Memory

Memory

1. Coding, capacity and duration

   • Short-term memory
     • Capacity: 5-9 items
       • Jacobs:
     • Coding: acoustic
     • Duration: 18-30 seconds
       • Peterson and Peterson: tested 24 undergraduate students. The students were given trigrams (YGC, TFS, RQI) to remember and also given a 3-digit number. They then had to count this digit backwards, to prevent mental rehearsal. One each trial, the participants stop for a different amount of time (3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds etc). The participants tended to forget the trigrams more easily after 18 seconds.
   • Long-term memory
     • Capacity: Unlimited
     • Coding: semantic
     • Duration: lasts a life-time
   • Sensory memory
     • Capacity: all sensory information
     • Coding: sensory
     • Duration: less than 1 second