Sperling flashed a matrix of letters for 1/20th of a second to participants.Sperling found that the participants:
A)attempted to encode the letters from left to right.
B)attempted to encode the letters from top to bottom.
C)automatically stored the entire matrix of letters but for only a brief moment.
D)automatically stored the entire matrix of letters for up to a minute after the presentation.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Sperling's experiment revealed that participants were able to automatically store the entire matrix of letters, but only for a brief moment. This is known as sensory memory, which has a large capacity but a very short duration. Participants were not able to encode the letters from left to right or top to bottom, indicating that the information was stored as a whole image rather than as individual letters. The information was also not stored for up to a minute after the presentation, as this would fall under the category of long-term memory.

Sperling Flashed a Matrix of Letters for 1/20th of a Second