Memory span: Sources of individual and developmental differences.

Abstract

Ten possible sources of individual and developmental differences in memory span—rehearsal, grouping, chunking, retrieval strategies, item identification, item ordering, capacity, susceptibility to interference, search rate, and the ouput buffer—arc examined, drawing on existing research, Considerable evidence suggests that the speed with which presented items can be identified is a major source of both individual and developmental differences in span, By contrast, there is no conclusive evidence that any of the other possibilities examined, including those traditionally associated with span differences (rehearsal, grouping, chunking, and overall information-processing capacity) contributes to variations in span. Speed of item identification differences are discussed in terms of processing efficiency or the capacity needed to activate appropriate perceptual/ cognitive units and linguistic programs. Educational implications and the modifiability of processing efficiency are discussed. The first recorded experiments on memory span were conducted by Ebbinghaus in 1885 (published in 1913) in his pioneering application of the scientific method to the study of the higher mental processes. These experiments grew out of his investigation of the functional relation between the ease of learning a series and its length. Ebbinghaus found that the maximum number of items he could reproduce perfectly immediately following a single presentation—his span1— was generally seven, with remarkably few exceptions. Other studies fashioned after Ebbinghaus's procedures followed soon thereafter, and in the first review of the memory literature (Burnham, 1888-1889), several pages (607-609) were devoted almost exclusively

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