Coding, Capacity and Duration

Question 1

What type of approach is taken when studying memory?

Answer 1

Cognitive

Question 2

Define short term memory.

Answer 2

Memory for things in the present or that have only just happened.

Question 3

Define long term memory.

Answer 3

Memory for things that happened in the past.

Question 4

Define capacity.

Answer 4

Refers to how much info can be held in memory at any one time.

Question 5

Define coding.

Answer 5

When info is in the memory, it can be stored in different formats - this refers to how much info is changed and stored in the memory.

Question 6

Define duration.

Answer 6

Refers to how long info can be held in memory.

Question 7

What is the duration of the short term memory?

Answer 7

18 - 30 seconds

Question 8

What is the capacity of the short term memory?

Answer 8

5 - 9 items

Question 9

What is the coding of the short term memory?

Answer 9

Acoustically - listening.

Question 10

What is the duration of the long term memory?

Answer 10

Unlimited

Question 11

What is the capacity of the long term memory?

Answer 11

Unlimited

Question 12

What is the coding of the long term memory?

Answer 12

Semantically

Question 13

Outline the key study for capacity - Jacobs, 1887.

Answer 13

• Researcher presents participants with 4 digits which they must recall in the correct order.
• Then they repeat this with increasing number of digis until the participant makes a mistake.
• Found that the average span was 9.3 for digits.
• Found that the mean span for letters was 7.3.

Question 14

Define the term ‘digital span’.

Answer 14

The number of items that an individual can recall correctly.

Question 15

Outline the second key study for capacity - Miller, 1956.

Answer 15

• Spotted that people can recall 5 words as well as 5 letters by using chunking.

Question 16

Define the term ‘magic numbers’.

Answer 16

Suggested that the capacity of STM is about 7 items (+/-2).

Question 17

Define the term ‘chunking’.

Answer 17

Grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks in order to aid recall.

Question 18

List the 3 evaluation points for capacity.

Answer 18

1. Capacity of STM
2. Size of the Chunk
3. Individual Differences

Question 19

Explain the capacity evaluation point ‘capacity of STM’.

Answer 19

Alternative reserach suggests that the capacity of STM is actually about 4 items; the lower the end of Miller’s range (5) is more appropriate.

Question 20

Explain the capacity evaluation point ‘size of the chunk’.

Answer 20

People have shorter memory spans for largers chunks e.g 8 word phrases, than smaller chunks.

Question 21

Explain the capacity evaluation point ‘individual differences’.

Answer 21

Digit span increases with age - there may be an increase in brain capacity or that people develop strategies such as chunking to improve digit span.

Question 22

List the four groups of participants in Baddeley’s coding key study.

Answer 22

1. Acoustically similar words e.g cat, cab, can.
2. Acoustically dissimilar words e.g pit, few, cow.
3. Semantically similar words e.g great, large, big.
4. Semantically dissimilar words e.g good, huge, hot.

Question 23

Outline the key study for coding - Baddeley.

Answer 23

• Participants were shown the original words and then asked to recall them in the correct order.

Question 24

What were the results for the key study for coding - Baddeley?

Answer 24

When participants had to recall the word list immediatley after they heard it - they did worse in this aspect with acoustically similar words.

When participants had to recall the list after a 20 minute interval - they did worse with semantically similar words.

Question 25

List the 3 evaluation points for coding.

Answer 25

1. Baddeley
2. STM may not be exclusively acoustic.
3. LTM may not be exclusively semantic.

Question 26

Explain the coding evaluation point ‘Baddeley’.

Answer 26

• May not have been testing LTM.
• Lab experiment with artificial stimuli.

Question 27

Explain the coding evaluation point ‘STM may not be exclusively acoustic’.

Answer 27

• Participants used visual coding if they were given a visual task and were prevented from doing any verbal rehearsal in the retention interval.

Question 28

Explain the evaluation point ‘LTM may not be exclusively semantic’.

Answer 28

• Evidence that long term recall is related to visual and semantic categories.
• Evidence of acoustic coding in LTM.

Question 29

Outline the key study for duration of LTM - Bahrick.

Answer 29

• Graduates from a high school aged 14 - 17.
• Recall tested using a yearbook.
• Length of time impacted success of recall.

Question 30

What is meant by the term ‘free recall’?

Answer 30

Participants had to recall names of individuals in class.

Question 31

What were the results of the photo recognition?

Answer 31

1. Left school 15 years ago - 90% accuracy.
2. Left school 48 years ago - 70% accuracy.

Question 32

What were the results of the free recall?

Answer 32

1. Left school 15 years ago - 60% accuracy.
2. Left school 48 years ago - 30% accuracy.

Question 33

List the 2 evaluation points for LTM duration.

Answer 33

1. External Validity.
2. Low Levels of Control.

Question 34

Explain the LTM duration evaluation point ‘low levels of control’.

Answer 34

• There were many variables that may have affected recall e.g rehearsal/popularity.

Question 35

Outline the key study for STM duration - Peterson + Peterson, 1959.

Answer 35

• Participants were given a trigram (3 letters) to remember.
• Then they counted back from a 3 digit number until told to stop. - The time that they were stopped vaired: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds.
• The period of time is also known as the retention interval.

Question 36

List the 2 evaluation points for STM duration.

Answer 36

1. External validity.
2. Displacement.

Question 37

Explain what is meant by the STM duration evaluation point ‘displacement’.

Answer 37

• The letters may be displaced by the counting, rather than simply forgetting info.