone increased to one second. Why? Because memory traces in the sensory store

decay in about ¼ of a second (Massaro& Loftus, 1996).

Short-term memory

Short-term memory (STM) is a limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed

information for about 10–20 seconds. Without rehearsal, information in short-term memory is

lost in 10 to 20 seconds (Nairne, 2003).Thisrapid loss was demonstrated in a study by Peterson

and Peterson (1959). They measured how long under graduates could remember three

consonants if they couldn’t rehearse them. To prevent rehearsal, the Petersons required the

students to count backward by threes from the time the consonants were presented until they saw

a light that signaled the recall test. Their results showed that subjects’ recall accuracy was pretty

dismal (about 10%) after only 15 seconds. The small capacity of STM was pointed out by

George Miller (1956) in a famous paper called “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus

Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Miller noticed that people

could recall only about seven items in tasks that required the use of STM. When short-term

memory is filled to capacity, the insertion of new information “bumps out” some of the

information currently in STM.

Long-term memory

Long-term memory (LTM) is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over

lengthy periods of time. Unlike sensory memory and short-term memory, which have very brief

storage durations, LTM can store information indefinitely. Infact, one point of view is that all
information stored in long-term memory is stored there permanently. According to this view,

forgetting occurs only because people sometimes cannot retrieve needed information from LTM.

This model of memory as a sequence of three stages, from sensory to short-term to long-

term memory, rather than as a unitary process, is known as the modal or multi-score or Atkinson-

Shiffrin model, after Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin who developed it in 1968, and it

remains the most popular model for studying the memory.

Auditory memory

Echoic memory or auditory memory is one of the sensory memory registers; a component

of sensory memory (SM) that is specific to retaining auditory information. The sensory memory

for sounds that people have just perceived is the form of echoic memory (Carlson & Neil, 2010).

Auditory stimuli are received by the ear one at a time before they can be processed and

understood. For instance, hearing the radio is very different from reading a magazine. A person

can only hear the radio once at a given time, while the magazine can be read over and over again.

It can be said that the echoic memory is like a “holding tank” concept, because a sound is

unprocessed (or held back) until the following sound is heard, and only then can it be made

meaningful (Clark & Terry, 1987). This particular sensory store is capable of storing large

amounts of auditory information that is only retained for a short period of time (3-4 seconds).

This echoic sound resonates in the mind and is replayed for this brief amount of time shortly

after the presentation of auditory stimuli (Radvansky & Gabriel, 2005). Echoic memory encrypts

only moderately primitive aspects of the stimuli, for example pitch, which specifies localization

to the non-association brain regions (Strous, Cowan, Ritter & Javin, 1995).

Visual memory
 Visual memory for scenes is surprisingly robust. We wished to examine whether an

analogous ability exists in the auditory domain. In every situation, however, auditory memory

proved to be systematically inferior to visual memory. This suggests that there exists either a

fundamental difference between auditory and visual stimuli, or, more plausibly, an asymmetry

between auditory and visual processing (Michael Cohen 2009).

Memory Span

Functionally, memory span is to measure the number of discrete units over which the

individual can successively distribute his attention and still organize them into a working unit.

To generalize, it refers to the ability of an individual to reproduce immediately, after one

presentation, after one presentation, a series of discrete stimuli in their original order

(Blakenship, 1938). A digit-span task is used to measure working memory’s number storage

capacity. Participants see or hear a sequence of numerical digits and are tasked to recall the

sequence correctly, with increasingly longer sequences being tested in each trial. The

participant’s span is the longest number of sequential digits that can accurately be remembered.

Digit-span tasks can be given forwards or backwards, meaning that once the sequence is

presented, the participant is asked to either recall the sequence in normal or reverse order (Soylu,

Firat, 2010).

Measures of forward and backward digit span (DS) are among the oldest and most widely

used neuropsychological tests of short-term verbal memory (Richardson, 2007). For decades
they have been a component of the widely used Wechsler memory scales (WMS) and Wechsler

intelligence scales for adults and children (Wechsler, 1997a, 1997b).

Methodology

Hypothesis

H1: Auditory memory span is larger for forward digits than the auditory memory span for

backward digits.

H2: Visual memory span is larger than the auditory memory span.

