Short and Long- Term Memory

Question 1

Short term memory

Answer 1

Memory of present events or immediate past

Question 2

Long term Memory

Answer 2

Memory for events that happened in the distant past

Question 3

Capacity

Answer 3

How much data can be held in a memory store

Question 4

How can the capacity of STM be assessed?

Answer 4

• by digit span
• introduced by Joseph Jacobs(1887)
• average for digits 9.3 items could be recalled and 7.4 letters could be recalled.

Question 5

What is a digit span?

Answer 5

Research conducted by, Joseph Jacobs.
Where participants read out letters/numbers and recall them out loud in correct order
- if this is correct the researcher repeats the experiment with more numbers/letters (x+1)
- until the participant is no longer being able to remember the number/letters. Which makes it the individual digit span.

Question 6

Why is it easier to remember digits compared to letters?

Answer 6

Joseph claims, its due to only being 9 digits vs 26 letters

Question 7

What does George Miller suggest about the capacity of STM?

Answer 7

from the article Magic Number seven plus or minus two. He reviewed psychological research.
George miller concludes the span of immediate memory being around 7 items.(Plus or Minus two) eg:5 or 9

Question 8

What does George Miller propose about chunking?

Answer 8

Says grouping letters or digits into units or chunks. can help us remember more.

Question 9

Name the Evaluations for the Capacity of STM:

Answer 9

1. The capacity of STM may be even more limited
2. The chunk size matters
3. Indvidual differences

Question 10

Capacity of STM may be limited…

Answer 10

Due to Miller original findings not being replicated
- Cowan (2001), conducted various studies on the Capacity of STM.
- He came with a Conclusion, on it being around 4 chunks.
- Vogel et al. research on the study of the capacity of STM for visual information, had also had the limitation of 4 items.
- Suggesting that Miller range is around 5

Suggesting that the STM isn’t as extensive.

Question 11

The Chunk sizing Matters..

Answer 11

• size of the chunk determines how many chunks you can remember.
  Supported by Simon(1974), where he found out people have a shorter memory span for larger chunks.

Supporting the view that STM has a limited Capacity

Question 12

Individual Differences matters…

Answer 12

Capacity of STM isn’t the same for everyone
- Jacobs had found a correlation that digit span increases with age eg: 8 year olds can remember average of 6.6 digits, Whereas for 19 year olds ,it was 8.6 digits.
Age plays an impact on the brain capacity/ development of strategies like chunking.
- Overall suggesting that STM capacity isn’t fixed and individual differences may play a role.

Question 13

describe the research of lloyd peterson and Marget Peterson

Answer 13

Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson(1959). studied duration of STM using 24 students.
each underwent 8 trails each.
Each trail given constant syllable and three digit number.
asked to recall the consonant syllable after a retention
interval of either 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds.
During the retention the participants had to count backwards from three-digit number.

Question 14

What were the results of Margret Peterson and Lloyd Peterson research?

Answer 14

• 90% were correct over three seconds
• 20% were correct after 9 seconds
• 2% were correct after 18 seconds

Suggesting that STM has a short duration- less than 18 seconds without verbal rehearsal

Question 15

Describe Harry Bahrick et al (1975) research on the duration of LTM

Answer 15

• Harry Bahrick et al (1975) tested 400 people of various ages(17-74) on the memory of their classmates. A photo-recognition test consisted of 50 photos, some from the participants year book. In a free recall test participants were asked to list the names they can remember from their graduating class.

Question 16

What were the results from Harry Bahrick et al(1975) research?

Answer 16

• Participants who were tested within 15 years of graduation, scored 90% of them accurately in identifying faces. After 48 years, the face recognition had dropped to 70%. Free recall, was 60% accurate after 15 years, dropping to 30% after 48 years.

Question 17

Name the Evaluations for the duration of STM:

Answer 17

-The testing for STM was artificial
- STM results were due to displacement

Question 18

Testing for STM being artificial…

Answer 18

• The memorisation of constant syllables cant be applied to daily memory activities.
  Remember meaningful things eg: numbers and postcodes
  Although, this can be applied to certain Memory activities, such as remembering postcodes and phone numbers.

although the task was artificial, it has some relevant impact on some everyday life situations.

Question 19

STM results may be due to displacement…

Answer 19

• A criticism of Peterson’s research study, is that it doesn’t measure what is set out to measure .
• As in Peterson’s study participants were counting numbers in STM, which displaces the syllables that need to be remembered.
• This can be supported by Reitman experiment(1974), who used auditory tones, instead the repetition of numbers, so that the displacement doesn’t occur. As sounds don’t interfere with verbal rehearsal. Concluding the results of STM to be lasting longer.

Suggesting that forgetting in Peterson study was due to displacement and not decay.

Question 20

What is duration?

Answer 20

how long memory lasts before it is no longer available

Question 21

What is coding/encoding?

Answer 21

• the way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory information which enters the brain through senses.
  it can be stored in three codes.

Question 22

What are three codes?

Answer 22

• acoustic codes(sounds)
• semantic codes(meaningful experience)
• visual code(eg: a picture)

Question 23

Capacity

Answer 23

How much memory can be held in memory. Represented in terms of bits of information eg:digits

Question 24

How does the STM and LTM store information?

Answer 24

STM stores information acoustically mostly.
LTM stores information semantically.

Question 25

Describe the research, that proves STM stores information acoustically and LTM stores information semantically.

Answer 25

Alan Baddeley (1996a.1996b) used words that were: semantically similar but acoustically dissimilar and semantically dissimilar but acoustically similar.
He Found a correlation, that participants had found difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM but not in the LTM.
whereas semantically similar words, had caused a little problem with the STM but muddled with the LTM largely.

Suggesting that STM is largely encoded acoustically, whereas LTM is largely encoded semantically.

Question 26

Evaluation points on Alan Baddeley research:

Answer 26

• STM may not be acoustically encoded fully
• LTM may not be semantically fully.
• Baddeley hasn’t fully tested LTM

Question 27

STM isn’t fully acoustically encoded..

Answer 27

• research by Brandimote et al(1992), found participants use visual coding in STM, if were given a visual task and were prevented from verbal rehearsal in the retention rehearsal, before performing a visual recall task. Normally these Visual images would be translated into verbal codes in STM. Due to the prevention of verbal rehearsal, participants used visual codes.
• Wickens et al(1976) research, also supports this, showing that STM sometimes uses semantic code.

Question 28

LTM may not be exclusively semantic…

Answer 28

Frost(1972) showed that long-term recall is related to the visual and semantic.
Nelson and Rothbart(1972) found evidence of acoustic encoding in LTM.

Suggesting that LTM, isn’t semantic and carry vary depending on situations.

Question 29

Baddeley may have not tested LTM…

Answer 29

• Baddeley hasn’t tested LTM,
  in his study for STM was tested by asking participants to recall a word list immediately after hearing it. However, LTM was tested by waiting 20 mins . Which is questionable on whether LTM was really tested over here
  As LTM lasts anywhere between 2mins to 100 years.

This causes a doubt on the validity of Baddeley’s research, as he isn’t testing LTM after all.