memory Flashcards
What property of memory is best described as how long a memory store can keep information?
Duration refers to how long a memory can be stored. If a memory store has a longer duration, the information can be stored for a longer period of time.
what does capacity mean
Capacity refers to how much information can be stored in a memory store. The larger the capacity of the memory store, the greater amount of information that can be stored
what does coding mean
Coding refers to the format of the information being stored. Different types of information are coded differently, depending on where the information is coming from.
what does longer duration mean?
information can be kept for longer
what are the three properties on which memory stores can vary are
coding, capacity and duration
acoustic code
acoustic coding is the storing of information in terms of the sound
visual code
the process of encoding images and visual sensory information.
what is sensory coding
storing sensory information
what is the memory store that holds sensory information for a very short period of time while we process the information
sensory register
what did sterling want to determine
how many letters his participants would recall
what feature of sensory memory was sterling investigating
capacity
what did Sperling want to determine
how many letters his participants would recall
what was the method for Sperling’s study
- 4 by 3 grids of letters were displayed for milliseconds
- there are two conditions: full grid recall one row recall
- He conducted a lab experiment investigating the capacity of sensory register
how many seconds does the sensory register hold information
1-2 seconds
what was the results of sperling’s study
the sensory register has large capacity and a short duration
what was the results of Sperling’s study
the sensory register has large capacity and a short duration
what conditions did Sperling use in his study
Sperling’s study had two conditions. One where the participants had to recall as many of the 12 letters as possible, and another where they had to recall just the one row. This happened immediately after the grid was shown, so participants did not have time to attach meaning to the letters before recall.
what were the results of Sperling’s study
In condition 1, where participants had to recall the entire grid, they usually recalled around 4-7 letters. When participants were asked to recall only one of the rows, they usually recalled around 3 letters.
what did Sperling conclude ?
Sperling concluded that the sensory register had a large capacity. Sperling argued that the capacity size of the sensory register was the reason that participants could recall most of the letters in a single row condition.
what did Sperling conclude about the duration length
participants could only recall 4-5 letters
what was the reason for the amount of words recalled
the short duration led to some letters being forgotten in the full grid condition by the time they had to recall the letters
what is the short term memory
- the limited capacity memory store
- coding mainly acoustic (sounds)
- capacity is between 5 and 9 items on average
what is the long term memory
- the permanent memory store
- coding is mainly sematic (meaning)
- it has unlimited capacity and can store up to a lifetime ‘
what is the multi store model of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi store model is a representation of how memory works in terms if three stores called sensory register, STM and LTM. it describes how information is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and how it is forgotten
