The tone could be high, medium or low in pitch, signaling the subjects to recall the top, middle or bottom rows of the chart. If the delay before the tone was more than a third of a second, recall suffered. After about one second, the subjects could not recall what was in each row. Iconic and echoic memory Visual sensory memory is sometimes called iconic memory. Auditory sensory memory is sometimes called echoic memory.
Auditory memory lasts a bit longer, up to a few seconds.
This allows us to put words and sentences together. Short-term memory holds the data used for conscious cognitive activity. Picture your kitchen. If you face the back of the house, is the stove to the left or the right of the refrigerator. The capacity of short term memory is about 7 chunks of information, whether each bit is a single number or a more complex set of things.