The span of apprehension: Form Identification as a function of amount of information displayed

Observers were asked to identify each member of a brief display of geometrie forms. The information content of the displays was manipulated by varying the number of forms displayed and the number of relevant dimensions of each form. The main findings were: (a) Performance was approximately invariant with the number of forms displayed and depended to a minor degree upon the relevant information in each form. (b) Serial-position curves were obtained that had a strong primacy effect, (c) The number of correct identifications per trial was approximately normally distributed, with greater variance than if the forms were independentlyidentified.These findings are discussed in relation to both “coding rate” and “memory capacity” models of immediate visual memory. Neither model accounts for the data. Undetermined organizational factors are suggested to play a role in immediate visual memory. This task appears to depend upon form Identification processes different from those indicated by RT measures.

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