Duration, Capicity & Coding Flashcards
What is the study for the duration of STM, with findings
Particpants were briefly showed a trigram (3 continents), and them given a distracted task, such as counting backwards in threes. Particpants were told to do this a few times, each time getting given a new trigram and the distracter task increasing by 3 seconds.
Findings showed that:
After the first 3 second interval, 80% participants recalled the trigram correctly
As the distracter task increased, correctly recalled trigrams decreased
After a 18 second distracter task, fewer then 10% of the trigrams were recalled accurately.
What are the conclusions/ definition of STM (duration)
The short term memory store is a very temporary memory store, within a duration of around 18-30 seconds, without rehearsal. STM fades overtime, until perminatley lost.
Evaluate the STM duration study (strength)
P- lab experiment
E- EVs such as other notices could be reduced, the trigrams could be controlled by changing them each time and not including no vowels meaning no words can be created
E- increases the internal validity, allows us to establish a cause and effect relationship, of increased time causes the STM to decrease
Evaluate the STM duration study (Limitaion)
P- artificial tasks
E-in the real world you aren’t required to memories trigrams while counting backwards in 3s, meaning it doesn’t tell us much about STM in real life
E- suggesting that it could produce different results if we used a different, more realistic task decreasing the external validity
Whats the duration of the LTM study and findings
A psychologist used 392 people who had graduated from an American high school over a 50-year period, they were split into 2 groups:
The first group was the recognition group they were given 50 photographs and were asked to state of they recognised them or not, the next group was the recall group, where they had to name as man people as thy could put of their graduation class.
Findings
Recognition group:
15 years from graduation = 90% accurate
48 years from graduation = 70% accurate
Recall group
15 years from graduation = 60% accurate
48 years from graduation = 30% accurate
Whats the conclusion/ definition of LTM (duration)
That infomation in your LTM can last a lifetime, but may need some activities to re jog them
Evaluate the LTM duration study (strength)
P- high external validity
E- this study doesn’t use artificial tasks with lists of an unrealistic works, nonsense syllables or even trigrams. Instead it uses high school year books and class mates, which is measuring more meaningful memories
E- more ‘real’ estimate of the duration of LTM
Evaluate the LTM duration study (Limitation)
P- extraneous variables may impact results
E- the results could be impacted by how much people stayed in touch with people in their high school after graduation, such as, if they didn’t speak to anyone after high school their recall will be worse, but if they kept in touch with lots of people their recall will be higher
E- lack internal validity
Whats the technique of measuring the capacity of STM
This was studied by a digest span technique. This involved them being presented with a sequence if numbers and recalling them in the same order that they were presented. If the participant got them all correct, another number would be added to the list, and would continue until a mistake was made. When the particpant can no longer recall the sequence, the STM is full
Capacity of STM study and findings
A psychologist used a sample of 443 female students, aged 8-19 from a school in London. Participant’s and to recall a string of numbers back to the psychologist who increased it every time they got it correct, until they made a mistake. He also did a variation of the study where he used letters instead of numbers and results showed that more students could recall more numbers then letters.
Result showed that students could recall 7+-2 digits, but this could be increased using chunks
Evaluate the capacity of the STM (strength)
P- the use of digits in the digit span technique
E- real world applications, such as people having to remember phone numbers or certain professions having to remember long sequences of numbers
E- increases external validity as it is measuring it in the real world
Evaluate the capacity of the STM (2 Limitations)
P- the use of letters
E- a string of letters may have included some sort of meaning to the participant, such as someone’s initials, or letters from their name
E- it will allow them to remember it easier in comparison to others
P- didn’t take into account factors that could impact capacity of STM
E- illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, which can develop with age weren’t accounted for during his study as he only used school children between the ages 8-19.
E- lacks population validity as factors such as, drugs, pregnancy, stress and mental health can all impact memory
Capacity of the LTM
It’s not possible to measure the capacity of of LTM, and its seemed that it is unlimited and we are always capable to learn more
Study that identified coding for STM and LTM
A psychologist conducted a study known as the substitution error study
He would ask participants to remember the letters or words and we focus on the mistakes they make when asked to recall
If they confuse something that looks the same they are encoding the material visually
If they confuse something that sounds the same they are encoding the material acoustically
If they confuse something that has the same meaning they are encoding the material semantically
He gave 4 different lists of words to 4 different groups and told the participant’s to remember
Group 1 = words that sounded similar (acoustically similar)
Group 2 = words that sounded different (acoustically dissimilar)
Group 3 = words with similar meanings (semantically similar)
Group 4 = words with different meanings (semantically dissimilar)
Results showed that when they recalled the words immediately, they did worse on the words that were acoustically similar
When asked to recall them in 20 minutes they did worse on the words that were semantically similar
What coding is STM and LTM
STM is mainly acoustic (sound)
LTM is mainly semantic (meaning)
Evaluate the coding study for LTM + STM (strengths)
P- he identified 2 memory stores
E- he identified that theSTM and the LTM are to completely different stores due to them remembering information through semantically or acoustically
E- its suggests his findings are valid and it lead to further studies such as the MSM model
P-supporting evidence
E- a psychologist gave 2 groups of participants a list of letters. One group had a list of letters that were acoustically similar such as B,P,C and the other group got a list of letters that were acoustically dissimilar such as N,H,R. They were asked to immediately recall them and result as showed that around 60 times the letter B and mistaken for P and around 80 times the letter V was being mistaken for a letter P.
E- supports baddelys theory that the STM remembers information acoustically
Evaluate the coding study for LTM + STM (limitation)
P-artificial
E-he used a list of words that showed no personal meaning to the participants, meaning it doesn’t tell us much about the coding for day to day memory tasks
E-limited applications
P- contradicting findings
E- a psychologist presented participants with 2 letters and asked them to decide if they were the same or not. When the letters were given in the same case (‘A’ ‘A’) the particpants responded quicker in comparison to the participant’s who got 2 letters in a different case (‘A’ ‘a’).
E- this shows that baddelys research was to simplistic and the short term memory doesn’t only encode information acoustically
