The Effect of Instructional Set and Intertrial Activity on Retention in a Short-Term Memory Task

Abstract

These experiments investigated the effects of intertrial activity and instructional set on recall of consonant trigram stimuli in a short-term memory task. Subjects either: (a) sat silently during the intertrial interval; (b) overtly rehearsed the prior item during the intertrial interval; (c) overtly rehearsed the prior item under a set that they were to recall all items; (d) were given the set and engaged in a neutral counting activity during the intertrial interval; (e) counted during the intertrial interval with no set. Overt rehearsal and set, singly and togther, depressed recall over a 3- and 18-sec retention interval and largely eliminated differences in recall between the two intervals. Counting during the intertrial interval depressed recall of the initial and middle items.