Further experimental tests of invariance hypotheses on learning and memoryprocesses

The aim of the present article is to extend the experimental tests of a mod el that connects various invariance hypotheses on different learning and me mory processes. This model and first experimental tests were published prev iously in this journal by Bredenkamp and Klein (1998). According to the mod el, the information processed in one learning trial is hyperbolically relat ed to the presentation time, and the asymptote of the hyperbolic function i s equivalent to the immediate memory span in bits. Four learning experiments performed under different conditions (no secondar y task, Polish and Romanian as irrelevant speech, attention demanding secon dary task) confirmed the prediction of a hyperbolic function. Another four experiments determined the immediate memory span under the same conditions. The immediate spans were compared to the asymptotic values of the hyperbol ic curves. These comparisons confirmed the expectation that the asymptote i s equivalent to the immediate span in bits. A further result concerns the relation between the amount of information an d the immediate span in terms of items. The immediate span is linearly rela ted to the reciprocal information value. This result is discussed within bo th the framework of Baddeley's Working Memory Model and recent approaches b y Dosher and Ma (1998) and Hulme, Newton, Cowan, Stuart, and Brown (1999).