PSYA1 - MEMORY - Short term and Long term memory

Question 1

What is meant by duration,capacity and coding in relation to memory? (2+2+2 marks)

Answer 1

Capacity: Concerns how much data can be held in a memory store. STM has limited and LTm has infinine
Duration: Concerns the duration at which data stays in the store STM: short duration LTM : potentially infinite
CODING: Way in which info is stored and ‘written’ in memory. Held in forms of sounds(acoustic), images(visual) or semantic(meaning)

Question 2

Outline research done into capacity of STM: (2 main points)

Answer 2

Joseph Jacobs - serial digit span: Participants presented with sequences of items (usually digits) and made to repeat them in order. Typical range was 4-10. Found its easier to remember digits in a sequence as a rhythm.
- MAGIC NUMBER: 7 + or - 2 (5-9) reviewed research and stated that capacity of STM is 5-9.

Question 3

Evaluate the idea of capacity in STM (3 points)

Answer 3

• May be even more limited: research found the limit for verbal stimuli was four items.
• Size of chunk matters: size of chunk affects how many chunks you remember,
• Individual differences: Not everyone has the same capacity. Age affects it. 8 year olds average was 6.6 19 was 8.6 digits

Question 4

Outline research done into duration of the STM:

Answer 4

Brown-Peterson technique: Nonsense trigrams: random triplets of letters.
- On each trial participants hears trigram and given a 3 digit number and told to count down in 3’s from this(prevent rehearsal) Tested with different recall intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 and 18 seconds. Memory excellent over 3 seconds, gradually declined after.
Conclusion: STM has short duration info begins to decay after 3 seconds and is mainly gone by 18 seconds

Question 5

Outline research done into capacity of LTM:

Answer 5

Bahrick tested people of varied age (17-24). Given photos from high school yearbook and asked to list names the could remember.
Within 15 years of leaving: 90% accuracy
After 48 years: 70% for photo photo recognition.
After 15 years free recall was 60% accuracy and after 48 years was 30%

Question 6

Evaluate Idea of duration in STM and LTM (2 points)

Answer 6

• Testing STM is artificial. Trying t memorise syllables doesn’t reflect everyday life . However we do try to remember meaningless things (phone numbers) so it does have SOME relevance.
• STM results may be due to displacement: In Peterson’s study participants counted numbers backwards this may displace the trigrams. Suggests forgetting in Peterson’s study was due to displacing not forgetting

Question 7

Outline study into coding:

Answer 7

Baddely: 75 participants divided into 4 groups each group given one list (either: acoustically similar words, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar or semantically dissimilar words.
Participants hear their word list 4 times and after each one had to recall in same order.
Found participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM but not in LTM whereas semantically similar words posed little problem for STMs but led to muddled LTMS Suggests STM is largely encoded acoustically whereas LTM is coded semantically.

Question 8

Evaluate idea of CoDing (3 points)

Answer 8

1) Baddely may not have tested LTM, asked them to recall after 20 mins. Is this really testing LTM?
2) STM may not just be acoustic: some visual codes are also used in the STM
3) LTM may not just be semantic: Frost showed long term recall was related to visual as well as semantic categories.