Short-Term Memory: the "Storage" Component of Human Brain Responses Predicts Recall

Abstract

An evoked potential component with a poststimulus peak at about 250 milliseconds is related to the storage of information in short-term memory. This storage component was found in an investigation of brain potentials in relation to a number and letter comparison task. In replications of this experiment at three different light intensities spaced 1.0 log unit apart, the component had essentially the same waveform and pattern of scores. The memory storage interpretation was confirmed in a behavioral experiment that probed short-term memory. Recall was predicted by the magnitude of the storage component.