Coding, Capacity, Duration

Coding, Capacity, Duration

1. Coding

   • format in which information is stored
   • Baddeley's word list:
     • acoustically similar acoustically dissimilar semantically similar semantically dissimilar
     • participants shown original list and asked to recall. immediate recall (STM) was worse for acoustically similar. recall after 20 minutes (LTM) was worse for semantically similar. suggests coding in STM is acoustic and semantic in LTM
     • evaluation - artificial stimuli, had no personal meaning. we should be cautious about generalising findings to different memory tasks. finding have limited application

2. Capacity

   • amount of information that can be held
   • Jacob's Digit span:
     • participants given 4 digits and asked to recall in correct order. if correct researcher reads out 5 digits and so on until participant can no longer recall. this determines a digit span
     • the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3 items. the mean span for letters was 7.3
   • Miller's Span Memory