A person is told a 4-digit code to enter a building. Immediately after hearing the code, they are unexpectedly engaged in a detailed 5-minute conversation with a friend. When they later try to enter the code, they find they cannot recall it. Using the principle that newly formed memories create a 'trace' that weakens over time if not actively maintained, explain this instance of forgetting.

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During memory trace decay, a memory trace becomes less activated as time passes, which ultimately results in the information being forgotten from short-term memory.

Memory Trace Decay

Peterson and Peterson (1959) investigated short-term memory using trigrams, which are three-letter sequences such as CLS. Participants were asked to recall these trigrams after delays ranging from 3 to 18 seconds. The results showed that participants recalled approximately 80% of the trigrams after a 3-second delay, but this dropped to only 10% after an 18-second delay, leading the researchers to conclude that short-term memory decays within 18 seconds.

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