Background to Memory Flashcards
What is memory?
The process by which we retain information about events that have happened in the past, which includes immediate (STM) memories as well as long-term memories (LTM).
What are the three stages within the process of memory?
- Coding
- Storage
- Retrieval
What is coding?
How information is processed into memory.
What does storage involve?
The retaining (holding) of information.
What does retrieval involve?
The accessing of information.
What is capacity?
The amount of information that can be stored in memory.
What is the capacity for STM?
7 +/- 2 units (5-9 units)
What is displacement?
This is when new information comes into STM, it pushes out (replaces) old, current information.
Who conducted research into STM capacity?
Miller (1956).
What technique did Miller use in his research?
The ‘digit span technique’.
What does the digit span technique involve?
Reading a series of digit sets that progressively get longer, and an individual is asked to immediately repeat the digit set in the right order.
What did Miller find when using the digit span technique?
That an individual, on average, recalls 7 +/-2 digits.
What did Miller conclude about the STM?
That the STM has a limited capacity and that new information displaces old information.
What does research suggest about the capacity of the LTM?
That LTM is unlimited.
Why is there very little research on the capacity of LTM?
Capacity of LTM is notoriously difficult to measure.
What does duration refer to?
The length of time information is stored for.
Who conducted research into the duration of STM?
Peterson and Peterson (1959).
What did Peterson and Peterson do to test the duration of STM?
Had 24 students listen to a consonant trigram, immediately after, they heard a ranom 3 digit number and had to begin counting backwards in 3s to prevent rehearsal.
They were then asked to recall the trigram after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds.
What did Peterson and Peterson find when studying the duration of STM?
90% of participants recalled the trigrams after 3 seconds, but only 2% recalled the trigram after 18.
What did Peterson and Peterson conclude?
That STM has a limited duration of 18-30 seconds, but this can be extended through rehearsal.
What does research suggest about the duration of LTM?
That it is potentially unlimited; if information cannot be retrieved, it does not mean that the information is not stored in LTM.
Who conducted research on LTM duration?
Bahrick et al (1975).
What did Bahrick et al do to test LTM duration?
Asked 392 participants aged 17-74 to name old classmates from their high school (free recall).
Then they were given 50 photos, some from the participant’s yearbook, and asked if they could recognise the photos.
What did Bahrick et al find when studying the duration of LTM?
15 years after graduation, free recall was 60% accurate, after 48 years is was 30% accurate.
After 15 years recognition was 90% accurate, after 48 years it was 70% accurate.
What did Bahrick et al conclude when studying the duration of LTM?
LTM could potentially have an unlimited duration.
Just because some information cannot be freely recalled does not mean it is not stored in LTM.
What does research suggest about how information is coded into STM?
Encoding is mainly acoustic.
Who conducted research into STM coding?
Baddeley (1966).
What did Baddeley find when studying STM coding?
That when participants were asked to immediately recall a list of words, they made more errors on a list of acoustically similar words than a list of acoustically different words.
What did Baddeley conclude when studying STM coding?
The participant’s confusion is based on the way the words sounded, meaning that information is coded acoustically in STM.
What does research suggest about LTM coding?
It is mainly semantic (need to understand something before we can retain it in LTM).
Who conducted research into LTM coding?
Baddeley (1966).
What did Baddeley find when studying LTM coding?
That when participants were asked to recall a list of semantically similar words after 20 minutes, they made more errors than when presented with a semantically different list of words.
What did Baddeley conclude when studying LTM coding?
The participant’s confusion is based on the meaning of the words, suggesting that information is coded semantically in LTM.
