Coding, Capacity and Duration A03

Coding, Capacity and Duration A03

1. Baddely (1966)

   • It didn't use meaningful material
     • The words used in the study had no personal meaning to the participants
       • When processing meaningful information people may use semantic coding
         • Even for STM tasks
         • Meaning results from this study have limited application
           • It is wrong to generalise findings to different kinds of memory tasks

2. Jacobs (1887)

   • Conducted a long time ago
     • Early research often lacked control of extraneous variables
       • For example some participants may have been distracted while being tested
         • So they didn't perform as well as they should
           • Meaning the results might not have been right because of confounding variables
             • However the results have been confirmed in other studies
               • Reinforcing validity

3. Miller (1956)

   • Research may have overestimated capacity of the STM
     • Cowan (2001) reviewed other research
       • And found that the capacity of the STM is only about 4 chunks
         • The suggests that the lower end of Miller's estimate (5 items)...
           • Is more appropriate than 7 items

4. Barhrick et al (1975)

   • High external validity
     • Real-life meaningful memories were studied
       • Peoples names and faces
       • Shepard (1967)
         • When the same study was carried out with meaningless pictures...
           • Recall rates were lower
         • The downside of this research is that confounding variables are not controlled
           • Participants may have looked at their yearbooks...
             • And rehearsed their memories over the years