Spatial working memory score of humans in a large radial maze, similar to published score of rats, implies capacity close to the magical number 7 ± 2

Abstract

To compare the working memory (WM) capacity of humans to rats, we tested humans with a 17-arm radial maze and, in a follow up experiment, with a 13-arm radial maze. Both mazes were 15.2 meters in diameter, painted on a grassy field. In one version of the 13-arm experiment, we required a concurrent nonsense vocalization to impede subjects' use of language to remember locations. Subjects were instructed to choose arms of the radial maze unsystematically—as rats generally appear to do—and to visit the end of each arm only once. In additional procedures, we tested working memory capacity in a verbal task that is more analogous to the radial maze than is the typical ordered recall test. Subjects were asked to try to recite a sequence of 17 numbers (i.e., 18 through 34) or letters (A through Q) in unsystematic order, with no repeats. In another experiment subjects recited 13 numbers (14–26) or letters (A-M). In all tests, subjects were allowed only as many responses as there were distinct items (17 or 13, respectively). Average correct-response (nonrepeat) scores were 14.4 for the 17-arm maze and 14.1 for both of the verbal 17-item tests; these scores are close to the reported score for rats in a 17-arm radial maze. Average scores were between 10.8 and 11.4 in all of the 13-item maze and recitation tasks. When a simple mathematical model is used to take the probability of guesses into account, all these empirical results correspond to a reliable memory capacity that is near the high end of the range of the classical magical number 7 ± 2 for the number of items that can be stored in short-term memory (STM).