Acoustic confusions and order forgetting

This paper reports two experiments employing a PETERSON and PETERSON (1959) paradigm, aimed at showing order as opposed to item forgetting in acoustic confusion experiments. In the first experiment two subsets from the acoustically similar vocabulary C V B D G T P E, i.e. D V B and C G T, were selected. One group of Ss were presented with the items from subset D V B in different orders for 4 trials, another group with the subset C G T. Interpolated activity lasted twenty seconds and presentation was auditory. The second experiment was similar to the first, but presentation was visual and interpolated activity lasted only 5 sec. In both experiments the incidence of order errors significantly and considerably exceeded the incidence of intrusion errors. This leaves open the possibility that in acoustic confusion experiments, confusions can be accounted for by assuming order rather than item forgetting, contrary to CONRAD's (1965) hypothesis.