ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly reviews a conception of iconic memory in historial perspective and provides a model that suggests how masking may influence processing. It explores the primary developmental work that has been done in this area, and indicates the methodological factors that must be considered. The literature focused on establishing that developmental differences in processing did occur, whereas more recent work has examined the nature of those differences. The present survey is illustrative rather than exhaustive of that literature. The basic masking paradigm involves a target stimulus (TS) consisting of either a single item or group of items such as letters either preceded or followed by the presentation of a masking stimulus (MS). The interval between the TS and MS is varied, and performance as a function of mask interval is measured in terms of accuracy.
