Studied by 4 people
what is memory?
the process by which we retain information about events that have happened in the past
what is short-term memory?
your memory for immediate events, measured in seconds and minutes
what is long-term memory?
your memory for events that have happened in the past
what is the duration of LTM?
potentially unlimited in length
what is the duration of STM?
very short <18s
what is the capacity of STM?
7 + or - 2
what is the capacity of LTM?
potentially unlimited
how is STM encoded?
acoustically
how is LTM encoded?
semantically
what does acoustic encoding mean?
through sound
what does semantic encoding mean?
through meaning
what is the key study to support STM’s capacity?
jacobs
what was jacob’s procedure?
used digit span
what did jacobs find?
the average span was 9.3 digits and 7.3 letters
what did jacobs suggest about the difference between digits and letters?
it was due to there only being 9 digits and 26 letters
who found that 7 + or - 2 is the span of STM?
miller
what is chunking?
the ability to recall 5 words as easily as 5 letters
who argued that the magic number was 4?
cowan
what is the key study to support duration of STM?
peterson & peterson
what was peterson & peterson’s procedure?
24 students
8 trials
each pp was given a consonant syllable and 3 digits e.g., THX 512
pps were asked to recall about intervals increasing from 3 - 18 seconds while counting back from their number in 3s
what were the results of peterson & peterson’s research?
pps were 90% correct after 3 seconds
20% correct after 9 seconds
2% correct after 18 seconds
what did peterson & peterson conclude?
STM has a short duration if verbal rehearsal is prevented
what is the key study for duration of LTM?
bahrick et al
what was bahrick’s procedure?
tested 400 people aged 17+ on memory of classmates
photo recognition test with 50 photos and a free recall test
what did bahrick find?
pps who graudated within 15 years scored 90% when identifying faces and 60% in free recall
pps who graduated 47+ years after were 70% in photos and 30% in free recall
who is the key study for encoding in STM & LTM?
baddeley
what was baddeley’s procedure?
used word lists to test the effects of acoustic and semantic similarity
what were baddeley’s findings?
pps struggled to remember acoustically similar words in STM
pps struggled to remember semantically similar in LTM
and vice versa
what did baddeley conclude?
STM is largely encoded acoustically whereas LTM is largely encoded semantically
what are the criticisms of research into the capacity of STM and LTM?
the capacity of STM may be even more limited - cowan (2001)
the size of the chunk affects how many chunks one can remember - simon (1974)
individual differences - STM differs between people
what are the criticisms of research into the duration of STM and LTM?
the testing for STM is artifical as memorising consonant syllables is not reflective of everyday life
STM results may be due to displacement when counting
what are the criticisms of research into encoding of STM and LTM?
baddeley may not have tested LTM as he only waited 20 minutes
STM sometimes uses visual or semantic coding (brandimote et al (1992) and wickens et al (1976))
LTM may use visual and acoustic coding (frost (1972) and rothbart (1972))
Note 
Flashcard (68)