Practice Passage Test - 14 | Practice Passages for MCAT PDF Download

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Dr. George Sperling conducted an experiment in 1960 to study information processing and the phenomenon of iconic memory. In the experiment, participants were shown a brief display of letters arranged in a 4x3 grid on a screen for less than a second. When asked to recall the letters, most participants could only remember the first few letters. 

To further investigate the limitations of memory, Dr. Sperling introduced a new condition where participants were instructed to recall only one row of letters based on a specific tone they heard after the image disappeared. Interestingly, when the tone was played immediately after the display, participants were able to recall all the letters in the indicated row. This discovery revealed the existence of iconic memory, a visual form of sensory memory that briefly holds visual information. In addition to iconic memory, there is also auditory sensory memory, known as echoic memory, which lasts for several seconds. The processing of information involves different stages, including sensory memory, working memory, and various components such as the visuospatial sketchpad, the phonological loop, and the central executive, which work together to handle visual and auditory information and coordinate cognitive tasks.