Short-term retention, presentation rate, and number of display cycles

Previous work of Bugelski, Mayzner and Schoenberg, and Murdock has shown that if total display time is held constant, trade offs may be found between number of display cycles (i.e., the number of times a list is repeated before recall is requested) and display presentation rates. The present study extends these earlier findings by showing that for the short-term retention of a string of 20 digits, trade offs may be obtained over the range from 1 display cycle and a presentation rate of 8 sec. per digit to 16 display cycles and a presentation rate of ½ sec. per digit. A breakdown does apparently occur with 32 display cycles and a presentation rate of ¼ sec. per digit, where clear input registration is apparently degraded by the rapidly changing display.