DIGIT SPAN 1

Experimental Psychology Lab

Experiment No: 7 Digit span

Submitted by:

Momina zulfiqar 191520189

Saman Shahzad 191520148

Ayesha Mehtab 201520182

Rubab 201520194

Momna Ansar 201520211

Humanities and Social Sciences, GIFT University– Gujranwala

Submitted to: Ma’am Mishal Zoha

Date: 24 February 2023

Digit span

Introduction

Digit span test is formed to measure verbal short term memory or working memory. This

test shows how many items you hold in your short term memory. The longer the sequences of

random digits you can hold and recall without rehearsal, the higher the capacity of your short-

term memory. Verbal short term memory or working memory are both cognitive systems that

allow temporary storage and manipulation of information usually for less than 30 seconds at a

time. Digit span is more associated with verbal ability because digit span relies on the

phonological loop component of short-term memory in the working memory model. The

phonological loop stores speech-based information, which means that verbal ability can affect its

capacity. It is frequently used in hospitals and physicians’ offices in order for a clinician to

quickly evaluate whether a patient’s cognitive abilities are normal or impaired.

In this task individual is presented a sequence of 2 digits and ask person to repeat this

sequence. If the person is capable of repeating the sequence then the longer sequence is

presented. Digit Span subtest comprises of two parts – digits forward, where the examinee is

asked to repeat increasing spans of digits in the order they were presented; and digits back-

wards, where the examinee is asked to repeat increasing spans of digits in reverse order. In both

test conditions, two trials are administered for each span length. This process goes until the

individual are no longer able to repeat the sequence the longest remembered sequence is person’s

digit span. It is said that average person can remember nearly seven digits. The test was
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originally designed to test working memory and attention, as part of the Wechsler Intelligence

Scale. Digit span has long history in order to conduct neuropsychological assessments. Early

theories of memory identified the “phonological loop”—a verbal storage and rehearsal system—

underlying properly functioning verbal short-term memory. More recent research has identified

regions of the brain, such as the mid-ventrolateral frontal cortex, that must be recruited to

perform well in Digit Span. The origins of digit span as a psychological construct by Gottfried

Leibniz. Leibniz suggested that individuals have a finite capacity to process or hold in mind the

information from the environment. The first researcher to study memory experimentally was

Herman Ebbinghaus. In the nineteenth century, he conducted hundreds of experiments on

himself to investigate the mechanisms of learning and forgetting. Joseph Jacobs was one of the

first to investigate the number of items short-term memory can store using the digit span test.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316580000_Digit_Span

https://creyos.com/features/tasks/digit-span

https://www.memorylosstest.com/digit-span/

https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/psychology/basic-psychology/developmental-

pattern-of-digit-span/

https://conductscience.com/digital-health/digit-span-test/

https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/digitspan.html
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Literature review

This study was conducted on large clinical sample of individuals with Alzheimer disease.

Experimenters use various versions of digit span to detect level of severity of alzheirms disease.

They use Reliable Digit Span, Digit Span Age-Corrected Scaled Score, and Longest Digits

Forward. The results indicates that digit span test successfully identify the moderate and mild

levels of Alzheimer’s disease. RDS demonstrated unacceptable rates of false positive errors in

patients classified with moderate and severe level of disease. Digit Span, especially digits

forward, is believed to be fairly resilient to both normal aging and the early effects of

neurodegenerative diseases. Hence they demonstrate that digit span including battery of test is

reliable test to measure the low levels of Alzheimer’s disease due to age range while it is not

beneficial to assess the severity of disease due to unlimited false errors.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13854046.2012.694478

This study was conducted ton demonstrate the effect of age on forward and backward

memory span. They conduct experiment on sample 1000 individuals with age range of 16 to 79

years. They hypothesized that age differences should be minimal in verbal forward digit span

while they should be more important in backward verbal digit span. The results indicates that the
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existence of age-related declines in forward and backward digit span tasks. Therefore significant

age differences were observed in both tasks and these differences began to appear essentially

after age 65. Furthermore, there was no significant interaction between age and type of span. In

other words, the backward digit span task did not yield larger age differences than the forward

digit span task. That all the subjects could repeat to a minimum three digits forward and two

digits backward. Therefore age does not affect memory span of individuals also they check the

memory span relationship with education level and sex. The findings indicates that there is no

significant change in memory span both forward and backward but slightly change happened in

memory span of forward and backward in relationship with sex.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13825589708256642

