Three experiments examined the immediate free recall (IFR) of auditory-verbal and visuospatial materials from single-modality and dual-modality lists. In Experiment 1, we presented participants with between 1 and 16 spoken words, with between 1 and 16 visuospatial dot locations, or with between 1 and 16 words "and" dots with synchronized…

The role of memory in behavioral distraction by auditory attentional capture was investigated: We examined whether capture is a product of the novelty of the capturing event (i.e., the absence of a recent memory for the event) or its violation of learned expectancies on the basis of a memory for an event structure. Attentional capture--indicated…

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the effects of to-be-remembered (TBR) and intervening list length on free recall to determine whether selective rehearsal could explain the previous finding that recall was affected only by TBR list length. In Experiments 1 (covert rehearsal) and 2 (overt rehearsal), participants saw 5- and 20-word lists…

The buffer model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin gives a valid measure of primary-memory capacity (i.e., the estimate is close to the true value), a property lacking in both the original Waugh and Norman method and Watkins' modifications of that method. (Author/PN)