Independent variable (I.V.)

Sequence of digits

Dependent variable (D.V.)

Auditory memory span

Subject/ Participant

The participant was a 22 years old female and she was a student of graduation.

Instruments

Lists of digits, copy, pencil, and eraser.

Instructions

Following instructions were given to subject:

I will speak some digits and you have to recall them with the same sequence for forward

digits and for backward digits you have to recall the digits backwardly. There is no repetition of

digits they are told by me, so carefully hear the digits. You have only one chance and there is

only one trial for each phase of forward and backward span of digits. The trial will be closed

once a wrong answer is made by you. After completing the auditory phase we will move towards

visual phase in which I will show you some digits one by one and each for two seconds, so
carefully look and memorize those digits. You have only one chance and there is only one trial

for each phase of forward and backward span of digits. The trial will be closed once a wrong

answer is made by you.

Procedure

The subject was seated on a comfortable chair. The room was well-lit and sound proof.

Prior to initiating the procedure, rapport was built with the participant. He was allowed to share

his apprehensions, if any, with the experimenter. The instructions were given to him. The

experiment was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the participant was asked to listen

the sequence of digits and repeat immediately in the same way i.e. forward manner, this

procedure took 5 trials. The procedure had to be stopped on the sequence where he made even a

single error in repeating the digit sequence.

In the second phase, the participant was asked to listen the sequence of digits and repeat

immediately in the backward manner, this procedure took 3 trials. The procedure had to be

stopped on the sequence where he made even a single error in repeating the digit sequence.

Same procedure was taken for visual memory span. Scores for both phases were noted

and the results of both phases were shown in tables. The subject was thanked and his experience

which was shared by the subject was also written.

Verbal report

The verbal report of the participant about his experience during the experiment was as

follows “I was sitting in laboratory of psychology. The atmosphere was very good and I was

feeling very comfortable. I was told the purpose of the experiment and necessary instructions

were given to me, and the instructions were repeated when I asked to repeat. The experiment
seemed to me very interesting and easy. I completed the experiment and it was the best

experience. In the end of experiment, results were shown to me and I was thanked”.

Results

Table: 1 Forward phase auditory memory span

Trials Length Stimulus Response Score

1 3 6,2,8 6,2,8 01
2 4 2,6,8,7 2,6,8,7 01
3 5 5,3,9,6,0 5,3,9,6,0 01
4 6 9,0,7,4,9,1 9,0,7,4,9,1 01
5 7 7,1,8,6,0,2,5 00
6 8 1,8,4,6,0,3,5,2 00

7 9 8,0,7,1,6,9,3,2,4 00
8 10 4,9,1,5,0,3,6,2,8,7 00
Total 8 04

Table: 2 Backward phase auditory memory span

Trials Length Stimulus Response Score

1 3 3,9,8 8,9,3 01
2 4 4,1,2,7 7,2,1,4 01
3 5 5,6,0,3,4 4,3,0,6,5 01
 4 6 7,1,5,8,0,2 00
5 7 6,3,1,5,2,4,8 00
Total 05 03

Table: 3 Forward phase visual memory span for digits

Trials Length Stimulus Response Score

1 3 2,5,7 2,5,7 01
2 4 3,8,2,0 3,8,2,0 01
3 5 4,1,6,7,5 4,1,6,7,5 01
4 6 5,3,9,2,1,7 5,3,9,2,1,7 01
5 7 6,3,1,7,5,8,4 6,3,1,7,5,8,4 01
6 8 7,2,5,9,4,1,3,0 00

7 9 8,3,1,0,4,7,9,5,2 00
8 10 4,0,6,7,6,9,5,8,1,0 00
Total 8 5

Table: 4 Backward phase of visual memory span for digits

Trials Length Stimulus Response Score

1 3 4,1,2 2,1,4 01
 2 4 2,7,3,8 8,3,7,2 01
3 5 3,0,2,9,6 6,9,2,0,3 01
4 6 5,6,5,2,1,3 3,1,3,5,6,5 01
5 7 8,7,3,9,4,2,1 00
Total 5 04

Table 5

The comparison of both variables

Phases Scores
Auditory forward digit span 04
Auditory backward digit span 03
Visual forward digit span 05
Visual backward digit span 04

Discussion

The experiment was conducted to compare the forward auditory memory span with

backward auditory memory span. The hypothesis of the study was “Auditory memory span for

forward digit span is larger than auditory memory span for backward digit”. The results of the

experiment supported the hypotheses. The difference between forward and backward digit score

can be explained in the light of the existing literature.

