memory - coding capacity and duration Flashcards
what does coding mean?
coding is the way that information is stored as a memory, this can be acoustically ,semantically or visually.
what does capacity mean?
capacity is the amount of information that can be held in a memory store.
what does duration mean?
duration is the amount of time that information can be held in memory.
which psychologist did research into coding?
Baddeley.
what was his procedure into investigating coding?
he gave p’s 4 groups of words, they were either acoustically similar or dissimilar, or semantically similar or dissimilar
ps were then asked to recall the words in the correct order again. when they did this immediately (using short term memory)they did worse on the acoustically similar words. but when recalling after 20 mins (using long term memory) they did worse on semantically similar words.
what did these findings suggest?
That information is coded acoustically in the STM and semantically in LTM.
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What is one strength into Baddeley’s research into coding?
he identified a clear difference between STM and LTM, and his results have stood the test of time in being the correct way that information seems to be stored in both.
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However what is a limitation to Baddeley’s coding research?
The words lists were artificial with no real meaning, so this doesn’t tell us a lot about how memories are coded in everyday life and when processing meaningful information, this suggests that the findings only have limited application.
Who did research into capacity?
Joseph Jacobs (1887)
What was the procedure of his research?
researcher would read out 4 digits, ps would recall these in the correct order, the researcher would add on a digit each time they got the order correct .indicating the ps digit span.
what were the conclusions for this?
he found the mean span was 9-3 items.
Who added onto jacob’s research into capacity?
Miller, he made observations on everyday practice
What rule did he create?
that the capacity for STM is about 7 plus or minus 2 items.
What is chunking?
this is a memory technique that involves grouping info into smaller clusters that make it easier to remember, based on the ide that STM has limited capacity.
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what is a strength to Jacob’s research?
his study has been replicated many times and they have found the same results, even when better controlling the studies. suggesting it has valid and meaningful data.
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What is a limitation to millers research ?
others have concluded that capacity is about 4 plus or minus 1, this suggests he may have overestimated STM capacity, suggesting that maybe the lower end (5 items) is more appropriate.
who did research onto duration of STM?
Peterson (1959)
What did they do?
gave students a consonant syllable( e.g YCG) and also a 3 digit number, they were told to count down from this number ( this was so they couldn’t mentally rehearse the syllables ) they were told to stop counting after varying periods of time, e.g 3 seconds or 18. and then recall the consonant syllable.
What were the results from this
They found that after 3 seconds of counting down, the average recall was 80% however after 18 seconds, it was about 3%
this suggests that STM duration is about 18 seconds. unless you rehearse the information.
who researched the duration of LTM?
Bahrick et al.
What did they do?
studied 392 American students, aged 17 to 74. used high school yearbooks to use photo recognition.
What were the findings?
ps tested within 15 years of graduating were 90% accurate,after 48 years recall declined to 70%.
what does this conclude?
that LTM may last up to a lifetime for some material.
what is a strength to Bahrick’s study on duration of LTM?
there is high external validity, as the researches investigated meaningful memories, suggests that his findings reflect a more real estimate of the duration of LTM.
