Lesson 2- capacity, duration. coding

Question 1

coding- sr

Answer 1

modality specific, each sensory store codes information differently

Question 2

coding- stm

Answer 2

-Baddeley 1966
gave participants four lists of words to recall
List A contained words that sounded similar and List B had words that sounded dissimilar
List C contained words that had similar meanings and List D had words with dissimilar meanings
participants performed worse with list a than list b but there was no difference between list c and list d= stm coded acoustically, organises info according to how it sounds, similar sounding words can become muddled

Question 3

coding- ltm

Answer 3

-Baddeley 1966
repeated experiment for stm, tested participants recall of lists after 20 minute delay in order to ensure info had passed to ltm
participants recall of list c was worse than list d, there was no difference between list a and list b= ltm coded semantically, organises info according to its meaning, words with similar meaning can become confused

Question 4

baddeley evaluation

Answer 4

-lab experiment, easy to replicate as variables have been closely controlled, reliability can be assessed
-low ecological validity, material was artificial, not something participants would need to recall in everyday life, lab setting

Question 5

capacity- sr

Answer 5

unlimited

Question 6

capacity- stm

Answer 6

-Jacobs 1887, digit span
gave participants sequence of digits/letters, asked them to repeat each sequence immediately in correct order, sequences got longer by one each time
found on average we can hold 9.3 digits and 7.3 letters
-Miller 1956 reviewed psychological research studies and concluded the span of stm is 7 +/- 2. if we try to recall more info than we have capacity for then new incoming info displaces old info
also found people can recall five words as easilty as five letters by chunking (grouping large amounts of info into smaller groups)
-J first to acknowledge that stm capacity improves with age
-study was conducted long time ago, may not have been done to same scientifically rigorous standards as today, validity is questionable

Question 7

capacity- ltm

Answer 7

unlimited

Question 8

duration- sr

Answer 8

250 milliseconds

Question 9

duration- stm

Answer 9

-Peterson and Peterson 1959, nonsense trigram
given three random consonants, to prevent keeping in stm using maintenance rehearsal they were asked to count back from 100 in threes
after 3 seconds recall was accurate 90% of the time, after 9 seconds 20% of the time, 18 seconds only 2% of the time
=info in stm lasts 18-30 seconds, after that lost due to decay
-researchers used fixed timings, eliminated noise and other factors that could influence memory, therefore has high levels od control, uses standardised procedures
-findings may have been caused by interference rather than stm having short duration, possibpe that earlier learnt trigrams became confused with later ones

Question 10

duration- ltm

Answer 10

-Bahrick 1979
tested 400 people aged 17-74, photo recognition test consisted of them being shown 50 photos and deciding if they belonged to their classmates or not, in free recall test asked to list the names they could remember from their graduating class
90% accuracy at identifying faces within 15 years of leaving school, after 48 years declined to 70%, free recall of names was 60% accurate within 15 years of leaving, dropped to 30% after 48 years
=duration is potentially a lifetime but sometimes we have retrieval failure and need retrieval cues in order to access info
-higher ecological validity, material used was meaningful and relevant to everyday life
-problematic to control extraneous variables, such as people staying in touch after school, or looking at yearbook since leaving