Jen's dad sends her to the grocery store for a few last-minute dinner items.Jen repeats the list of ten items as she walks to the store but can remember only the first and last three items when she gets there-she is unable to remember the four in the middle.Why did she forget the four items in the middle of the list?
A) The items were probably vegetables,since research shows that vegetable names are difficult for most people to remember.
B) Exercise tends to degrade information if it has just been learned.
C) Because her father gave her the list all at once,Jen wasn't able to hold each item in her short-term memory long enough to encode it for long-term storage.
D) The four middle items never entered her sensory memory.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Jen's inability to remember the four items in the middle of the list is likely due to the limited capacity of short-term memory. According to research, the average person can hold 7 plus or minus 2 items in their short-term memory. Because Jen received the list all at once, she was unable to hold all ten items in her short-term memory long enough to encode them for long-term storage. The first and last three items were likely the easiest to remember because of primacy and recency effects - items at the beginning and end of a list are more likely to be remembered than items in the middle.

Jen's Dad Sends Her to the Grocery Store for a Few