1. Coding, Capacity And Duration Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is duration
The length of ice information can be held in a memory store
What is the duration of STM
18 - 30 seconds
What is the duration of LTM
Potentially a lifetime
What was Peterson and Peterson procedure, (research into STM)
• Participants were given three letters to remember (e.g. YCG)
• To prevent the participants from rehearsing their letters, they had to do another task; Participants were asked to count backwards from a three-digit number until they were told to stop.
• Participants then had to recall their 3 letters.
What were the findings of Peterson and Petersons study
The longer the participants had to wait before recalling their letters, the worse their recall was.
This shows that the duration of STM is very limited.
They concluded that the duration of STM was approximately 18 seconds.
What was Bahrick eat als procedure, (LTM)
Participants looked through their high school yearbook and completed two tasks.
• Task 1: They had to state whether they recognized the faces of people in the photos.
• Task 2: They had to freely recall the names of the people in the yearbook.
What were the findings from Bahrick et als study
On a whole, the participants were able to successfully recognize the images of their classmates and freely recall their classmates’ names, even decades after they had graduated.
This shows that the duration of LTM is incredibly long (potentially unlimited).
What is capacity
Refers to how much information can be held in a memory store
What is the capacity of STM
Between 5-9 items
What is the capacity of LTM
Potentially unlimited
What did miller observe
That many things come in 7s, e.g. week
How did jacobs develop a way to test digit span
• He would present participants with a list of 4 numbers.
• If the participant recalled the numbers in the correct order, then they were presented with a list of 5 numbers and so on.
What is coding
The way that a memory is encoded describes the format that information is stored in
What is acoustic coding
- as a sound
- mainly STM
What is semantic coding
- Through its meaning
- Mainly LTM
What did baddely study
Presented participants with four word lists
How did he test STM
Participants were then given the list of words in the wrong order.
Their task was to rearrange them into the correct order, immediately after hearing the list
What were the findings of investigating STM
Participants in group 1: acoustically similar
• Only recalled 10% of the list accurately.
• The other groups recalled their lists with 60-80% accuracy.
This suggests that participants in group 1 confused the acoustically similar words because STM relies on acoustic processing/ coding.
How did he test LTM
The participants did the same task.
But this time there was a 20-minute interval in between hearing the words and having to recall the words.
What were the findings from his study
Participants in group 3: semantically similar
• Performed the worse on the recall task.
This suggests that participants in group 3 confused the semantically similar words because LTM relies on semantic processing/ coding.
