Item Recognition as a Performance Evaluation Test for Environmental Research

Item Recognition (Sternberg, 1966) is a task which reflects the operation of human memory. This task was considered as a candidate for use in a battery of Performance Evaluation Tests for Environmental Research (PETER). Environmental research involves comparison of performances in a baseline environment and in a novel environment. It is desirable that scores be stable at different occasions in the baseline environment, so that changes due to the novel environment will be clear if they occur. It was found that item recognition results were similar to those obtained by other investigations, although the traditional item recognition score (slope) was unreliable across repeated measurements. The response time (RT) was stable for each of the four memory set sizes (1, 2, 3 & 4 items), from the standpoint of reliability, after the fourth session.