Memories – coding capacity and duration

Question 1

What is meant by duration?

Answer 1

The length of time information can be stored in memory.

Question 2

What is meant by capacity?

Answer 2

The amount of information that can be stored in memory.

Question 3

What is coding?

Answer 3

The way in which information is stored in the brain.

Question 4

What are the three types of memory?

Answer 4

Sensory register
Short-term memory STM
Long-term memory, LTM

Question 5

What is the sensory memory?

Answer 5

Initial contact for stimuli.

Question 6

What is the short term memory?

Answer 6

The information we are currently aware of or thinking about.

Question 7

What is the long-term memory?

Answer 7

Continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness.

Question 8

What is the capacity for each of the memory stores?

Answer 8

SR - has a very large capacity.
STM – has a limited capacity (7+/-2 items).
LTM – has a potentially unlimited capacity.

Question 9

How was the STM’s capacity often measured and who first use this technique?

Answer 9

Digit span task.
Jacobs was among the first use this technique to assess the capacity of the STM.
He found the average fan for Numbers to be 9.3 items.
Letters the average decreased to 7.3 items.

Question 10

What is Millers magic number?

Answer 10

George Miller reviewed psychological research and concluded that the magic number is 7+ or -2.

Question 11

What is meant by Miller’s chunking?

Answer 11

Mia argued that our capacity for remembering information can be increased if we chunk items together if we find links between things and group them together then we will remember more.

Question 12

What is a limitation of Miller’s research into capacity?

Answer 12

He may have overestimated the capacity of the STM – Cowan reviewed research and concluded capacity is closer to 4 chunks of information -it is therefore universal conclusion due to individual differences.

Question 13

What is the duration of the memory stores?

Answer 13

SR – less than 1 second.
STM – approximately 18 to 30 seconds.
LTM – possibly infinity.

Question 14

What is the study on duration into the STM?

Answer 14

Peterson and Peterson (1959) STM.
Aim: to investigate the duration of the STM
Procedure: P. Participants given a consonant trigram and a three digit number they were asked to recall the consonant syllable of different different times. To prevent rehearsal, participants were asked to count backwards.

Question 15

What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson study into the STM?

Answer 15

After three seconds, there was 80% successful recall
After nine seconds, there was 20% successful recall
After 18 seconds less than 10% successful recall.

Question 16

What was the conclusion of Peterson and Peterson study into the duration of the STM?

Answer 16

The duration of the STM is less than 18 seconds.

Question 17

What is Bahrick et al study into the long-term memory?

Answer 17

Aim: to investigate the duration of the LTM.
Procedure: tested photo recognition and free name recall from the participants high school yearbook they had to recall the names of students from 50 photos in the high school yearbook they were asked to list the names they could remember from their graduating class.

Question 18

What were the findings of Bahrick et al study into long term memory?

Answer 18

For the photo recognition task participants tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate after 48 years we declined 70%.
For the free recall of names after 15 years 60% was accurate after 48 years 30% was accurate.

Question 19

What was the conclusion of Bahrick et al study in long term memory?

Answer 19

Suggested that the duration of the LTM can last a very long time.

Question 20

What is a limitation of the studies of duration?

Answer 20

Limitation of Peterson and Peterson it may not have been measuring trace decay but in fact displacement lowering the constructive validity – participants will count backwards in threes or fours as a distraction task complicating the task overwriting the trigrams - when Reitman used auditory tones instead of numbers he found that the duration of their STM was longer - showing methodological limitations.

Question 21

What is the encoding for all the memory stores?

Answer 21

SR – modality specific it is encoded in the same way as it is received.
STM – acoustically.
LTM – semantically.

Question 22

What was Baddeley research into coding?

Answer 22

Ppts were shown a list of word and ask to recall them in correct order.
To test STM ppts recalled the words immediately after hearing them, whereas a time interval of 20 minutes was given for LTM recall.
Group 1: acoustically similar
Group 2: acoustically dissimilar
Group 3: semantically similar.
Grou 4: semantically dissimilar.

Question 23

What were the findings into Baddeleys research into encoding?

Answer 23

Participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words when tested immediately (STM) but had no difficulty remembering acoustically similar word after 20 minutes (LTM).
Participants had difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested after 20 mins (LTM) but had no difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested immediately (STM).

Question 24

What were the findings into Baddeleys research into encoding?

Answer 24

Participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words when tested immediately (STM) but had no difficulty remembering acoustically similar word after 20 minutes (LTM).
Participants had difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested after 20 mins (LTM) but had no difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested immediately (STM).

Question 25

What is the conclusion of Baddeleys study into encoding?

Answer 25

This suggests that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM.

Question 26

What is a strength of encoding?

Answer 26

A strength is that Baddeleys research shows there are distinct and separate memory stores - because it showed STM are coded acoustically and LTM semantically - this is an important finding which led to the development for the MMS - MSM had a reliable finding which stood the test of time.