Coding And Capacity Flashcards
What are theoretical models
Diagrammatical representations of the steps involved in internal mental processes
What is encoding
When information is translated into a form so that it can be held in your brain
What is visual encoding and an example
Memories that are stored visually eg faces of people you have met
What is acoustic encoding
Memories that are stored in terms of what they sound like eg your favourite song
What is semantic encoding
Memories that are stored in terms of their meaning and how to use them eg knowing what a pen is and that it is used to write
Summarise Baddeley’s study of encoding
-wanted to investigate how different memory stored encode info
- gave pps list of acoustically similar/dissimilar words to recall immediately and found acoustically similar made more mistakes, concluded it was because short term memory encodes acoustically
-gave other groups semantically similar/dissimilar words they had to recall twenty minutes later, found group with semantically similar words made more mistakes and concluded it was because LTM encodes semantically
Strength of Baddeley’s study
-highly controlled making it easier to replicate and control EVs(eg everyone received a hearing test) which increases internal validity
Limitations of Baddeley’s study of encoding
-artificial setting of a lab means cannot generalise to real life, challenged ecological validity
-artificial task of recalling word lists which does not reflect everyday memory processes which are more complex=challenges mundane realism
Describe research into capacity
-Jacobs used digit span technique to assess memory capacity and found digit span was 9 numbers and 7 letters
-Miller found capacity of STM as 7 plus or minus 2 items with a magic number of 7
What is chunking
Grouping sets of data together when remembering them, 7 by Miller
Describe research into duration of STM
-pps given constant trigrams and a three digits number by Peterson and Peterson
-had to recall the letters after a wait time of 3,6,9,12 or 18 seconds
-during wait time they were asked to count backwards from their three digit number to prevent rehearsal
-found duration to be 18-30 seconds
Describe research into duration of LTM
-tested pps on their memory of classmates over 47 years by completing a photo recognition test where they were shown 50 photos and they had to identity who that person was and free recall where they had to name all those they could remember in their graduating class
-recognition and recall fell from 15 to 47 years but still 70% recognition after 47 years
-concluded duration of LTM is lifelong by Bahrick