To examine the role of working memory in speech perception, word recognition, speech

production, language, and reading tasks, researcher obtained auditory digit spans from 8- and 9-

year-old prelingually deaf children who had used their implants for a period of at least 4 years,

then computed correlations between digit span and 4 sets of outcome measures. The correlations

between auditory digit span and the 4 sets of outcome measures obtained from these children

suggest that some component of working memory plays an important role in mediating

performance across a range of different tasks. Moreover, this component of memory contributes

a common underlying source of variance to tasks that measure speech perception, speech

production, language comprehension, and reading. The results suggest that spoken language
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processing and working memory are closely interconnected and share common reciprocal links,

connections, and processing resources that are used in speech, perception, speech production,

language comprehension, and reading. Hence that some of the deaf children have good language,

speech and reading skills and have good auditory sensation while using implants while other deaf

children’s with same disability have poor language, speech and reading task so digit span also

assess the memory span and IQ level of deaf children.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3429114/

Methodology

Problem Statement

To study the forward and backward memory for digit span.

Hypothesis

Memory span is larger for forward digit span than the memory for backward digit span

Independent variable (Sequence of retrieval)

Dependent variable (Memory span)

Sample/Subject: No of participants, age, semester, previous knowledge

Hypothesis
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Memory span is larger for forward digit span than the memory for backward digit span

Independent Variable

Sequence of retrieval

Dependent Variable

Memory span

Sample/subject

Two sample subjects were taken. First Participant was assigned a control group. She was

21 years old. The second participant was the experimental group and of age 22. Both participants

had no prior knowledge of the experiment.

Instruments/Tools

Human maze apparatus, stopwatch, paper, pencil, note sheet

Procedure

The first step was to ask the participant for informed consent as well as giving them

awareness about procedure and purpose of the current study. The distractions and noise from the

environment is removed and the instruction is explained to subject. The human maze was given

to the participant along with explanation.  The dark grey lines represent the walls of the maze

which are impassable by the subject. The blue squares represent the entrance (bottom of the

maze) and the goal (center of the maze). 

The first participant who is solving human maze is not allowed to see so their eyes are to

be closed while the second participant guides the first participant about the direction to move in

order to complete it. They are required to start from the starting point of maze and complete it by

reaching the end point. There are four direction to move (upward, downward, right and left)

without picking up the stylus point from the maze. The errors are recorded it the participant

moves towards wrong path which means moving backwards to get to right path to end point. The

study consists of seven trials, recording errors and time taken to complete the maze in each trial.

The data is then recorded in

Results

Quantitative result

No. of trials No. of errors Time taken in sec

1 2 134
2 2 106
3 1 80
4 1 69
5 1 76

Qualitative result

The recorded finding suggest that as the number of trials increases, the time taken to

complete the human maze significantly decreases with 134 second in first trial and reducing to

71 second in the last trial. Although, there was no significant different in number of errors as it
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moved within the range of 1 to 3 with no specific order. This means our hypothesis is accepted

because the participant learned to complete maze in less time after practicing

Discussion

This study was conducted to know the span of forward and backward memory by using

digit span. The hypothesis of current study is that memory span for forward digit span is larger

then the memory for backward digit span. The study was conducted on indian older adults to

explore the usefulness of digit span with different levels of education. They assess the attention

and working memory. They conduct experiment on two hundred and fifty eight participant and

divided them into two groups on the basis of thier educational level. The results of this study

indicates that participants with high educational level performed significantly well then low

educated participants and they often struggled with digit span test and resorted to guessing the

digits. Although our findings are also in consistent with the results of previous researches agrees

with our hypothesis that forward digit span have larger memory span and more easy to recall as

compared to memory span of backward digit span.

https://www.scielo.br/j/dn/a/3NJ6QSHkvdtT8XhDq9DXY7d/?lang=en

Limitations

The first limitation for current study is that participants have limited time to recall the

sequence of digits properly and second limitation is that participant face a lot of noise or

distractions from external environment. Another limitation is that sometimes experimenter

pronounce the digits quickly which might be difficult for participant to recall that sequence so

that accuracy of results affected.

Recommendation

Further researches can add or give flexible time to participants to recall the digits.

Secondly the experimental setup for participants should be noise free, comfortable and have least

distractions.

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