Coding,Capacity & Duration

Question 1

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 1

The study of mental processes e.g memory,thinking,problem solving etc.

Question 2

Define ‘memory’

Answer 2

Information/experiences/procedural memory (riding a bike etc) that is stored to be recalled upon at a later date.

Question 3

Define coding

Answer 3

The way information is taken into memory

Question 4

What are the types of encoding?

Answer 4

Visual (as an image)
Acoustic (sound)
Semantic (through meaning)

Question 5

Define capacity

Answer 5

The amount of information a memory store can hold

Question 6

Define duration

Answer 6

How long the memory lasts in that store

Question 7

How is coding in STM done?

Answer 7

Coding in STM is done by sound (acoustically)

Therefore words that sound alike are muddled up and it is more likely that you will not remember them so well when tested immediately

e.g. cab,fab,dad,fad,crab

Question 8

How is coding in your LTM done?

Answer 8

Done semantically (by meaning)

Therefore words that have similar meaning are muddled up and it is more likely that you will not remember them so well when tested immediately

e.g. big, giant, enormous,tall

Question 9

What was the research conducted on coding?

Answer 9

Alan Baddeley gave different lists of words to 4 groups of ppts to remember

Group 1 (acoustically similar): words sounded similar e.g. cat,cab,can
Group 2 (acoustically dissimilar): words sounded different e.g. pit,few,cow

Group 3 (semantically similar): words with similar meanings e.g. great,large,big
Group 4 (semantically disimilar): words with different meanings e.g. good,huge,hot

Ppts were shown the original words & asked to recall them in the correct order

Question 10

What were Baddeley’s findings?

Answer 10

• When they did this task immediately, recalling from STM they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words
• When they recalled the word list after 20 mins, recalling from their LTM they did worse with semantically similar words
• Findings suggest that information is coded acoustically in STM & semantically in LTM

Question 11

What is one strength of Baddeley’s study?

Answer 11

It identified a clear difference between the two memory stores

Later research showed there were some exeptions to his findings but the idea that STM mostly codes acoustically & LTM mostly codes semantically has stood the test of time

Question 12

What was one limitation of Baddeleys study?

Answer 12

It used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material
e.g. the word lists had no meaning to the ppts

So B’s findings may not tell us about coding in different types of memory tasks, especially in everyday life
When processing more meaninigful info people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks

Suggests that the findings from this study have limited application

Question 13

What research was conducted on capacity of STM?

Answer 13

Jacobs (1887) used digit span to measure capacity

Procedure:
The researcher reads out 4 digits & the ppts recalls these outloud in the correct order
If this is correct researcher will read out 5 digits & so on till ppt cannot recall the order correctly- this indicates the individuals digit span

Question 14

What were Jacobs findings of capacity of STM?

Answer 14

Found that the mean span for digits across all ppts was 9.3 items

The mean span for letters was 7.3

Question 15

What is one strength of Jacob’s (1887) study?

Answer 15

Is that it has been replicated
Study is very old & early research can often lack adequate controls
e.g. some ppts may have been underestimated because they were distracted during testing

Suggests Jacob’s study is a valid test of digit span in STM

Question 16

What did George Miller notice amongst the capacity of STM?

Answer 16

He made observations of everyday practice e.g. noticed that things tend to come in 7’s: 7 notes on music scale, 7 days of the week etc.

Miller thought that span i.e capacity of STM is about 7 items plus or minus 2

But he also noted that people can recall 5 words as easily as they can recall 5 letters. Do this by chunking

Question 17

How do you measure the capacity of LTM?

Answer 17

Not possible
We could say its limitless

Question 18

What is one limitation of Miller’s research?

Answer 18

He may have overestimated STM capacity
Cowman (2001) reviewed other research & concluded that capacit of STM is only about 4(+/-) 1

Suggests that the lower end of Millers estimate (5) items is more appropriate than 7 items

Question 19

What research was conducted on the Duration of STM?

Answer 19

Peterson & Peterson
Tested 24 students in 8 trials each
On each trial the student was given a consonant syllable (such as YCG) to remember.
They were also given a 3 digit number. The student counted backwards from this number until told to stop
The counting backwards was to prevent any mental rehearsal of the consonant syllable (increasing the duration of STM for the syllable
On each trial they were told to stop after varying periods of time: 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds

Question 20

What were Peterson & Peterson’s findings?

Answer 20

After 3 secs average recall was around 80%
After 18 seconds it was about 3%

Peterson & Peterson’s findings suggested that STM duration may be about 18 seconds unless we repeat info over & over

Question 21

What was one limitation of Peterson & Peterson’s study?

Answer 21

The stimulus material was artificial

Study was not completely irrelevant as we do sometimes try to remember farily meaningless material (e.g. phone numbers)
Recalling consonant syllables does not reflect most everyday memory
We usually try to remeber meaningful things

Means study lacked external validity

Question 22

What is the counterpoint for Peterson & Peterson’s evaluation?

Answer 22

Nowadays we use abreviations & consonant syllables a lot more often due to social media

Meaning that the external validitiy would be higher nowadays than it was in 1959

Question 23

What research was conducted on the duration of LTM?

Answer 23

Harry Bahrick et al (1975)
Studied 392 American ppts aged between 17 & 74
High school yearbooks were obtained from the ppts or directly from some schools
Recall tested in various ways including:
1. Photo recognition test consisting of 50 photos from yr book
2. Free recall test where ppts recalled all the names of their graduating class

Question 24

What were Bahricks findings?

Answer 24

Ppts tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in photo recognition
After 48 years recall declined to 70% for photo recognition

FREE RECALL LESS ACCURATE THAN RECOGNITION

free recall declined to 60% after 15 years
dropping to 30% after 48 years

This shows that LTM may last forup to a life time for some material

Question 25

What a strength of Bahrick’s study?

Answer 25

Has high external validity
Becuase the researchers investigated meaningful memories (peoles names & faces)

When other studies on LTM were conducted with meaingless pics to be remebered recall rates were lower

Suggests Bahrick’s findings reflect a more ‘real’ estimate of the duration of LTM