Recognition time for words in short-term, long-term or both memory stores

8 female undergraduates memorized a long-term set (LT-set) of 24 words before the start of a recognition memory test. On each trial a new short-term set (ST-set) of 2 or 4 words was given; on some trials either half or all of the ST-set words were also members of the LT-set. Ss gave a positive response to test words that were (a) only in the ST-set (new ST-set words), (b) only in the LT-set (LT-set words), or (c) in both sets (old ST-set words). Negative responses were given to words not in either set (distractors). Reaction time (RT) to both old and new ST-set words was a function of ST-set size; RT functions for these 2 conditions had equal slopes but the function for old ST-set words had a smaller intercept. ST-set size had no effect on RT to LT-set words or to distractors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).