Summary
Standing (1973) and Murray (1975) have both found that the number of items retrieved from long-term memory is a power function of the number of items presented. The present research reports three further experiments designed to validate this power function: the law was found to be upheld in paired associates recognition (for four levels of meaningfulness); for free recall (with or without retrieval cues at presentation and/or recall); and for incidental and intentional free recall and recognition. Some data of Roberts (1972) were also found to be fitted by a power function. The discussion deals with power functions as compared with linear functions and also with the relationships between slopes and intercepts of power functions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Estes, W. K., Da Polito, F.: Independent variation of information storage and retrieval processes in paired associates learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology 75, 18–26, (1967)
Kucera, H., Francis, W. H.: Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence: Brown University Press 1967
Martin, E., Melton, A. W.: Meaningfulness and trigram recognition. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 9, 126–135 (1970)
Murdock, B. B.: The immediate retention of unrelated words. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 222–234 (1960)
Murdock, B. B.: Human Memory: Theory and Data. Potomac, Maryland: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1974
Murray, D. J.: Graphemically cued retrieval of words from long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 104, 65–70 (1975 a)
Murray, D. J.: Semantically cued retrieval of words from long-term memory. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 5, 134–136 (1975 b)
Neimark, E., Saltzman, I.: Intentional and incidental learning with different rates of stimulus presentation. American Journal of Psychology 66, 618–621 (1953)
Noble, C. E.: Measurements of association value (a), rated associations (a') and scaled meaningfulness (m') for the 2100 CVC combinations of English alphabet. Psychological Reports 8, 487–521 (1961)
Roberts, W. A.: Free recall of word lists varying in length and rate of presentation: A test of total-time hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology 92, 365–372 (1972)
Standing, L.: Learning, 10,000 pictures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 25, 207–222 (1973)
Stevens, S. S.: On the psychophysical law. Psychological Review 64, 153–181 (1957)
Thorndike, E., Lorge, I.: The teacher's word book of 30,000 words, New York: Bureau of Publication, Teachers College, Columbia University 1944
Tulving, E., Osler, S.: Effectiveness of retrieval cues in memory for words. Journal of Experimental Psychology 77, 593–601 (1968)
Tulving, E., Thomson, D. M.: Retrieval processes in recognition memory: Effects of associative context. Journal of Experimental Psychology 87, 116–124 (1971)
Tversky, B.: Encoding processes in recognition and recall. Cognitive Psychology 5, 275–287 (1973)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported by National Research Council of Canada Grant AO-126 to D.J. Murray. W.E. Hockley served as research assistant for Experiments 1 and 2; Experiment 3 was an Honours Thesis project carried out by Carol Pye.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Murray, D.J., Pye, C. & Hockley, W.E. Standing's power function in long-term memory. Psychol. Res 38, 319–331 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309039
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309039