Memory- Sterling 1970 sensory register

what did sperling investigate in 1970?

Sperling conducted a study in 1970 to investigate the capacity of the sensory register in sensory memory.

What method did Sperling use?

A laboratory experiment using a 4 by 3 grid of letters, shown for 50 milliseconds, followed by an immediate recall test.

What were the two conditions in Sperling's experiment?

First condition - participants recalled as many letters from the whole grid as possible.

Second condition - participants recalled letters from only one row, but were told which row to recall after seeing the grid.

What were the results of Sperling's experiment in the first and second condition?

Participants recalled 4-5 letters from the whole grid.

Participants recalled just 3 letters, but this was impressive because they did not know in advance which row they would need to recall.

Why do Sperling's results in the second condition suggest the capacity of the sensory register is large?

Because participants could recall almost the entire row without knowing in advance which row it would be, suggesting they had briefly stored information from all three rows.

Why did participants in the first condition only recall up to 5 letters, despite the large capacity of the sensory register?

It was not due to limited capacity, but because of the short duration - by the time participants recalled the letters out loud, they had forgotten the rest.

What did Sperling's experiment demonstrate about the sensory register?

Sperling showed that we have a very short-term store called the sensory register that enables us to recall sensory information from the outside world immediately after we process it.

What are the characteristics of the sensory register according to Sperling?

It has a quite large capacity

But information is stored for a very short duration, so we lose most of it before we can finish recalling it