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A Psychophysiological Investigation of Short‐Term Memory
Author(s) -
Yuille John C.,
Hare Robert D.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1980.tb00178.x
Subject(s) - psychology , recall , noun , interference theory , audiology , recall test , heart rate , free recall , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , working memory , cognition , neuroscience , medicine , blood pressure , linguistics , philosophy
Palmar skin conductance (SC), heart rate (HR), blink rate (BR), and peripheral pulse amplitude (PA) were monitored during a short‐term memory (STM) task. Twenty male subjects were given 9 trials in which they were required to recall noun triads after 15 sec of interference (counting backwards). For half of the subjects (Nonshift group) all nouns in the experiment were from the same conceptual class, while the remaining subjects (Shift group) experienced two shifts in the taxonomic categories of the nouns, one on Trial 5 and another on Trial 9. There was a general decrease in recall performance over trials, the exceptions being an improvement in performance exhibited by the Shift group on Trials 5 and 9. The improved performance of the Shift group on Trial 5 was associated with marked HR deceleration during presentation of the nouns. Withinsubject comparisons revealed that during the 15‐sec interference period recall performance was associated with physiological responsivity, with larger increases in SC, HR, BR, and peripheral vasoconstriction occurring on the “best” recall trials than on the “worst” trials. The results were interpreted in terms of the role of attention and effort in mediating STM.