Nature of memory A01 and A03 Flashcards
Nature of memory
What is the duration of STM?
18 seconds
Nature of memory
What is the capacity of STM
7+- 2 chunks of information
Nature of memory
What is the coding for STM?
Acoustic
Nature of memory
What is the duration of LTM?
Few minutes to a lifetime
Nature of memory
What is the capacity of LTM?
Limitless
Nature of memory
How is LTM coded?
Semantically
Nature of memory
STM CAPACITY, how is it measured? Explain test
Immediate digit span test.
List of random disgusts read out and ps have to repeat them back in correct order.
The sequence length where they are correct 50% of the time is their immediate digit span.
Miller claimed this was 7+-2 chunks of information.
Nature of memory
What can improve the capacity of our STM?
Chunking
Occurs when we combine individual letters into a larger, meaningful unit.
Example:
Unchunked = B M W N H S F B I B B C
Chunked = BMW NHS FBI BBC
Nature of memory
How did Conrad demonstrate that coding in STM is acoustic?
Conrad found that rhyming letters (c p g e d) were harder to recall than non rhyming letters (f u l t w p n).
This was due to acoustic confusion errors
He found similar effects for rhyming and non rhyming words
Nature of memory
How did Peterson and Peterson demonstrate that the duration of STM was about 18 seconds?
Hint : what test did they use? Explain it.
What did they find?
Used a trigram experiment.
Asked ps to remember a nonsense syllable of 3 consonants (KPD).
Ps given an interference task to stop them rehearsing (counting back in 3s)
Ps asked to recall triagrams after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 seconds SS.
Recall was gold after 3s (80%), poor after 18 secs 10%
Nature of memory
How did baddelely demonstrate LTM was coded semantically?
But what is an idea contradicting this?
Gave so list of words to remember and found when recall tested after 20 mins ps found it more difficult to recall words of similar meaning than words of non similar meaning.
These semantic confusion errors suggest coding in LTM is by meaning.
However, may use more than one type of coding in LTM. Words like sunset, pyramid are easy to visualise so may use visual code but words like clever and guilty are more abstract so may be coded semantically
Nature of memory
How did Bahrick demonstrate the duration of LTM was few minutes to a lifetime?
What do Bahrick find?
Yearbook study.
Opportunity sample of 392 American ex high school students age 17-74. Tested by:
- free recall of names of former class mates
- photo recognition asked to identify classmates from set of 50 photos (not all photos were actually classmates)
- name recognition test
- name and photo matching test
Found:
90% accuracy in face and name recognistion even in ps who left school 34 years ago.
After 48 years old 80% for name recognition and 40% for face recognition.
Free recall only 60% accurate in psychology that left 15 years ago and only 30% accurate in ps who left 48 years ago
What did Bahrick conclude in his yearbook study on the nature of memory? (Duration for LTM)
Classmates are rarely forgotten when recognition clues are given so LTM can have a very long duration
Nature of memory - Evaluation (A03)
Strength - type of RM?
Lab based research
High control of extraneous veritable e.g interference task to stop rehearsal.
Cause and effect can be inferred
Nature of memory - Evaluation (A03)
Criticism - ecological validity
Much of this research lacks EV.
Tests using consonants in a lab are not like real life. In real life we remember events and meaningful info.
So may not tell us anything useful about the nature of memory
For example, research into anxiety shows how emotion affects your memory
