Coding, Capacity and duration of memory

Question 1

Coding

Answer 1

the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores

Question 2

research on coding

Answer 2

BADDELEY - gave different lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember:
- 2 groups acoustically similar
- 2 groups semantically similar
Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order.

When they had to do this recall task immediately after hearing it (STM recall), they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words.

If participants were asked to recall the word list after a time interval of 20 minutes (LTM recall), they did worse with the semantically similar words. This suggests that information is coded semantically in LTM.

Question 3

Capacity

Answer 3

the amount of information that can be held in a memory store

Question 4

research on capacity

Answer 4

Digit span - JACOBS - 4 digits then has to recall these in the correct order put loud.
- If correct the researcher reads out 5 digits and so on until the participants cannot recall the order correctly.
This determines the individual’s digit span.

Mean span for digits across all participants = 9.3 items and mean spend for letters = 7.3

Span of memory and chunking - MILLER - things come in 7’s e.g. 7 days of the week etc.
– this suggests the span (capacity) of STM is 7 plus or minus 2.
However, Miller noted that people can recall 5 words as well as they can recall 5 letters — chunking.

Question 5

Duration

Answer 5

the length of time information can be held in memory

Question 6

research on duration - STM

Answer 6

on each trial the student was given a consonant syllable to remember and was also given a 3 digit number.

• student then was asked to to count backwards from that 3 digit number until told to stop.
• • this was to prevent any mental rehearsal of the consonant syllable.

On each trial they were told to stop counting after a different amount of time - 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds. = retention interval.

Question 7

research on duration - LTM

Answer 7

BAHRICK - 392 participants from Ohio aged between 17 and 74.
High school yearbooks were obtained from the participants or directly from some schools.
(1) photo recognition test consisting of 50 photos
(2) free recall test where participants recalled all the names of their graduating class.

• After 15 years 60% accurate , dropping to 30% after 48 years.