Duration of Memory Studies: Peterson and Peterson

Question 1

Method

Answer 1

Participants were shown nonsense trigrams and asked to recall them after either 3, 6, 12, 15 or 18 seconds

Question 2

How long were the trigrams shown for?

Answer 2

3, 6, 12, 15 or 18 seconds

Question 3

Method: What were participants asked to do after seeing the trigrams?

Answer 3

Count backwards in threes from a given number

Question 4

Method: counting backwards from a given number was a…

Answer 4

Interference task

Question 5

Method: why were the participants given an interference task?

Answer 5

So they wouldn’t recall the numbers internally

Question 6

Results: 3 seconds

Answer 6

Participants could recall about 80% correctly

Question 7

Results: 18 seconds

Answer 7

Only 10% could be correctly recalled

Question 8

conclusions

Answer 8

when rehearsal is prevented, very little can stay in STM for longer then about 18 seconds

Question 9

Evaluation: type of study

Answer 9

laboratory study

Question 10

Evaluation: Reliability

Answer 10

because it was a laboratory study the variables can be tightly controlled

Question 11

Evaluation: Ecological validity

Answer 11

nonsense trigrams are artificial, so the study lacks ecological validity

Question 12

Evaluation: Real life

Answer 12

meaningful or real-life memories may last longer in short term memory

Question 13

Evaluation: Stimulus

Answer 13

the duration of short term memory may depend on the type of stimulus

Question 14

Evaluation: Trigram

Answer 14

due to the participants each seeing different trigrams, this could have led to confusion meaning that the first trigram was the only realistic trial

Question 15

What did they study?

Answer 15

investigated short term memory using trigrams