Memory - Coding, capacity and duration of memory

Question 1

Capacity memory is defined as …

Answer 1

the amount of information that can be held in a memory store

Question 2

What is the suggestion about the capacity of the Sensory Register

Answer 2

There is no limit of capacity for SR / its unlimited

Question 3

Capacity - Short Term Memory key researcher & technique

Answer 3

Jacobs (1887) and his technique was called Digit Span Technique

Question 4

Capacity - STM procedure

Answer 4

Participant A reading out letters/numbers and participant B recalling them. As they went on, the numbers/digits increased until one digit / number was incorrectly called

Question 5

Capacity - STM findings

Answer 5

He found that the mean for span of digits was 9.3
he found that the mean span for letters was 7.3

Question 6

Capacity - STM strengths

Answer 6

standardised method

if they included 7 or w we would not know if we were measuring the amount of syllables they could remember

Question 7

Capacity - STM weakness

Answer 7

explicit what he was testing > nervousness

extraneous variables

Question 8

Capacity - STM Additional Researcher

Answer 8

Miller

Question 9

Capacity - STM additional research observation

Answer 9

He observed that things come in 7, for example seven deadly sins, 7 wonders of the world, seven colours in the rainbow, seven days a week

Question 10

Capacity - STM additional proposition

Answer 10

He proposed the idea of chunking which is remembering things in chunks like phone numbers

Question 11

chunking

Answer 11

remembering things in chunks like phone numbers

Question 12

Capacity - LTM key researcher

Answer 12

there is no key researcher !!

Question 13

what is the suggestion about the capacity of LTM

Answer 13

There is no capacity for LTM / it is unlimited

Question 14

Duration of memory is defined as …

Answer 14

how long information can be held in memory store

Question 15

Duration - SR key researcher

Answer 15

there is none !!

Question 16

Duration - if attention is not paid to information in the SR, then it only lasts for …

Answer 16

1/2 a second

Question 17

Duration - STM key researchers

Answer 17

Peterson & Peterson

Question 18

Duration - STM example of a nonsense trigram

Answer 18

YGC

Question 19

Duration - STM procedure

Answer 19

1) Students took part in 8 trials
2) Each trial the student was given a trigram to remember (such as YGC) and a 3 digit number
3) the students had to count back from the 3 digit number to prevent maintenance rehearsal
4) each trial, they would stop at different amounts of time – 3,6,9,12,15,18

Question 20

Duration - STM findings

Answer 20

Decays over a short period of time, short term memory has the ability to last long. Absolute maximum capacity is 18-30 for short term memory without rehearsal

Question 21

Duration - STM - Estimate what percentage of correct responses at each retention interval there was

Answer 21

3 seconds – 80
6 seconds – 55
9 seconds – 30
12 seconds – 23
15 seconds – 14
18 seconds - 12

Question 22

Duration - what main conclusion can be taken about the duration of STM?

Answer 22

Absolute maximum capacity is 18 - 30 for short term memory without rehearsal

Question 23

Duration LTM key researcher

Answer 23

Bahrick et al (1975)

Question 24

Duration LTM how many partcipants

Answer 24

392

Question 25

Duration LTM what stimuli did they use?

Answer 25

Old year books

Question 26

Duration LTM what two things did they test

Answer 26

photo recognition task

free recall task

Question 27

Duration LTM what were the findings

Answer 27

photo recognition – 90% accurate if they graduated in the last 15 years, 70% accuracy if they graduated within 48yrs
Free recall task – 60% accuracy if graduated in the last 15 years, 30% accuracy if they graduated within 48 yrs

Question 28

Coding of memory is defined as …

Answer 28

The format in which information is stored in various memory stores

Question 29

The coding of the sensory register is …

Answer 29

modality specific

Question 30

Coding - SR 5 sense

Answer 30

eyes - iconic
ears - echoic
touch - tactile
taste - gustatory
nose - olfactory

Question 31

coding - STM and LTM key researcher

Answer 31

Baddley (1966)

Question 32

Acoustic meaning

Answer 32

words that sound similar

Question 33

semantic meaning

Answer 33

words that have similar meaning

Question 34

Coding - what experimental design was used?

Question 35

Coding - what were the groups?

Answer 35

Group 1 - acoustically similar = cat, cab, can
Group 2 - acoustically dissimilar = pit, few, cow
Group 3 - semantically similar = large, big, colossal
Group 4 - semantically dissimilar = good, huge, hot

Question 36

Coding - findings

Answer 36

When asked to recall word list immediately…
they struggled to record the correct order of the acoustically similar word > acoustic confusion
focusing too much on how the words sound and getting confused by this

When asked to do a task which took 20 minutes before recalling …
they struggled to recall semantically similar words > semantic confusion

Therefore, STM is encoded acoustically and the LTM semantically.

Question 37

Coding - when asked to recall word list immediately …

Answer 37

they struggled to record the correct order of the acoustically similar word > acoustic confusion
focusing too much on how the words sound and getting confused by this

Question 38

Coding - when asked to do a task which took 20 minutes before recalling ..

Answer 38

When asked to do a task which took 20 minutes before recalling …
they struggled to recall semantically similar words > semantic confusion

Question 39

Coding - conclusion

Answer 39

Therefore, STM is encoded acoustically and the LTM semantically.

