Confusions in memory for tactile presentations of letters

Abstract

This investigation explored the possibility of a taetiie t\~ well as acoustic component for short-term memory by tactilely presenting groups of letters on subjects' backs. Letters varied in phonetic similarity and spatial location. Recall error rates were assessed according to Wickelgren's (1965) ordered, item, and position recall criteria. Spatial location showed no effect. High phonetic similarity produced more errors than low phonetic similarity by ordered and position recall criteria. This effect was attributed to translation to acoustic representations for storage in short-term memory. The results suggest that shape coding may also function along with acoustic coding as an additional strategy for aiding recall of tactilely presented letter sequences.

Linguistic encoding in short-term memory as a function of stimulus type

“…Much of the early research had posited that linguistic stimuli are phonologically encoded in STM, regardless of presentation mode (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968;Baddeley, 1966Baddeley, , 1976Conrad, 1962Conrad, , 1964Conrad, , 1972Craik, 1970;Crowder, 1976;Crowder & Morton, 1969;Hintzman, 1967;Hurley & Kamil, 1976;Neisser, 1967;Sperling, 1960Sperling, , 1963Sperling & Speelman, 1970). Besides the strong evidence for a phonological basis for encoding linguistic stimuli in STM, research has also indicated that other encoding bases are possible.…”