memory- coding capacity and duration

Question 1

who was the main person to study coding of memory?

Answer 1

Baddeley (1966)

Question 2

what was the procedure of Baddeley for coding of memory?

Answer 2

-ACOUSTICALLY similar words (e.g. cat, cab, can) or dissimilar (e.g. pit, few, cow)
-SEMANTICALLY similar words (e.g. great, large, big) or dissimilar (e.g. good, huge, hot)

Question 3

what was the findings of Baddeley for coding of memory?

Answer 3

-immediate recall worse w/ acoustically similar. STM acoustic
-recall after 20 minutes worse w/semantically similar words. LTM semantic

Question 4

who was the person to study capacity of memory w/digit span?

Answer 4

Jacobs (1887) testing digit span

Question 5

what was the procedure of Jacobs for capacity of memory?

Answer 5

-researcher reads four digits and increases until p’s cannot recall order correctly. final number= digit span

Question 6

what was the findings of Jacobs for capacity of memory?

Answer 6

-on average could repeat back 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters in correct order immediately after presented

Question 7

who was the person to study capacity of memory w/ magic number?

Answer 7

Miller (1956)

Question 8

what was the procedure of Miller for capacity of memory?

Answer 8

-observed everyday practice
-noted things come in sevens- notes of musical scale, days of week, deadly sins, etc

Question 9

what was the findings of Miller for capacity of memory?

Answer 9

-span of STM about 7 items (+/-2)
-increased by chunking- grouping sets of digits/letters into meaningful units

Question 10

who were the people to study the duration of STM?

Answer 10

Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Question 11

what was the procedure of Peterson and Peterson for duration of STM?

Answer 11

24 students were given a consonant syllable (e.g. YCG) to recall and a 3-digit no. to count backwards from. the retention interval was varied 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds

Question 12

what was the findings of Peterson and Peterson for duration of STM?

Answer 12

-after 3s- average recall was ab 80%. after 18s it was about 3%. STM duration without rehearsal is up to 18s.

Question 13

who studied duration of LTM?

Answer 13

Bahrick et al. (1975)

Question 14

what was the procedure of Bahrick et al. for capacity of LTM?

Answer 14

-392 Americans aged 17-74
1. recognition test- 50 photos from high school year books
2. free recall test- p’s listed names of their graduating class

Question 15

what was the findings of Bahrick et al. for capacity of LTM?

Answer 15

• recognition test- 90% accurate after 15 years, 70% after 48 years
• free recall test- 60% recall after 15 years, 30% after 48 years

Question 16

ao3 of Baddeley- two memory stores

Answer 16

-exceptions to Baddeley’s findings
-STM mostly acoustic, LTM mostly semantic
-led to development of MSM

Question 17

ao3 of Baddeley- artificial stimuli

Answer 17

-words had no personal meaning to p’s so tells us little ab coding for everyday memory tasks
-when processing more meaningful info, people use semantic coding even for STM
-findings of this study have limited application

Question 18

ao3 of Jacobs- replicated

Answer 18

-old study, may have lacked adequate controls (confounding variables e.g. p’s being distracted)
-despite this findings have been confirmed in layer controlled studies (e.g. Bopp and Verhaeghen 2005)
-shows Jacob’s study a valid measure of STM digit span

Question 19

ao3 of Miller- overestimate STM capacity

Answer 19

-Cowan (2001) reviewed other research
-concluded capacity of STM only about 4 (+/-1) chunks
-suggests lower end of Miller’s estimate more appropriate than 7 items

Question 20

ao3 of Peterson and Peterson- meaningless stimuli

Answer 20

-sometimes try to recall meaningless things so study is not completely irrelevant
-but recall of consonants syllables doesn’t reflect meaningful everyday memory tasks
-so study lacks external validity

Question 21

ao3 of Bahrick et al - high external validity

Answer 21

-everyday meaningful memories studied (e.g. people’s faces)
-when lab studies done with meaningless pictures recall dates were lower (e.g. Shepard 1967)
-findings reflect a ‘real’ estimate of the duration of LTM