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Abstract
Five experiments are described concerning verbal short-term memory performance of a patient who has a very markedly reduced verbal span. The results of the first three, free recall, the Peterson procedure and an investigation of proactive interference, indicate that he has a greatly reduced short-term memory capacity, while the last two, probe recognition and missing scan, show that this.
Although Tzeng (1973) and Bjork and Whitten (1974) have obtained positive recency effects in free recall using a procedure designed to eliminate any component of short-term storage, their procedures may not have truly cleared short-term storage. In the present experiment, subjects were presented with four lists for free recall, each list composed of seven sets of noun triples. Presentation was either visual or auditory, and subjects counted backward by sevens before and after each item. Even with short-term storage thus cleared, recency effects were obtained equally for both modalities. No effect of serial position was found in a final test of free recall.