Coding, Capacity, Duration A03

Question 1

Limitation for coding - baddeleys research

Answer 1

• used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material.
• The word lists had no personal meaning to participants.
• This means we should be cautious about generalising the findings to different kinds of memory task. For example, when processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks.
• This suggests that the findings from this study have limited
  application.

Question 2

Limitation of capacity - Jacob’s study

Answer 2

• it was conducted a long time ago. Early research in psychology often lacked adequate control.
• For example, some participants may have been distracted while they were being tested so they didn’t perform as well as they might.
• This would mean that the results might not be valid because there were confounding variables that were not controlled.
• However, the results of this study have been confirmed in other research, supporting its validity.

Question 3

Limitation #2 for capacity - millers research

Answer 3

• he may have overestimated the capacity of STM. - For example, Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM was only about four chunks.
• This suggests that the lower end of Miller’s estimate (five items) is more appropriate than seven items.

Question 4

Limitation of duration - Peterson and Peterson study.

Answer 4

• The stimulus material was artificial.
• Trying to memorise consonant syllables does not reflect most real-life memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful.
• So we might say that this study lacked external validity
• However, we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless things, such as phone numbers, so the study is not totally irrelevant.

Question 5

Strength for duration - Bahrick et al’s study

Answer 5

• has higher external validity.
• Real-life meaningful memories were studied. When studies on LTM have been conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower (e.g. Shepard 1967).
• The downside of such real-life research is that confounding variables are not controlled, such as the fact that Bahrick’s participants may have looked at their yearbook photos and rehearsed their memory over the years.