Morphological Coding in Short-Term Memory

Abstract

Ss learned lists made up of morphologically distinct blocks of items. In a control condition, items were interleaved. Block presentation increased recall above the baseline. Each added block lowered recall of the preceding block but yielded a net gain. Retroactive loss was greatest on the terminal item and did not extend back more than one block. The findings were discussed in terms of three views of short-term memory (interference theory, decay theory, and a trace diffusion model).