Memory- coding, capacity and duration

Coding
1. The format in which information is stored
  1. Acoustic
    1. STM
  2. Semantic
    1. LTM
2. Baddeley, 1966
  1. Gave 4 groups 4 different lists of words
    1. Group1
      1. Acoustically similar words
        Cat, mat, bat
    2. Group 2
      1. Acoustically dissimilar words
        dog, food, man
    3. Group 3
      1. Semantically similar
        huge, large, big
    4. Group 4
      1. Semantically dissimilar
        few, eat, carpet
  2. Findings
    1. Immediate recall (STM)
      1. Struggled with acoustically similar
    2. 20 minutes later (LTM)
      1. Struggled with semantically similar
  3. Evaluation
    1. Artificial stimuli
      1. Word lists have no personal meaning to participants
        Difficult to generalise
Duration
1. The length of time information can be stored
  1. 18-30 seconds
    1. STM
  2. Permanent
    1. LTM
  3. Peterson and Peterson, 1959
    1. STM
    2. Participants given a consonant syllable (e.g. YCG) and a three digit number (e.g. 547)
      1. Counted back from number until told to stop
        Had to recall consonant syllable
        Retention interval of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds
        Recall worse at 18 seconds
    3. Evaluation
      1. Meaningless stimuli
        Difficult to generalise
        Lack of external validity
  4. Bahrick, 1975
    1. LTM
    2. Showed 17-74 year old people their yearbooks
      1. 15 years after graduation
        90% accuracy
      2. 48 years after graduation
        70% accuracy
    3. Asked 17-74 year old people to freely recall students in their graduating class
      1. 15 years after graduation
        60% accuracy
      2. 48 years after graduation
        30% accuracy
    4. Evaluation
      1. High external validity
        Meaningful stimuli
Capacity
1. The amount of information that can be stored
  1. 5-9 items
    1. STM
  2. Unlimited
    1. LTM
2. Jacobs, 1887
  1. Digit span
    1. Recall of digits, increasing each time
      1. Average was 9.3 digits
  2. Evaluation
    1. Lacking validity
      1. Lack of control over confounding variables due to era
3. Miller, 1956
  1. Chunking
    1. People can recall five words just as well as five letters
      1. Grouping letters or digits into chunks
  2. Evaluation
    1. Contradictory evidence
      1. Four chunks more likely

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Memory- coding, capacity and duration

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	Created by Grace Fawcitt over 6 years ago