According to previous experimental investigations, both forward and backward recall

employs short-term phonological storage (i.e. short-term memory). However, backward recall is

also considered to require an attention demanding transformation of the digit sequence, thus

classifying this task as a complex span measure of working memory(Alloway, Gathercole, &
Pickering, 2006; The Psychological Corporation, 2002). Consistent with this suggestion, studies

have revealed that backward recall loads onto the same factor as working memory measures such

as counting span and listening span, whereas forward recall loads onto a separable short-term

memory factor (Alloway et al., 2006; Alloway, Gathercole, Willis, & Adams, 2004; Gathercole,

Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004). Backward digit recall has also been found to be more

sensitive to the effects of aging and brain dysfunction than forward digit recall (The

Psychological Corporation, 2002), with this often attributed to the involvement of executive

control (Reynolds, 1997).

The results supported the hypothesis that the visual memory span is larger and greater

than the auditory visual span. There are several possible explanations for the poor performance

on this auditory memory task. It could be that the remarkable ability to rapidly encode and

remember meaningful stimuli is a feature of visual processing. Alternatively, these might have

been the wrong sounds. A particular stimulus set might yield poor performance for a variety of

reasons. Perhaps the perceptual quality was poor; for example, many of our stimuli were

recorded monaurally but played over headphones. It is also possible that the sound clips were too

closely clustered in the stimulus space for observers to distinguish between them. Or the stimuli

might simply be the wrong sort of auditory stimuli for reasons unknown.

It is clear from these results that auditory recognition memory performance is markedly

inferior to visual recognition memory on this task.

References
Alloway TP, Gathercole SE, Pickering SJ (2004). The Automated Working Memory

Assessment. Test battery available from authors.

Alloway TP, Gathercole SE, Pickering SJ (in press). Verbal and visual spatial short-term and

working memory in children: Are they separable? Child Development.

Atkinson, R. C. and Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control

processes. In the psychology of learning and motivation: II Oxford, England: Academic

Press. Doi: 10.1016/S0079-7421(8)60422-3

Carlson and Neil, R. (2010). Psychology the science of behavior. Pearson Canada Inc. p.233.

ISBN 9780205645244

Clarke and Terry (1987). “ECHOIC MEMORY EXPLORED AND APPLIED”. Journal of

consumer marketing, 4(1): 39-46. Doi: 10.1108/eb008187. ISSN 0736-3761.

inferior to visual recognition memory.  2009 Mar 23. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0811884106

Massaro, D. W., & Loftus, G. R. (1996). Sensory and perceptual storage: Data and theory. In

E. L. Bjork & R. A. Bjork (Eds.), Memory. San Diego: Academic Press.

Matlin, M. W. (2005). Cognition. Crawfordswille: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Michael A. Cohen, Todd S. Horowitz, and Jeremy M. Wolfe. Auditory recognition memory is

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our

capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63,81–97.

Nairne, J. S. (2003). Sensory and working memory. In A. F. Healy & R. W. Proctor (Eds.),

Handbook ofpsychology, Vol. 4: Experimental psychology. New York: Wiley.

Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items.

Journal ofExperimental Psychology, 58, 193–198.

Radvansky, Gabriel (2005). Human Memory. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. pp. 65-75. ISBN
 978-0- 205-45760-1.

Soylu and Firat (2010). Forward/ Backward Digit-Span Task. Archives of Neurobehavioral

Experiments and Stimuli: 218. (2010)

Sperling, G. (1960). The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological

Monographs,74(11, Whole No. 498).

Sternberg, R. J. (1999). Cognitive Psychology (2nd Edition). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace

College Publishers.

Strous, R. D., Cowan, N., Ritter, W., and Javitt, D. C. (October, 1995). “Auditory

sensory(“echoic”) memory dysfunction in schizophrenia”. Am J Psychiatry, 152(10):

1517-9. Doi: 10. 1176/ajp.152.10.1517. PMID 7573594.