Research in psychology: Miller's Magic Number 7 (1956)

The Multi Store Model argues that STM is limited in both capacity and duration - that is, there is a limited amount of
information that can be held in STM for a limited amount of time.
After running tests to see how many numbers an individual can recall in a sequence of numbers, Miller (1956)
proposed the "Magic Number 7" - plus or minus two. According to Miller, the average memory span is between 5
and 9 items. Think about numbers that we are asked to remember - zip codes, passport numbers, social security
numbers, telephone numbers - and you will see that they fall between 5 and 9 numbers. There is a psychological
reason for this.
Numbers are one thing, but is all information the same? Does it all fit in these 9 "slots?"
Cowan (2010) argues that Miller's magic number 7 may be overly optimistic. In the original task, Miller's participants
were asked to memorize a string of numbers, each time increase by one digit. So, they were asked to memorize
something like this:

 437
 6984
 25851
 319025

And so on. But Cowan argues that this type of task sets the participant up to employ "processing strategies" that do
not reflect how we actually use our short-term memory on a day to day basis.
Instead, Cowan had participants recall a "running span procedure" - that is, they listened to a list of numbers but
they did not know in advance how long the list would be. He found that participants recalled a range of 3 - 5 digits,
not 5 to 9.
Cowan's findings are supported by biological research. fMRIs have shown that the parietal cortex of the brain plays
a key role in short-term (working) memory. Brain scans indicate that activity in the parietal cortext correlates with
STM capacity - where activity increases with every additional number that needs to be recalled, until four
digits. Then activity in this part of the brain levels out. (Vogel and Machizawa, 2004).
This is a good example of the problem of using artificial procedures in laboratory experiments. The original research
by Miller had low ecological validity - and today research challenges the belief that STM memory can hold up to 9
digits. How many of you cannot remember your telephone number?

Research in psychology: Landry and Bartling (2011)

Landry and Bartling (2011) conducted an experiment using articulatory suppression to test the Working Memory
Model. The aim was to investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a written list of phonologically
dissimilar letters in serial recall. The experiment used independent designs with two groups: a control group that
performed no concurrent task while memorizing a list and an experimental group, which performed the concurrent
task of articulatory suppression while memorizing a list. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two
conditions. The hypothesis was that the accuracy of serial recall would be higher in the control group compared to
the experimental group. The participants consisted of thirty-four undergraduate psychology students.

Procedure
The participants were tested individually. In the experimental group, participants first saw a list of letters that they
had to recall while saying the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second (the articulatory suppression
task). The control group saw the list of letters but did not engage in an articulatory suppression task.
There were ten lists each consisting of a series of 7 letters randomly constructed from the letters F,K,L,M, R, X and
Q. These letters were chosen because they don't sound similar. The experimenter presented one letter series at a
time. The participants received an answer sheet with seven blanks in each row. Before the experiment started, each
participant viewed one practice list in order to become acquainted with the procedure.
In the control group, the experimenter showed participants a printed list for five seconds, instructed them to wait for
another five seconds, and then instructed them to write the correct order of the letters on the answer sheet as
accurately as possible. This was repeated ten times. In the experimental group, participants received instructions to
repeatedly say the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second from the time of presentation of the list
until the time they filled the answer sheet. This was also repeated ten times. Each trial was scored for accuracy of
recall. The trial was scored as correct if the letters were in the correct position. The experimenter then calculated the
average percent correct recall for both groups.

Results
The results showed that the scores from the experimental group were much lower than the scores from the control
group. The mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was 76% compared to a mean of 45% in the
experimental group. Although the difference in the means was large, the standard deviations were nearly identical
with SD = 0.13 for the control group and SD = 0.14 for the experimental group. A T-test was calculated and found a
significant difference of p < 0.01.
The results supported the experimental hypothesis as the mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was
higher than the mean percent of accurate recall in the experimental group and the t-test showed that the results are
significant at p < 0.01. The data seems to support the prediction of the Working Memory Model that disruption of the
phonological loop through the use of articulatory suppression results in less accurate working memory. In line with
the model's prediction, articulatory suppression is preventing rehearsal in the phonological loop because of
overload. This resulted in difficulty in memorizing the letter strings for participants in the experimental conditions
whereas the participants in the control condition did not experience such overload. This experiment is asking
participants to remember strings of random letters in order to test a specific part of the working memory and it can
be argued that although this does not resemble a task that you would do in your everyday life. However, it could
resemble what is happening during multi-tasking - for example, when you are trying to study for a psychology test
while at the same time talking to a friend on the phone.

Research in psychology: Case studies of brain damage and WMM

The cognitive approach carries out many lab experiments to support their models. For example, the study by
Landry and Bartling (2011) that is described above. But often they turn to neuroscience to get biological support for
their theories.
Warrington and Shallice (1970) carried out a series of tests on patient KF, who had suffered brain damage as a
result of a motorcycle accident. KF's LTM was intact, but he showed impairment of his short-term memory.
This sounds like the case of HM, but it is very different. Even though he appeared to have problems recalling lists of
words and numbers - something that is referred to as his "memory span" - he was able to learn. He was clearly
moving information through STM to LTM, but how was this possible?
Over the course of the case study, Warrington and Shallice (1972) found that although he quickly forgot numbers
and words when they were presented to him orally, he was able to remember these words or numbers when
presented to him visually. KF's impairment was mainly for verbal information - his memory for visual information was
largely unaffected. This supports Baddeley's theory that there are separate STM components for visual information
and verbal information (the phonological loop).
Since the study was longitudinal, over time Warrington and Shallice (1974) were able to be even more precise in
their findings. Later testing showed that although KF could not recall words or letters when presented orally, he had
no difficulty recalling cats meowing or telephones ringing. The researchers concluded that his accident had resulted
in damage to a short-term memory store that was auditory and not visual, and also verbal rather than non-
verbal. This research supports the theory that STM is much more complex than suggested by the original Multi-
store model.