Memory Flashcards
What is meant by duration of memory?
The length of time information can be stored in memory
What is meant by capacity of memory?
The amount of information that can be stored in memory
What is meant by coding of memory?
A process by which the sensory information is modified and stored in the brain. The most common forms are visual, acoustic and semantic
What is the capacity of sensory memory?
Unknown, but very large
What is the capacity of STM?
Limited (7+/-2 ‘chunks’ of information)
What is the capacity of LTM?
Unlimited
How is STM often assessed?
Using a digit span task
What did Jacob’s research find on capacity?
He found the average span for numbers to be 9.3 items
For letters the average decreased to 7.3 items
What did Miller’s research find on capacity?
‘the magic number is 7 plus or minus two.’ He found we are good at remembering between 5-9 items
He found people could recall around 7 dots, 7 letters, 7 musical notes
What did Miller suggest about chunking?
Miller argued that our capacity for remembering information can be increased if we chunk items together
If we find links between things things and group them together then we will remember more
What is the duration of memory in the sensory store?
Less than one second
What is the duration of STM?
Approximately 18-30 seconds unless information is rehearsed
What is the duration of LTM?
Potentially lasts infinitely
What was the procedure of Peterson & Peterson?
To investigate the duration of STM
24 university students
On each of the 8 trials p’s were given a consonant trigram and a three-digit number. They were asked to recall the consonant syllable after intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 seconds. To prevent rehearsal ppts were asked to count backwards from their 3-digit number
What were the findings of Peterson & Peterson?
3 secs - 80% successful recall
9 secs - 20% successful recall
18 secs - less than 10% successful recall
Conclusion : The duration of STM is less than 18 seconds
What was the procedure of Bahrick et al?
To investigate the duration of LTM
392 ppts from the US aged 17-74
Tested photo recognition and free name recall from the participant’s high school yearbook
Had to recall the names of students from 50 photos in the high school yearbook
Asked to list the names they could remember from their graduating class
What were the findings of Bahrick et al?
PHOTO RECOGNITION
Ppts tested within 15 years go graduation were 90% accurate
After 48 years recall declined to 70%
FREE RECALL
After 15 years 60% accurate
After 48 years 30% accurate
Conclusion: This suggests that the duration of LTM can last a very long time
How is information encoded in the SS?
Modality specific (encoded in the same way it is received)
How is information encoded in the STM?
Acoustically
How is information encoded in the LTM?
Semantically
What was the procedure of Baddeley (1966)?
Ppts were shown a list of words and asked to recall them in the 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
What were the findings of Baddeley (1966)?
Participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words when tested immediately (STM) but had no difficulty remembering acoustically similar words after 20 minutes (LTM)
Participants had difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested after 20 minutes (LTM) but had no difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested immediately (STM)
Conclusion: This suggests that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM
What is a model?
A representation of how something works and allows predictions to be made about human behaviour
What does the Multi-store Model of Memory (MSM) suggest?
Memory is made up of three separate and distinct stores. Each differs in coding capacity and duration.
It is a linear, sequential model which means information passes through the stores in order. Information passes from store to store if certain conditions are met.
Information can be lost in each stage of storage.