ATTENTIONAL CONTROL AND PERCEPTUAL GROUPING PROCESSES IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY
注意控制与短时记忆的知觉组织

The present study examined the effects of dual task emphases on perceptual grouping processes in short term memory. Forty eight undergraduate students participated in the free recall and serial recall experiments. The memory materials were non verbal visual spatial patterns. They were perceptually grouped by color into two types of memory lists: the grouped list and ungrouped list. Subjects were asked to memorize all the items in a memory list first and then make a free recall or serial recall on an answer sheet. A concurrent tone monitoring task was performed at either memory encoding or retrieval phase. There were three different types of dual task instructions emphasizing the memory task, tone monito ring task, and both, respectively. The results showed that the dual task emphasis at encoding phase only affected the perceptual grouping process in free recall, not that in serial recall; while the dual task emphasis at retrieval phase only affected the perceptual grouping process in serial recall, not that in free recall. The results suggest that the perceptual grouping processes in short term memory might be under attentional control at both encoding and retrieval phases, but its locus and manifestation may vary with the type of memory task.