Test Library » Memory » Brown-Peterson Task

Brown-Peterson Task

Memory Duration: ~15 minutes
Brown-Peterson Task screenshot

Description

A short-term memory task where participants memorize consonant trigrams and recall them after a distractor-filled delay.

Measures: Short-term memory, decay of short-term memory traces, interference effects

Memory Processing Speed

About This Test

On each trial, three consonants (a CVC trigram) are briefly displayed, followed by a three-digit number. Participants count backward by 3s from the number in time with auditory/visual cues for varying delay intervals (3-18 seconds). After the delay, participants recall the original consonants. Accuracy typically declines with longer delays, demonstrating rapid forgetting from short-term memory.

Test Details

Test ID:
brownpeterson
Main File:
brownpeterson.pbl
Parameters:
15 configurable parameters
15 configurable parameters available
Languages:
German English Spanish French Italian Dutch Portuguese

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Scientific Background

Original Task References:

These references describe the original task that this PEBL implementation is based on.

  • Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58(3), 193-198.

PEBL-Specific References:

These studies used the PEBL version of this task.

  • Mueller, S. T. (2011). The PEBL Brown-Peterson Task. Computer software retrieved from http://pebl.sf.net/battery.html

Data Output

Trial-by-trial data with consonant trigram, distractor number, delay duration, recalled response, accuracy, and response time.

Output File:
brownpeterson-{subnum}.csv
Format:
CSV

Data Columns

Column Name Description
subcode Participant ID
trial Trial number
ccc The consonant trigram presented for memorization (e.g., BDG)
number The three-digit number used as the starting point for backward counting
delay Distractor delay duration in seconds (e.g., 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)
resp The three consonants recalled by the participant
corr Whether recall was exactly correct (1) or not (0)
rt Response time in milliseconds from recall prompt to Enter key

Scoring and Interpretation

The key dependent variable is accuracy as a function of delay. The classic finding (Peterson & Peterson, 1959) shows rapid decay: near-perfect recall at 3s dropping to near-chance by 18s. The HTML report provides accuracy and response time broken down by delay interval. Geometric mean RT is used because RT distributions are typically right-skewed.

About This Test

A short-term memory task where participants memorize consonant trigrams and recall them after a distractor-filled delay.

Category: Memory
Estimated Duration: 15 minutes
Available Translations: 7 languages

Documentation Status: Complete