Mmeory - Coding, capacity and duration

Question 1

What is short term memory ?

Answer 1

It is a limited capacity memory store

Question 2

What is long term memory ?

Answer 2

It a permanent memory store.

Question 3

What is coding ? And give examples

Answer 3

Coding is the format in which information is converted into various different memory stores. Examples include acoustic and semantic coding. Acoustic is about the rhyming or sound of the words whereas semantic is more about the meaning of the words.

Question 4

How does coding relate to short term and long term memory ?

Answer 4

In the short term, coding is mainly acoustic and in the long term coding is mainly semantic

Question 5

Who did research on Coding ?

Answer 5

Baddeley

Question 6

What was Baddeley’s study procedure ?

Answer 6

He gave lists of words to four groups of participants.
Group 1 was acoustically similar and group 2 was acoustically dissimilar.
Group 3 was semantically similar and group 4 was semantically different.

Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order.

Question 7

What was the task in Baddeley’s study ?

Answer 7

The participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the right order.

Question 8

What were the findings of Baddeley’s study ?

Answer 8

When they had to recall the words immediately from the STM, they did worse with the acoustically similar words.
However, when they recalled the word after an interval of 20 minutes, recalling from the LTM, they did worse with the semantically similar words.

Question 9

What did Baddeley findings suggest ?

Answer 9

The findings suggest the information is coded acoustically in the STM and semantically in the LTM

Question 10

What is capacity ? And give an example

Answer 10

Capacity is the amount of information which can be stored in various memory stores. An example could be the method of chunking where people will group sets of digits or letters into chunks to recall it easier.

Question 11

How does capacity relate to short term and long term memory ?

Answer 11

In the short term, capacity is usually between 5 and 9 items and in the long term capacity is unlimited.

Question 12

Who did research on capacity ?

Answer 12

Jacobs

Question 13

What did Jacobs want to find out and what was the procedure ?

Answer 13

He wanted to find out how much info STM can hold. He did this by measuring digit span

Question 14

How was the digit span test used in Jacobs study ?

Answer 14

The researcher read out 4 digits and the participants was told to recall them in order. If this was correct, the researcher would read out 5 digits and so on. This was continued until the participants could not recall the digits correctly in order. This would show the person’s individual digit span.

Question 15

What was the findings of Jacob’s study ?

Answer 15

He found a mean span for digits being 9.3 items and mean span for letters being 7.3 items.

Question 16

What is duration ?

Answer 16

This is the length of time in which information can be held in our memory.

Question 17

How does duration relate to short term and long term memory ?

Answer 17

In the short term, duration is about 18 seconds and in the long term duration can last up to a lifetime.

Question 18

Who did research on STM duration ?

Answer 18

Peterson and Peterson

Question 19

What was the procedure of Peterson and Peterson study ?

Answer 19

They tested 24 students in 8 trials where on each trial the student was given a consonant syllable to remember. They then had to count back from a 3 digit number also until told to stop. The counting backwards was to prevent any mental rehearsal. On each trial, they were told to stop after periods of time from 3,6,9,12,15,18.

Question 20

Why did they have to count backwards from a 3 digit number in Peterson and Peterson’s study ?

Answer 20

To prevent any mental rehearsal of the consonant syllable

Question 21

What time periods were they told to stop ? (Peterson and Peterson)

Answer 21

They had to stop at 3,6,9,12,15 and 18 seconds.

Question 22

What was the findings of Peterson and Peterson’s study ?

Answer 22

After 3 seconds, average recall was about 80% and after 18 seconds recall was about 3%. They suggested STM duration therefore may be 18 seconds unless we rehearse it more.

Question 23

Who did research on LTM duration ?

Answer 23

Bahrick

Question 24

How did Bahrick conduct his study and what was his procedure ?

Answer 24

He studied participants 392 aged between 17 and 74. High school yearbooks were obtained from the participants. They were tested on their photo recognition of 50 photos and some were from the participants’ high school yearbooks. Another test was done on free recall where participants recalled all names of their graduating classes

Question 25

What were the results of Bahricks study ?

Answer 25

It was found that free recall was less accurate than recognition.
As after 15 years of graduation, they were 90% accurate in photo recognition. Also after 48 years, recall only decline to about 70% for photo recog.
However, free recall of previous classmates of their graduating class was 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years. Shows LTM can last up to a lifetime