Features Of Short Term Memory AO3

Question 1

✅ What research supports that different sensory codes are used in STM?

Answer 1

Although STM is mainly acoustic, some stimuli (like faces or food) are likely encoded using other sensory codes, suggesting a more complex encoding process.

Question 2

✅ What do individual differences in STM capacity suggest?

Answer 2

Daneman and Carpenter (1980) found that STM capacity varies (5-20 items) depending on a person’s reading comprehension ability, suggesting STM capacity can differ between individuals.

Question 3

❌ Why might research on STM lack external validity?

Answer 3

Studies often use artificial stimuli, such as trigrams (Peterson & Peterson) or word lists (Baddeley), which lack mundane realism and may not represent everyday memory use.

Question 4

What does Reitman (1974) suggest about the relationship between capacity and duration in STM?

Answer 4

STM’s limited capacity means that new information can displace existing information, making capacity and duration closely linked.