Capacity and Encoding

Capacity and Encoding

1. Jacobs (1887)

   • Cover write check method
   • Average span of digits 9.3 items
   • Average span of letters 7.3 items
   • Suggests easier for digits because only 9 digits

2. Miller (1956)

   • Magic number 7±2

3. Simon (1974)

   • People have a shorter memory for smaller chunks

4. Baddeley et al

   • Tested effects of semantic and acoustic similarity on short and long term memory
   • Found participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM
   • Found participants had difficulty remembering semantically similar words in LTM