4.1.2 Memory - Capacity of Memory

Question 1

What is Capacity?

Answer 1

The amount of memory that can be held in the memory store

Question 2

What are the two Psychologists that researched capacity of the STM and what is the name of their study?

Answer 2

. Jacobs (1987) - Jacobs Digit Span

. Miller (1956) - Chunking

Question 3

What is ‘Chunking’

Answer 3

The process of grouping together digits or letters to help aid memory

Question 4

What is the procedure in Jacob’s digit span?

Answer 4

Participants given a grid of numbers and they are read aloud to them, adding one number each time, they have to recall as many digits as they can until they get one wrong

Question 5

What is the findings of Jacob’s digit span?

Answer 5

Found average span was 7+/-2 with an average of 9.3 for numbers and 7.3 for letters

Question 6

Strengths of research into STM capacity

Answer 6

. Arguably useful as it has real life applications such as memorising phone numbers
. Repeated experiments have found the experiment to be temporally valid

Question 7

Weaknesses of research in STM capacity

Answer 7

. Early research lacked control over EVs despite being a lab setting
. Lacks internal validity due to this

Question 8

Why is there little research into capacity of the LTM?

Answer 8

It is very difficult to observe the exact capacity of peoples memory scientifically so is accepted as being unlimited or limitless

Question 9

One way LTM CAN be researched is through case studies, whats the advantages of this?

Answer 9

. Highly detailed qualitative data gathered through case studies of one or few people, this gives a much greater understanding of LTM

Question 10

One way LTM CAN be researched is through case studies, whats the disadvantages of this?

Answer 10

. Cannot be generalised to others e.g those with super memory who are unique
. Researchers spend a very long time of case studies so they may be bias with their experiment so that it fits their hypotheses