Encoding STM, LTM

Encoding STM, LTM

1. Encoding: the way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory, information enters the brain via the senses

   • acoustic coding is coding information in terms of the way it sounds, semantic coding is coding information in terms of it's meaning

2. Baddeley 1966

   • tests effects of acoustic and semantic on short and long term recall. Gave participants lists of words which were acoustically similar or dissimilar
     • found that participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM but not in LTM, whereas semantically similar words had little problem for STM but led to muddled LTM memories

3. Evaluation

   • LTM and STM may use other codes
     • Brandimote et al found that participants used visual encoding in STM if they were given a visual task (pictures) and prevented from doing any verbal rehearsal in the retention interval (had to say la la la) before performing a visual recall task. Normally we 'translate' visual images into verbal codes in STM, but verbal rehearsal was prevented - they did use visual codes
     • Wickens et al 1976 shown that STM sometimes uses a semantic code
     • Frost 1972 shows that LTM recall was related to visual as well as semantic categories
     • Nelson and Rothbart found evidence of acoustic encoding

4. Acoustically similar: BIG rhymes with TWIG, acoustically dissimilar: BIG does not rhyme with LARGE, semantically similar: BIG means the same as LARGE, semantically dissimilar: BIG does not mean the same as TWIG