Human use of short-term memory in processing information on a console

The role of a human operator performing an information-processing task at a console is studied. Specifically explored are 1) the role of the console as a form of memory and 2) the ways in which this memory interacts with the human memory during a simple list-processing task. Times for various phases of the task are measured under four experimental conditions which systematically constrain the use of human or console memory. Three conceptual models are proposed: two characterize the structure of, and retrieval from, human and/or console memory when these are freely used together; the third characterizes the use of human memory when visual search of the console memory is very limited.