memory - coding, capacity, and duration

Question 1

what is coding?

Answer 1

the format in which information is stored

Question 2

who studied coding?

Answer 2

Baddeley (1966)

Question 3

research on coding

Answer 3

4 groups, each given a different list of words to remember (acoustically or semantically similar/dissimilar)

when recalling from STM, did worse on acoustically similar

when recalling from LTM, did worse on semantically similar

Question 4

evaluation of research on coding

Answer 4

strength
- identified different memory stores

limitation
- artificial stimuli

Question 5

what is capacity?

Answer 5

the information that can be held in a memory store

Question 6

who studied digit span?

Answer 6

Jacobs (1887)

Question 7

research on digit span

Answer 7

researcher read out list of digits for participant to repeat, increasing in length until the participant couldn’t recall the order correctly

mean digit span - 9.3
mean letter span - 7.3

Question 8

who studied the span of memory?

Answer 8

Miller (1956)

Question 9

findings on the span of memory

Answer 9

Miller (1956) observed that things come in 7s, so thought the span of STM i7, plus or minus 2

Question 10

what is chunking?

Answer 10

grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks

Question 11

evaluation of research on capacity

Answer 11

strength:
- Jacobs’ study has been replicated

limitation:
- Cowan (2001) suggested the capacity of STM is actually 4, plus or minus 1

Question 12

what is duration?

Answer 12

the length of time information can be held in memory

Question 13

who studied the duration of STM?

Answer 13

Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Question 14

research on duration of STM

Answer 14

tested 24 students by giving them a consonant trigram to remember and a 3-digit number to count back from to prevent mental rehearsal

recall 80% after 3 seconds
recall 3% after 18 seconds

Question 15

who studied the duration of LTM?

Answer 15

Bahrick et al (1975)

Question 16

research on the duration of LTM

Answer 16

studied 392 American participants aged 17-74, testing them on recall from their high school yearbooks

photo-recognition
- 90% accurate after 15 years
- 70% accurate after 48

free recall test of names
- 60% after 15 years
- 30% after 48 years

Question 17

evaluation of research on duration

Answer 17

strength:
- Bahrick et al’s study has high external validity

limitation:
- Peterson and Peterson use artificial stimuli