Coding, Capacity & Duration Flashcards
What is duration?
The period of time information stays stored in memory.
What is capacity?
The maximum amount of information that memory stores can hold.
What is coding?
The format in which information is held in different stores.
What is the duration of SR?
1.5 seconds.
What is the duration of STM?
18-30 seconds.
What is the duration of LTM?
Lifetime.
What is the capacity of SR?
Can’t measure.
What is the capacity of STM?
5-9 items.
What is the capacity of LTM?
Unlimited.
What is the coding of SR?
5 senses.
What is the coding of STM?
Acoustic.
What is the coding of LTM?
Semantic.
What was the aim of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?
To investigate the duration of STM without verbal rehearsal.
What was the method of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?
24 psychology students recalled trigrams (e.g. G, T, B). Each different trigram was presented one at a time, and were recalled in intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 & 18 seconds respectively.
Brown-Peterson technique: Participants had to count backwards from threes from a specified random number before being asked to recall (preventing rehearsal).
What were the results of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?
3 seconds- 80% correct.
6 seconds- 50% correct.
18 seconds- <10% correct.
What was the conclusion of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?
STM has a limited duration (18 seconds) when rehearsal is prevented.
What are the features of Miller (1956)?
Miller’s Magic 7.
Capacity (STM): 5-9 items (dots, digits, letters).
Chunking can increase capacity (helping us remember groups of information).
What was the aim of Baddeley (1966)?
To investigate coding in STM and LTM.
What was the method of Baddeley (1966)?
Categories-
-Acoustically similar words.
-Acoustically dissimilar words.
-Semantically similar words.
-Semantically dissimilar words.
STM-
Recalled immediately after presentation (5 words).
LTM-
Recalled 20 minutes after presentation (10 words).
What were the results of Baddeley (1966)?
Semantically/acoustically similar words were harder to recall than semantically/acoustically dissimilar words.
-Worst STM performance was acoustically similar words.
-Worst LTM performance was semantically similar words.
What was the conclusion of Baddeley (1966)?
STM-
Acoustic coding.
LTM-
Semantic coding.
