I recently undertook a questionnaire and was asked a question about short term memory. One that I just can't find an answer to at all as it seems to be so contradictory.
This got me curious. How much can a user generally remember when viewing a website? There are various research papers on this including Heyer and Barrett (1974) and Shulman (1970).
The question was:
Research has shown that short-term memory is fragile. Which of the statements below is more accurate in describing how much information we can remember and for how long?
- The amount you can remember is equal to about what you can say in 20 seconds, you will be able to hold this remembered amount in short-term memory for about 40 seconds.
- The amount you can remember is equal to about what you can say in 30 seconds, you will be able to hold this remembered amount in short-term memory for about 20 seconds.
- The amount you can remember is equal to about what you can say in 20 seconds, you will be able to hold this remembered amount in short-term memory for about 10 seconds.
- The amount you can remember is equal to about what you can say in 20 seconds, you will be able to hold this remembered amount in short-term memory for about 20 seconds.
Does anybody know the definitive answer to this or, like me,