Types Of Sensory Memory

 

Whole Report Method

The experiment first started in 1960, it is also called the Whole Report Method. This experiment was an experiment to invest your sensory memory. In this, letters were shown to the participants in the form of rows. You can see there are three rows and each has four letters. Letters were presented in this way in front of participants and this experiment was done in a very short time. For 1/20 of a second this experiment was done. After presenting it 1/20 of the second picture was hidden and participants were asked to report how many letters you saw. Its result was that the participants were able to report only 4 to 5 letters out of 12.

When asked by the participants, they said that we saw all the letters but we could not report all. When our reporting time started, these letters disappeared from our memory within a second.

So somewhere that is the capacity of our Iconic memory is very less.

George Sperling

George Sparling did another experiment called the Partial Report Method. In this he healed a little but all the experiment was almost the same like letters and rows.

Partial Report Method

What did George change in that he introduced the tone in it and he flashed these letters for a short time then the screen was blanked. After the screen was blanked, he introduced tones, which was High Tone, Medium Tone and Low Tone.

When participants heard the high tone, they had to report the bottom row, when they heard the medium tone they had to report the middle row and same when they heard the low tone they had to report the top row.

The result was that those who were participants reported only three letters per row. So almost 9 to 10 letters were reported in this experiment by them.

But why did it happen, why were they able to report more letters in this experiment?

This happened because when participants heard that tone, those letters were active in their visual memory.

Interval was very small between letters and tone. Their brain concentrated on the indicated row after hearing the tone and replay in mind and that’s why it's taken time to fade their memory.

2. Echoic Memory

When you go to a hill station and say your name in the open space, then that sound is heard back to you for a short time in the terms of echo, that is Echoic Memory which is for a short time. It is used by the auditory system.

So Iconic Memory was talking about pictures and Echoic Memory is talking about sound.

Capable of holding a large amount of auditory information and lasts for 3 to 4 seconds.

Its retention time is more than Iconic Memory.

But why this difference?

Because when we see a picture, we can see it for a long time and this creates a confusion in our brain. But when we hear a sound, we get to hear it once and our brain cells save that sound in our memory without any confusion. That’s why Echoic Memory saves information for more time than Iconic Memory.

And our mind also programs in such a way that we need this Echoic Memory, we need a sound device. Our brain takes some time to save audio information and it stays in our mind for a long time.