coding capacity duration

Question 1

sensory memory

Answer 1

initial contact for stimuli
- only capable of retaining information for a very short time`

Question 2

short term memory

Answer 2

• the information we are currently aware of/thinking about
• comes from paying attention to sensory memories

Question 3

long term memory

Answer 3

• continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness, but can be called into working memory to be used when needed

Question 4

coding

Answer 4

how the information is processed

Question 5

capacity

Answer 5

how much can be stored

Question 6

duration

Answer 6

the amount of time information stays in the memory store for

Question 7

duration in SM

Answer 7

millisecond

Question 8

duration in STM

Answer 8

15-30 seconds

Question 9

duration in LTM

Answer 9

unlimited

Question 10

capacity in SM

Answer 10

very large (composed of all your senses)

Question 11

capacity in STM

Answer 11

5-9 items

Question 12

capacity in LTM

Answer 12

unlimited

Question 13

coding in SM

Answer 13

depends on sense organ

Question 14

coding in STM

Answer 14

acoustically - sounds

Question 15

coding in LTM

Answer 15

semantically - meaning

Question 16

research on coding

Answer 16

Baddeley:
- different lists of words to 4 groups of pts to remember
- G1: acoustically similar
- G2: “”””””””””” dissimilar
- G3: semantically similar
- G4 “””””””””””””””” dissimilar

pts were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order
- when they did this task immediately (from STM) they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words
- when they recalled the list after 20 minutes (LTM), they did worse with semantically similar words
- suggests that STM is acoustic and LTM is semantic

Question 17

research on capacity

Answer 17

digit span: Jacobs
- researchers read out 4 digits and the pt recalls these out loud in the correct order
- if this is correct, the researcher reads out 5 digits and so on until the pt cannot recall the order correctly -> this indicates the individuals digit span

found that the mean span for digits across all pts was 9-3 items, the mean span for letters was 7.3

Question 18

research on capacity: memory chunking

Answer 18

Miller made observations of everyday practice
- noted things come in 7s, 7 notes in music, 7 days of week, 7 sins ect.
- though that the span for STM was 7 +- 2, but noted people can recall 5 words as easily as they can recall 5 letters
- we do this by chunking, grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks

Question 19

research on duration: STM

Answer 19

Peterson + Peterson
- tested 24 students in 8 trials
- on each trial the student was given a consonant syllable - YPG - to remember
- also given a 3 digit number
- student counted backwards from this number until told to stop > this was to prevent any mental rehearsal of the consonant syllable

• on each trial they were told to stop after varying periods of time: 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds
• after 3s the average recall was 80%, after 18s it was 3%
• findings suggested that STM duration may be about 18 seconds, unless we are able to have verbal rehersal

Question 20

research on duration: LTM

Answer 20

Bahrick et al
- 392 American participants ages between 17 and 74
- high school yearbooks were obtained from the pts or directly from schools
- recall tested in various ways:
> photo-recognition test consisting of 50 photos, some of which the pt went to highschool with
» free recall test where pts recalled all the names of their graduating class

• those within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate in photo recognition, after 48 years declined to 70$
• free-recall was less accurate than recognition: 60% after 15 years, dropping to 30% after 48 years

shows LTM may last up to a lifetime for some material

Question 21

strength of Badeley

Answer 21

identified a clear difference between memory store, led to an important step in our understanding of memory and helped lead to the understanding/development of the multi-store model

Question 22

limitation of Badeley

Answer 22

artificial stimuli
- didn’t use meaningful material
- word lists had no personal meanings to the pts, may not tell us much about significant and regular tasks that we do in everyday life
- when processing more meaningful information people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks
» overall, limited application

Question 23

strength of Jacobs

Answer 23

• very old study so had potential lack of adequate controls, some pts digit spans might have been underestimated because they were distracted during testing (confounding variable)
• however better controlled studies such as Bopp and Verhaeghen) found similar results
• valid test

Question 24

limtiation of Peterson

Answer 24

artificial material

Question 25

strength of Bahrick

Answer 25

high external validity, meaningful memories