Coding, Capacity And Duration Flashcards
Short- term memory
The phase or the of memory responsible for the temporary storage of information
Long-term memory
The phase or type of memory responsible for the storage of information for an extended period of time
Coding
The process of converting information between different forms e.g. taking an event and turning it into a memory
You can code information; semantically, acoustically and visually
Semantically
The meaning of the information
Acoustically
How information sounds
Visually
How information can be seen
Baddeley’s research;
He split participants into 4 groups and created 4 groups of word lists.
- group 1- words sounded similar (acoustically similar group)
- group 2- words didn’t sound similar (acoustically dissimilar group)
- group 3- words had similar meanings (semantically similar)
- group 4- words with different meanings (semantically dissimilar group)
Participants were asked to recall the word at different time intervals, immediately after seeing them and then 20 minutes after seeing them.
Baddeley’s results
- short-term memory codes acoustically
- long-term memory codes semantically
Strengths of Baddeley’s research;
- very well controlled, all participants received exactly the same instructions and procedure
- means the experiment is easily repeatable,so is reliable
- this is a strength because both of these are important in making research scientific
Limitations to Baddeley’s research;
- lacks ecological validity
- the word lists were artificial in the sense that they included random words that do not have specific links to everyday life
- it may be that the STM and LTM coded these lists this way, but in everyday life, it may differ
- this mental Baddeleys work may not link to wider context
capacity
how much information can the STM hold at one time
duration
how long can information be kept in your memory both stm and ltm
Peterson and Peterson (AIM)
aim- to investigate the duration of stm
Peterson and Peterson (METHOD)
method- 24 students were tested 8 seperate trials. on each trial the student was given a constant to remember. they were also given a three digit number and were asked to count backwards form that three digit number. on each trial they were asked to stop at different times e.g. after 3,6,9,12,15,18. they were then asked to recall the constant
Peterson and Peterson (RESULTS)
results- after 3 seconds the average recall was around 80%, after 18 seconds it was about 3%
Peterson and Peterson (CONCLUSION)
conclusion- the results tell us that the duration of short term memory is very short, and the shorter amount of time you have to remember it for, the easier it is to remember/ the more you remember
Jacob
he investigated the capacity of memory by measuring the digit span, he said that the mean digit span was between 3 and 9 items
Miller
he said that the mean digit span was 7+/- 2, he concluded that we can remember 5 words just as easy as remembering 5 letters and concluded we must do this by chunking
Bahrick et al (AIM)
aim- to investigate the duration of LTM
Bahrick et al (METHOD)
method- they studied 392 american participants between 17 and 74, their high school yearbooks were obtained
1. a photo recognition test consisting of 50 photos, some from participants high school year book
2. free recall test where participants recalled all the names of their graduating class
Bahrick et al (RESULTS)
results- participants who were tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in photo recognition. after 48 years, recall declined to about 70% for photo recognition. free recall was less accurate than photo recognition- about 60% after 15 years and dropping to 30% after 48 years
Bahrick et al (CONCLUSION)
conclusion- ltm decreases over time (duration). the duration of long term memory is improved with a stimulus
Evaluation- Duration (+)
strength of Bahrick et al research is that it has high external validity, because real life meaningful memories were studied
Evaluation- Duration (-)
a limitation of Peterson and Peterson research is that its stimulus was artificial, it lacked external validity
a limitation of Bahrick et al research is that the confounding variables are not controlled i.e. unsure when people last viewed their yearbook
Evaluation- Coding (+)
strength of Baddeley’s research is that it identified at clear difference between two memory stores, the idea that the stm codes mostly acoustically and ltm codes mostly semantically is mostly true
Evaluation- Coding (-)
limitation of Baddeley’s research is that it was artificial stimuli used, and due to the words being unimportant to the participants, the processing and information remembered may differ, if the information is important to them
Evaluation- Capacity (-)
limitation to Jacob’s study is that is was conducted a long time ago,and psychology lacked adequate control of the confounding variables
limitation to Miller’s research is that he may have overestimated the capacity of the stm. Cowan (2001) research showed stm was around 4 not 7 chunks
