Peterson and Peterson (1959)

• Peterson and Peterson (1959) - Brown-Peterson technique results

  Distraction task to prevent rehearsal of STM

  • 3s–90% remembered
  • 9s–70% was forgotten
  • 18s–90% forgotten

  These results suggest decay occurs in the STM over a period of 18-30 seconds if rehearsal is prevented supporting the rehearsal process of transfer to LTM. Thus supporting the MSM because the model suggests elaborate rehearsal is required for information to move into LTM. .
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) wanted to find out the duration of the STM. They believed that information was held in the STM for about 20 seconds, after this it faded if it was not rehearsed.
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) AIM:

  To investigate the duration of STM.
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) PROCEDURE:

  A lab experiment. Participants were presented with sets of trigrams , which they were asked to recall in order after a delay of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds. During the delay before recall participants were asked to complete an interference task to prevent rehearsal, they were asked to count backward by 3 (this is called the Brown-Peterson technique).
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) IV:

  Interference task number of seconds eg. 3,6,9,12,15 seconds.
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) DV:

  The number of trigrams correctly recalled after every trial.
• Peterson and Peterson used repeated measures design.