coding, capacity and duration

Question 1

What is meant by duration of memory?

Answer 1

The length of time information can be stored in memory

Question 2

What is meant by capacity of memory?

Answer 2

The amount of information that can be stored in memory

Question 3

What is meant by coding of memory?

Answer 3

It’s a by which the sensory information is modified and stored in the brain.

Question 4

What are the different types of memory stores?

Answer 4

Short term and long term : episodic, semantic, procedural

Distinct and separate stores with differences in coding, capacity and duration

Question 5

What is the capacity of sensory memory?

Answer 5

It has a very large capacity
Initial contact for simuli

Question 6

What is the capacity of STM?

Answer 6

Has a limited capacity (7+/-2) items
Subvocal articulatory rehearsal – information we are currently aware of

Question 7

What is the capacity of LTM?

Answer 7

Has potentially unlimited capacity
Retrieved to stm - Continual storage of information which is largely outside our awareness

Question 8

How is STM often assessed?

Answer 8

Digit span task

Question 9

What did Jacob’s research find on capacity?

Answer 9

The average span for :
numbers = 9.3 items
Letters = 7.3 items

Question 10

What did Miller’s research find on capacity?

Answer 10

‘magic number is 7 plus or minus 2’
Normally we remember around 5-9 items

Question 11

What did Miller suggest about chunking?

Answer 11

Our capacity can be increased if we chunk items together
‘cba, lol, atm, nhs, aqa’

Question 12

A limitation of Miller’s research into capacity is ..

Answer 12

that he may have overestimated the capacity of the STM.
that he did not specify the size of the chunk.

Question 13

Cowan (2001)

Answer 13

concluded that the capacity of stm is closer to 4 chuncks of information

Magic number should be 5 not 7

However individual differences makes it difficult to draw universal conclusions

Question 14

Simon (1973) - capacity

Answer 14

– people have smaller stm capacity with larger chunks such as 8 word phrases compared to one syllable words.

However The research does support the view that stm does have a limited capacity

Question 15

A limitation into the research into capacity of STM is that the capacity..

Answer 15

is not the same for everyone as there are individual differences which affect the results.

Question 16

Jacobs finding age

Answer 16

digit span recall increased steadily with age

On average : 8 y/o – 6.6 digits , 19 y/o – 8.6 digits

As people age they may find strategies to improve their digit span

Question 17

A limitation of research into capacity

Answer 17

is that the findings lack ecological validity as the research is often carried out in an artificial setting.

Question 18

limitation of Jacob and miller

Answer 18

Jacob and miller used meaningless words and numbers which is not how memory is used in the real world

Memory has much more personal significance such as people’s birthdays and daily activity

Lacks mundane realism as results may only be generalised to the real world with caution

Question 19

What is the duration of memory in the sensory store?

Answer 19

Less than 1 second

Question 20

What is the duration of STM?

Answer 20

18-30 seconds unless rehearsed

Question 21

What is the duration of LTM?

Answer 21

Potentially infinity

Question 22

What was the procedure of Peterson & Peterson?

Answer 22

On each of the 8 trails p’s were given a 3 digit number and 3 letter, they were told to recall the letter and numbers in syllables of 3,6,9,12,15,18

Question 23

What were the findings of Peterson & Peterson?

Answer 23

-3 secs – 80% successful recall
-9 secs -20% successful recall
-18 secs- less than 10% successful recall

Question 24

What was the conclusion of the stm duration?

Answer 24

the duration of STM is less than 18secs

Question 25

What was the procedure of Bahrick et al?

Answer 25

tested photo recognition (50 photos) and free name recall from p’s school yearbook

Question 26

What were the findings of Bahrick et al?

Answer 26

photo recognition:
-p’s within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate
-after 48years recall declined to 70%

free recall:
-after 15 years years 60% accurate
-48 years 30% accurate

Question 27

Whats the conclusion of Bahrick?

Answer 27

Duration of LTM can last a very long time

Question 28

A limitation of P&P

Answer 28

is that it may not have been measuring trace decay but in fact displacement, lowering the construct validity of the research.

Question 29

P&P
+ Reitman re-experimenting

Answer 29

The students had to recall meaningless three-letter trigrams (for example, THG, XWV) at different intervals (3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds).

When Reitman used auditory tones instead of numbers he found that the duration of the STM was longer

Question 30

A limitation of P&P is that the results of the study lack ecological validity.

Answer 30

Ppts memorising trigrams does not reflect real life situations so its very artificial and therefore lacked mundane realism

Question 31

A strength of Bahrick’s results is that they have higher ecological validity than P&P’s research into duration.

Answer 31

Own high school classmates = more personal + memorable = high mundane realism

Question 32

limitation of bahrick’s results - confounding variables

Answer 32

p’s could have frequently looked at their yearbooks and others may not = internal validity of results are compromised

Question 33

How is information encoded in the SS (sensory store)?

Answer 33

Modality specific (encoded the same way as its received)

Question 34

How is information encoded in the STM?

Answer 34

Acoustically

Question 35

How is information encoded in the LTM?

Answer 35

Semantically

Question 36

What was the procedure of Baddeley (1966)?

Answer 36

Ppts were shown a list of words and asked to recall them in the correct order

Stm = asked immediately
Ltm = asked 20min after

Question 37

What were the findings of Baddeley (1966)?

Answer 37

Acoustically – stm = difficult , ltm = easy

Semantically – stm = easy, ltm = difficult

Question 38

A strength of Baddeley’s findings into coding showed that there are distinct and separate memory stores.

Answer 38

It showed that stm are coded acoustically and ltm semantically

The finding of msm has a reliable finding which has high temporal validity

Question 39

A limitation of Baddeley’s findings into encoding of STM is that there is contradictory research evidence.

Answer 39

This shows encoding is not always acoustic in stm and not always semantic in ltm

Question 40

what did Bradimote et al and Nelson and rothbart found about STM and LTM

Answer 40

Bradimote et al found that ppts used visual coding in stm if they were given a visual task and prevented from doing any verbal rehearsal before the visual recall.
Nelson and rothbart also found evidence of acoustic coding in LTM.

Question 41

A limitation of Baddeley’s research is that the findings lack ecological validity

Answer 41

He used meaningless words to test participants which is not reflective of how memory is used in the real world - lack mundane realism

Question 42

who did what?

Answer 42

Capacity - Jacobs digit span, miller’s magic number

Duration - Bahrick , p&p

Coding - baddeley

Question 43

Common forms of memory

Answer 43

Visual , acoustic and semantic

Question 44

limitation of p&p - validity

Answer 44

Validity of p&p were low due to their methodological limitations