Effects of a Subsidiary Task on Short‐term Memory

Bibliographic Data

ID9620347
AuthorsBennet B Murdock (University of Missouri, corresponding author)
Year1965
Volume56
Issue4
Pages413-419
Publication date1965-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1269 • E-ISSN: 2044-8295
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.2044-8295.1965.tb00983.x
OpenAlexW1968534318
LanguageEN
Citations received17

If there is a limited‐capacity mechanism in STM then introducing a concurrent subsidiary task should adversely affect recall. Two experiments on free recall were conducted with card sorting as the subsidiary task. In the first experiment subjects dealt cards into one pile, into two piles by colour, or into four piles by suit while lists of common English words were being read. Subjects sorted cards only during presentation of the lists. As the subsidiary task became more demanding the number of words correctly recalled decreased. In the second experiment sorting by suit was combined with free recall, and the payoffs (relative importance of the two tasks) were varied. Performance on both the recall and the card sorting tasks deteriorated as the other task was stressed. Differences in recall could not easily be attributed to differences in original learning, and the results suggested that the subsidiary task interfered with rehearsal and/or decreased total presentation time for free recall

Affect (linguistics) · Cognitive psychology · Free recall · Presentation (obstetrics) · Recall · Recall test · Serial position effect · Sorting · Task (project management) · Communication · Computer Science · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Social Psychology

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