basics - memory

basics - memory

1. CAPACITY - how much memory a store can hold LTM: unlimited STM- limited

2. DURATION - how long the memory lasts.

3. ENCODING - the way info is changed to be stored in memory

4. STM - PETERSON AND PETERSON - 24 uni students - consonant syllable - count backwards - retention time changed - 3 second=90% remembered 18second = 2% remembered

   • EVALUATION - participants may of been expecting recall so they may of been relying on more than just there STM
   • MARCH ET AL - if participants do not expect this then forgetting may occur after 2 seconds - STM not clear
   • VALIDITY - why study memory for syllables when our memories are concerned with other things

5. LTM - BAHRICK ET AL - asked participants of various ages to put names to faces of their high school year book - 48 years on about 70% were accurate

6. STM- our memory of immediate events

7. LTM- memory for events that have happened in the past

8. CAPACITY STM - 'digit span technique' - assessing your own short term memory; JACOBS 1887- 9.3 for items, 7.3 for letters. why? because there are 9 digits and 26 letters.

9. MILLER 7 +- 2 ; span of immediate memory is 7 - MILLER supported this

10. EVALUATION - COWEN (2001) limited to 4 chunks VOGEL ET AL 2001 - studied visual - was also about 4 chunks

11. ENCODING ; acoustic = sound semantic = meaning

    • BADDELEY - 4 groups of participants A,B,C,D ; 1. 12 sets of 5 words 2. after each set participants asked to recall 3. given card with 10 words - order of recall mattered . group B did the same.
      • RESULTS - participants difficulty in remembering acoustically similar in STM but not LTM. easier remembering semantically similar in STM but muddled with LTM
    • EVALUATION - brandimote et al (1992) visual encoding if given visual task - prevented form doing verbal rehearsal visual = verbal but verbal prevented so visual used LTM - frost 1972 - not exclusively semantic; LTM related t visual + semantic ; nelson and rothbert ; evidence of acoustic