MEMORY- coding, capacity and duration

Question 1

capacity definition

Answer 1

how much information can be kept in any memory store at one time

Question 2

research on capacity- Jacobs- procedure (3)

Answer 2

Digit span
1. read out digits/letters to participants eg. 4 digits
2. increase length of these digits by 1 until participants can’t recall the order correctly
3. this indicated the individual’s digit/letter span

Question 3

research on capacity- Jacobs- findings

Answer 3

mean digit span= 9.3
mean letter span= 7.3

Question 4

research on capacity- Miller- procedure (2)

Answer 4

1. he observed things that come in groups of 7 (days of the week)
   2.suggested we are predisposed to remembering this quantity- ‘chunking’ method can help to recall information

Question 5

research on capacity- Miller- findings (2)

Answer 5

-capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 (7 +/- 2)
-capacity of LTM is unlimited

Question 6

coding definition

Answer 6

the format in which info is stored in the various memory stores

Question 7

research on coding- Baddeley- procedure (3)

Answer 7

1. he gave different word lists to 4 groups and had them recall them correctly
2. STM groups recalled immediately, LTM recalled after 20 mins
   group 1- acoustically similar words (cat, cab, can)
   group 2- acoustically dissimilar words (pit, few, cow)
   group 3- semantically similar words (great, large big)
   group 4- semantically dissimilar words (good, huge, hot)

Question 8

research on coding- Baddeley- findings (2)

Answer 8

-LTM info is coded semantically (more mistakes were made with semantically similar words)
-STM info is coded acoustically (more mistakes were made on acoustically similar words)

Question 9

duration definition

Answer 9

the length of time info can be held in the memory

Question 10

research on LTM duration- Bahrick et al- procedure (3)

Answer 10

1. 392 american, ex-highschool students aged 17-74 years old
2. asked to recall classmates from their high school yearbooks
3. free recall of as many people as possible
   photo recognition test consisting of 50 photos

Question 11

research on LTM duration- Bahrick et al- findings + conclusion (3)

Answer 11

-free recall: 60% accuracy within 15 years of graduation. 30% accuracy after 48 years
-photo recognition test: 90% accuracy within 15 years of graduation. 70% accuracy after 48 years
Shows that people ave very-long-term memories as duration of LTM is up to a lifetime for some memories

Question 12

research on STM duration- Peterson and Peterson- procedure (2)

Answer 12

1. participants are told a trigram (3 consonants eg. ZTM). Vowels are avoided so words can’t be constructed
2. participants asked to count backwards in 3’s from a 3-digit number. They were asked the stop after varying periods of time (eg. 3 secs, 6 secs, 9 secs,) and recall the trigram

Question 13

research on STM duration- Peterson and Peterson- findings + conclusion (3)

Answer 13

-after 3 secs average recall was 80%
-after 18 secs average recall was 3%
Duration of STM is 18-30 secs.