Testing the Existence of Iconic Memory Based on the Multi-Store Memory Model

Scientific Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Psychology - Cognition, grade: 7 (IB), , language: English, abstract: This study wants to investigate the link between attention and the amount of information that can be held. This paper aims to test quantitatively the existence of iconic memory. The subject is relevant as it helps to understand how memory and its components work. According to the investigated model, iconic memory is a part of the first component of memory which information reaches. Moreover, it depends on sight which processes 83% of the stimulus so it is justified to extend the knowledge about this subject.

The theoretical prediction is that the amount of correctly recalled information will depend on paying attention. Attention will be operationalized as a partialreport condition, where participants had to remember 4 elements from the grid or whole-report condition where they were instructed to recall all, 12 elements from the grid. The amount of correctly recalled information is shown as the percentage of correctly recalled characters from a grid.