coding, capacity and duration of memory

Question 1

what is memory?

Answer 1

the ability to recall/retain information when the information is no longer present

Question 2

what is coding?

Answer 2

the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores - process of converting information from one form to another

Question 3

what is capacity?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

what is duration?

Answer 4

the length of time information can be held in the memory

Question 5

STM

Answer 5

limited capacity memory store

Question 6

LTM

Answer 6

permanent memory store

Question 7

what did jacobs investigate?

Answer 7

capacity of short term memory

Question 8

Jacobs procedure

Answer 8

• 443 female students, aged 8-19 from North London School
• ‘serial digit span technique’ participants presented with sequence of letters or digits and were required to repeat back in same order
• gradually increased

Question 9

jacobs findings

Answer 9

• mean span for letters = 7.3
• mean span for digits = 9.3

Question 10

jacobs conclusion

Answer 10

STM does have a limited capacity of somewhere between 5 and 9 items, supporting Miller’s idea

Question 11

jacobs evaluation

Answer 11

• lacks ecological validity
• use of highly controlled conditions
• lacks population validity

Question 12

what did Peterson and Peterson investigate

Answer 12

duration of STM

Question 13

peterson and peterson’s method

Answer 13

• 24 psychology university students
• verbally spelled out trigrams of either letters or digits
• count down backwards to prevent rehearsal
• recall trigram at end of set interval 3-18 seconds
• longer the interval, the less the accurate the recall
• 3 seconds = 80% correctly recalled
• 18 seconds = 10% accurately recalled

Question 14

peterson and petersons conclusion

Answer 14

STM has a limited duration of approximately 18 seconds

Question 15

peterson and petersons evaluation

Answer 15

• low ecological validity
• highly controlled lab settings
• lacks population validity

Question 16

what did Bahrick investigate?

Answer 16

duration of long term memory

Question 17

Bahricks method

Answer 17

• 392 graduates from Ohio
• participants shown photographs from high school yearbook, match name with photograph

Question 18

Bahricks results

Answer 18

90% of participants could accurately match the names 14 years after graduating
60% could accurately match the names and faces 47 years after graduating

Question 19

bahricks evaluation

Answer 19

• high ecological validity
• no control over extraneous variables
• lacks population validity

Question 20

aim of baddeley

Answer 20

investigate coding in STM and LTM

Question 21

baddeleys method

Answer 21

• different list of words to four groups
• includes = acoustically similar/dissimilar and semantically similar/dissimilar
• had to recall

Question 22

baddeley results

Answer 22

• when recalled immediately, did worse with acoustically similar words
• when recalled after 20 minutes, did worse with semantically similar words

Question 23

baddeley conclusions

Answer 23

• information is coded acoustically in stm and semantically in ltm

Question 24

baddeley evaluation

Answer 24

• lacks ecological validity
• high control