Peterson and Peterson

1959
Objectives
⚫ Discuss the background of the study.
⚫ Describe the study using the APRF framework.
⚫ Assess the study in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
Success Criteria
⚫ Explore the background of the study.
⚫ State the aim, procedure, result and findings of the study.
⚫ Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the study.
Background of the Study
⚫ Lloyd and Margaret Peterson were interested in the
relationship between acquisition, repetition and retention.
They observe that in learning verbal material for example,
repetition during acquisition was needed for retention.
However they also noted that previous studies had not
tested the effect of repetition within the time span
available for acquisition.
⚫ In other words nobody had looked at the effect of
rereading or repeating stimuli when they are being learned
on later ability to remember them. They therefore
measured how well items were retrieved after different
length delays before recall. They also investigated the
effects of varying the opportunity for rehearsal. Their
findings were subsequently used to indicate the duration
of short-term memory.
APRC of the study
⚫ Aim: To investigate the duration of short-term memory, and
provide empirical evidence for the multi-store model.
⚫ Procedure: A lab experiment was conducted in which 24
participants (psychology students) had to recall trigrams
(meaningless three-consonant syllables, e.g. TGH). To prevent
rehearsal participants were asked to count backwards in threes
or fours from a specified random number until they saw a red
light appear. This is known as the brown peterson technique.
Participants were asked to recall trigrams after intervals of 3, 6,
9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds.
⚫ Findings: The longer the interval delay the less trigrams
were recalled. Participants were able to recall 80% of
trigrams after a 3 seconds delay. However, after 18
seconds less than 10% of trigrams were recalled correctly.
⚫ Conclusion: Short-term memory has a limited duration
when rehearsal is prevented. It is thought that this
information is lost from short-term memory from trace
decay. The results of the study also show the short-term
memoryis different from long-term memory in terms of
duration. Thus supporting the multi-store model of
memory.
Think Pair Share
List down the strengths and weaknesses of the study
 Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Advantages Disadvantages
•Supports the Multi Store Model of •It has sample bias. Only 24
Memory. They found that the longer students were used which means
the period of time between trigrams that it is unrepresentative so it
being presented and recall the less cannot be generalised to the wider
that was remembered population

•It has high internal validity. It was a

lab experiment so there was a •It lacks ecological validity. It used
standardised procedure and a high an artificial environment and lacks
level of control over the variables. realism. It was not representative of
This means it is easily replicable an everyday situation. Participants
and the consistency of the data can may not behave normally so their
be tested and extraneous variables behaviour is unrepresentative so
have been minimised the results cannot be generalised
Application
⚫ Suggest one reason why recall might have been better in
the vocal condition in experiment 2 compared to the silent
condition.
⚫ Suggest one reason why recall in the silent condition in
experiment 2 was more variable than the recall in the
vocal condition.
Evaluation
⚫ What made this experiment reliable and valid?
⚫ What are the strengths and weaknesses of the study?
⚫ In what way the study is useful to us.
Homework
⚫ Answer the situation under apply it on pp. 44 in your
notebook
⚫ Write a summary of the lesson in your notebook.