Effects of controlled coding cues in short-term memory.

Abstract

3 experiments investigated the effects of the presence or absence of receding and decoding cues on short-terra memory (STM) for 3-letter items. The retention intervals were 3, 13, 39 sec. in Experiments I and II; 3, 12, 36 sec. in Experiment III. The Ss were 36 men and women in Experiment I, 24 in Experiment II, 30 in Experiment III. The results were (a) that receding cues facilitated STM with low meaningfulness but interfered with STM with high meaningfulness (p < .01), (b) decoding cues facilitated STM with low meaningfulness (p < .01).

Free learning as a function of meaningfulness and encoding cues

“…but when a wider range of M was employed (Experiment II), encoding cues tended to increase LM acquisition and decrease HM acquisition. Essentially these same results have been found in short-term memory for individual items by Lindley (1963) who found that encoding cues increased recall of LM trigrams but slightly decreased recall of three letter words.…”

“…Thus, presentation of an encoding cue may decrease recall of a HM item. Evidence for this interpretation in short-term memory has been obtained by Lindley (1963 who found an inverse relationship between M and facilitation due to encoding cues. The present experiments study the effects of M and encoding cues in free learning.…”

The effect of a coding cue on verbal discrimination learning

“…It has been found that giving S a coding cue along with a trigram facilitates short-term memory of that trigram (Lindley, 1963;Schaub & Lindley, 1964;Lindley & Nedler, 1965). Thus, giving S the word "view" helped S to remember VUJ.…”

Possibilities as limitations: A study of the scientific uptake and moulding of G.A. Miller’s metaphor of chunk

“…Chunk as being in the material-the analyst's concern. Lindley (1963) performed an experiment in which he studied "the effects of the presence or absence of recoding and decoding cues on short-term memory (STM) for 3-letter items" (p. 580). These procedures are said to enable the participant to recode items into a larger "chunk" of information.…”

“…In Lindley's (1963) article we can see how meaning enters and becomes an issue in memory research. Meaning is here taken as being in the stimulus material as such (to different degrees).…”