Coding, Capacity And Duration Flashcards
What is coding
The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores
Research on coding
Baddeley (1966) Gave different groups different lists of words to remember -group 1- acoustically similar -group 2- acoustically dissimilar -group 3- semantically similar -group 4- semantically dissimilar — info is coded semantically in LTM
Evaluation of coding research
Artificial stimuli
-no meaning so results may have been different in every day situation or if given meaningful material.
What is capacity
The amount of information that can be held in a memory store
Research on capacity
-digit span
Jacobs (1887)
Digit span study
Found that the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3
And for letters was 7.3
Evaluation of digit span
Lacks validity
- it was conducted ages ago
- lack of control
- may have been confounding variables that weren’t controlled
—however when replicated it has the same results- good validity
Research on capacity, span of memory and chunking
Miller (1956)
Everything comes in 7’s
Capacity of STM is about 7 items (plus or minus 2)
- 5 words through chunking groups of sets of digits
Evaluation of chunking
Cowan 2001
Reviewed it and found that the capacity of STM was only about 4 chunks.
Suggests miller may have over estimated
What is duration
The length of time information can be held in memory
Research on duration of STM
Margaret and Peterson (2010)
Found that STM has a very short duration unless we conduct verbal rehearsal
Research on duration of LTM
Bahrick (1975)
Tested 395 students aged 17-74 ability to recall things about fellow students..
-participants tested within 15 years of grad are about 90% photo recognition
-after 48 years errr about 70% photo recognition
——— very long duration of LTM
Evaluation of STM duration
The materials were meaningless
-lacked external validity
-however we do often remember phone numbers, not meaningful info so isn’t totally irrelevant
Evaluation of STM duration
High external validity
As meaningful memories were used
-variables were not controlled, ps may have looked in their year book over the years