When Sperling visually displayed three rows of three letters each for only one-twentieth of a second,research participants
A) recalled only half the letters because they did not have enough time to see all of them.
B) recalled only about seven of the letters due to storage limitations.
C) had a momentary photographic memory of all nine letters.
D) formed a sensory memory of no more than a single letter.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Sperling's experiment demonstrated that the participants had a momentary photographic memory of all nine letters. This is known as the "whole report" method, where participants were asked to recall as many letters as possible from the nine displayed. Participants were able to recall all nine letters with relatively high accuracy. However, when Sperling used the "partial report" method and only signaled participants to recall one specific row of letters, their accuracy dropped significantly, indicating limitations in storage capacity.

When Sperling Visually Displayed Three Rows of Three Letters Each