Short And Long Term Memory

Question 1

What is meant by capacity?

Answer 1

How much can be held in memory

Question 2

What is meant by encoding?

Answer 2

Transferring information into code, creating a ‘trace’.

Question 3

What are the differences between STM and LTM.

Answer 3

STM- limited capacity and limited duration

LTM- pretty much unlimited capacity, theoretically permanent

Question 4

What was the Peterson and Peterson study (1959)?

Answer 4

METHOD- Nonsense trigrams, asked to recall them after 3,6,9,12 or 18 seconds. During the pauses they were asked to count backwards to prevent them rehearsing the trigrams.
RESULTS- after 3 seconds ps could only recall trigrams 80% correctly. After 18 seconds only 10% could recall correctly.
CONCLUSION- no rehearsal means very little can stay in STM for longer than 18 seconds.

Question 5

What is meant by duration?

Answer 5

How long memory lasts