Coding, Capacity and Duration of memory

Question 1

Define Coding:

Answer 1

The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

Question 2

Define Capacity:

Answer 2

The amount of information that can be held in a memory store.

Question 3

Define Duration:

Answer 3

The length of time a piece of information can be held in a memory store.

Question 4

Define Short-term Memory:

Answer 4

The limited-capacity memory store, mainly acoustic (sounds) and has a capacity between 5 and 9 items with duration up to 30 seconds.

Question 5

Define Long-term Memory:

Answer 5

The permanent memory store, mainly semantic (meaning) and has unlimited capacity with duration of a lifetime.

Question 6

How is visual information stored?

Answer 6

Iconic memory - visual info stored as images.

Question 7

How is auditory information stored?

Answer 7

Echoic memory - auditory info stored as sounds.

Question 8

How is tactile information stored?

Answer 8

Haptic memory - tactile info stored as feelings.

Question 9

What sense is stored in the Echoic?

Answer 9

Sound (from the ears)

Question 10

What sense is stored in the Iconic memory?

Answer 10

Visual (from eyes)

Question 11

What sense is stored in the Haptic memory?

Answer 11

Tactile (from skin/fingers)

Question 12

Where is information about the feeling of a rug stored?

Answer 12

Tactile information is stored in the Haptic memory.

Question 13

Where is information about the sound of a door knock stored?

Answer 13

Auditory information is stored in the Echoic memory.

Question 14

Where is information about the shape of a building stored?

Answer 14

Visual information is stored in the Iconic memory.

Question 15

Where is information about the color of a dog and the sound of its barking stored?

Answer 15

The color is visual information and is stored in the Iconic memory, while the sound of its barking is auditory information and is stored in the Echoic memory.

Question 16

What experiment did Alan Baddeley (1966) do to investigate coding of memory?

Answer 16

He gave participants one of four lists of words to remember and asked them to recall the words in the correct order. He found that performance was worst with acoustically similar words.

Question 17

What did Baddeley’s research (1966) suggest about coding in the LTM?

Answer 17

That information is coded semantically in the LTM.

Question 18

AO3 - Baddeley’s research into coding.

Answer 18

In Baddeley’s study he used artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material. The word lists had no personal meaning to participants which makes it hard to generalise into real-life situations due to the low ecological validity.

Question 19

What did Jacobs (1887) find in his study on capacity of the STM?

Answer 19

He found the mean digit span was 9.3 items and letter span was 7.3 items.

Question 20

In Jacobs experiment (1887) did he find that numbers or letters where easier to recall from the STM?

Answer 20

He found that mean digit span was 9.3 items whilst letters was only 7.3 items.

Question 21

AO3 - Jacobs (1887).

Answer 21

A limitation of Jacob’s study was that it was conducted a long time ago, early research often lacked variable control which may have affected the results.

Question 22

What is memory?

Answer 22

The process of encoding, storing and retrieving information.

Question 23

What is semantic coding?

Answer 23

In terms of meaning.

Question 24

What is acoustic coding?

Answer 24

What information sounds like.

Question 25

What did Baddeley (1966) find in his experiment?

Answer 25

Baddeley (1966) found we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STM and mix up words that mean similar things in the LTM, supporting the idea they are different stores.

Question 26

What is the serial position effect?

Answer 26

Murdock (1962) found that words at the beginning and end of a list are best recalled whilst the words in the middle tend to get ‘lost’, this is often called the primary-recency effect?