You look up a friend's address for the envelope of a letter you're writing. Suddenly, the phone rings. You abandon your address research to answer the phone, but it is a wrong number. When you get back to write down the address, you have forgotten it because _____ memory has failed you.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Short-term memory is responsible for holding information temporarily and for immediate processing, and it typically has a limited capacity. The interruption from the phone call likely caused the information about the friend's address to be lost from short-term memory before it could be encoded into long-term memory. Sensory memory refers to brief sensory impressions that are quickly overwritten, and iconic memory is a specific type of sensory memory for visual information. Therefore, neither option A (long-term memory) nor option D (iconic memory) is the best choice in this scenario.

You Look Up a Friend's Address for the Envelope of a Letter