Coding, Capacity & Duration

What is coding?

The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores

Who investigated coding?

Baddeley

Describe Baddeleys research into coding

He gave 4 different lists of words to four different groups of participants. The four lists consisted of acoustically similar words, acoustically dissimilar words, semantically similar words and semantically dissimilar words

What does acoustically similar words mean?

Words that sound the same. eg.cat,mat.hat

What does acoustically dissimilar mean?

Words that don’t sound the same. eg. dog, pan, bean

What does semantically similar mean?

Words that have similar meaning. eg.massive,big,huge

What does semantically dissimilar mean?

Words with different meanings. eg. good, tiny, yummy

How did Baddeley investigate STM and what did he find?

He instructed the ppts to recall the list in order immediately. He found that ppts did worse with acoustically similar words

What does this suggest for coding in STM?

STM is coded acoustically

How did Baddeley investigate LTM and what did he find?

Ppts were instructed to recall the list in the correct order after 20 minutes. He found that ppts did worse with semantically similar words

What does this suggest for coding in LTM?

LTM is coded semantically.