ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with what is usually called "immediate memory", interpreted as a manifestation of auditory synthesis extended over time. The effects of rate and serial position in the memory span are considered, together with recent work showing that what is stored is auditory and linguistic in nature. Verbal memory plays a crucial role in many cognitive processes. To understand a sentence, for example, one must remember a good deal about the beginning when one has reached the end. Echoic memory alone would not be enough for this purpose, since many sentences are much too long to be stored echoically. The recoding which partially protects information against the passage of time must also take a certain amount of time to carry out. The effect of this requirement ought to appear in studies which vary the rate at which items are presented for immediate memory. The active process in verbal memory is often called "rehearsal".
