Coding, capacity and duration Flashcards
Define coding
The format of information that is stored in each memory store
In STM is coding acoustic or semantic?
Acoustic
In LTM is coding acoustic or semantic?
Semantic
What did Baddeley discover in 1966?
More mistakes are made when recalling acoustically similar words straight after learning them, whilst more mistakes are made when recalling semantically similar words 20 minutes after learning them
Define capacity
The volume of information or data that can be kept in a memory store at any one time
What is the estimated capacity of STM?
7 +/- 2 items
What is the capacity of LTM?
Unlimited
What was Miller’s idea?
He noticed things came in 7’s (Days of the week etc).
What did Jacobs do?
Discovered that the mean letter span was 7.3 and the mean digit span was 9.3
Define duration
The amount of time the information can be stored in each memory store
What is the duration of STM?
18 - 30 seconds
What is the duration of LTM?
Infinity with practice
What did Peterson et al do (1959)?
Increasing retention intervals decreases the accuracy of recall of consonant syllables
What method did Peterson et al (1959) use?
24 undergraduates attempted to remember a set of letters while counting down from a 3 digit number given (Preventing mental rehearsal)
How did Bahrick et al (1975) find the duration of the LTM?
Used 396 participants to identify photo’s of their graduating class. This decreased from 90% to 70% between 15 year and 46 years of graduating