Question 40

Coding, Sensory Register

Answer 40

no key researcher

modality specific
> iconic, echoic etc

Question 41

Capacity, Sensory Register

Answer 41

no limit / unlimited

Question 42

Duration, Sensory Register

Answer 42

less than 1/2 a second

Question 43

Coding, STM

Answer 43

Baddley
acoustically

Question 44

Capacity, STM

Answer 44

Jacobs - digit span technique = 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters
Miller = 7 +- 2 chunks

Question 45

Duration, STM

Answer 45

Peterson & Peterson
18 - 30 seconds

Question 46

Coding, LTM

Answer 46

Baddley
semantically

Question 47

Capacity, LTM

Answer 47

no limit / unlimited

Question 48

Duration, LTM

Answer 48

Bahrick
more than 47 years

Question 49

AO1

Answer 49

• Coding is the format in which information is stored. The sensory register is modality-specific. Baddeley researched coding of STM and LTM using 4 conditions, which tested memory of acoustically or semantically similar or dissimilar words. Immediate recall was worse with acoustically similar words, meaning that the STM encodes acoustically. Recall after 20 minutes was worse with semantically similar words, showing LTM is encoded semantically.
• Capacity is the amount of information that can be held in memory store. Through a digit span study, Jacobs found that on average people could remember 9.3 digits and 7.3 letters. Miller advanced these findings by noticing that thing often come in 7s and concluded that it 7+-2 chunks of information may be a better representation of STM capacity. The capacity of the LTM is unlimited.
• Duration is the length of time that information is held in memory stores. The sensory register has a duration of less than half a second, unless paid attention to. Peterson and Peterson found a limited duration of 18 seconds in the STM, by testing how well participants could remember a nonsense-trigram when counting backwards to prevent maintenance rehearsal. Bahrick found that after 48 years, people are still able to remember names and faces of classmates, tested from a yearbook, suggesting an unlimited duration of the LTM.

Question 50

AO3

Answer 50

• A weakness of research into the capacity of STM is that it might be outdated.
• For example, Jacob’s study was conducted in 1887, over 100 years ago at a time where psychology often lacked adequate control.
• This is a weakness because 137 years ago, psychologists would not have been aware of the need for such tight manipulation of the environment and variables, meaning that participants may have experienced confounding variables such as distraction which may have affected how much they could remember.
• Method
• However, it could be argued that Jacob’s findings have been confirmed by other, better controlled studies when it has been replicated, showing the internal validity of the results for STM
• Despite this, the research lacks temporal validity as the researchers may not find the same conclusions about capacity of STM if they were to do in 2024 where we have control.
• Therefore, the MSM may not be relevant nowadays as an explanation of memory and therefore lacks temporal validity.
• A weakness of research into the duration of STM is that it uses meaningless stimuli.
• For example, Peterson and Peterson used nonsense trigrams such as YCG as their memory stimuli and provided random 3 digit numbers such as 789 to count back from.
• This is a weakness because using such meaningless stimuli is a weakness of the research because it limits how confident we can be when generalizing the findings about how long our memory lasts, outside of the experimental setting. In everyday life, we form memories related to all sorts of useful and relevant things, such as names, faces, facts and birthdays and not a random groups of letters
• Additionally, meaningless stimuli creates a lack of mundane realism as it cannot be generalised to real-life natural settings
• However, some could argue that meaningless stimuli was important to use in this situation, because if participants were given trigrams that meant something to them, it undoubtedly would have gone to their LTM quicker due to the personal meaning, and therefore the study would not be truly testing what it intended to.
• Despite this, the research has low external validity as there has not been research to show how long the STM is when the stimuli is more relevant information to us.
• This consequently decreases our trust in the multi-store model to be able to accurately describe human’s memory processes.
• A weakness of research into coding is that they may not have investigated what they intended to.
• For example, the longest gap that Baddeley left between learning and recall was 20 minutes.
• This is a weakness because this methodological choice can be questioned, as 20 minutes may not represent what we mean by LTM. When people refer to LTM, they tend to also think about years in the future, which this research may not represent.
• Method
• However, it may be argued that 20 minutes is good level of control for someone to be able to rehearse something.
• Despite this, to truly test coding of LTM they should have measured further into the future, in order to be more robust with the findings.
• Therefore, the MSM lacks internal validity we cannot be sure it explains what it wanted to.
• A strength of research into the duration of LTM is that it used meaningful stimuli.
• For example, Bahrick used real life events such as school photos within the recall tasks
• This is a strength because using meaningful and person stimuli is a strength of the research because means we can be more confident when generalizing the findings about how long our LTM lasts, outside of the experimental setting.
• Method
• However, it can be argued that using year book photos can be considered as an extraneous variable as it is easier for the person to remember as with Bahricks study he doesn’t know how many times that person has looked at the year book over time which means he can’t control for the extraneous variable that people could have read the yearbook, reducing its reliability.
• Despite this, the research is useful as we can be more assured that the conclusions represent human memory.
• This means that we can claim the Multi-Store Model has high levels of external validity as it is likely to explain our memory processes in everyday situations.