Further evidence of the intricacy of memory span

Memory span was measured for lists of verbal items constructed such that the items in the first half of the list were of one category and those of the second half were of another. In Experiment 1, the lists consisted of digits and words (e.g., 2, 8, 7, horse, cow, sheep or horse, cow, sheep, 2, 8, 7); in Experiment 2, they consisted of words from the same semantic domain and words from different semantic domains; in Experiments 3 and 4, they consisted of words that rhymed and words that did not rhyme. A category-order effect occurred in each experiment: Span was larger when the digits, same-domain words, or rhyming words occurred in the first half of the list than when they occurred in the second half. These findings suggest that memory span is more complex than is generally assumed.