2.1 coding capacity and duration

What is STM and its characteristics?

STM (Short-Term Memory) is a limited-capacity memory store with an acoustic coding format, a capacity of 5 to 9 items, and a duration of about 18 seconds.

What is LTM and its characteristics?

LTM (Long-Term Memory) is a permanent memory store characterized by semantic coding, unlimited capacity, and a duration that can last up to a lifetime.

What does 'coding' refer to in memory studies?

Coding refers to the format in which information is stored in memory.

What does 'capacity' mean in the context of memory?

Capacity is the amount of information that can be held in a memory store.

What does 'duration' mean in the context of memory?

Duration is the length of time that information can be held in memory.

What did Baddeley's research on coding reveal about STM?

Baddeley found that participants recalled acoustically similar words worse than acoustically dissimilar words when recalling from STM.

What did Baddeley's research on coding reveal about LTM?

Baddeley found that participants recalled semantically similar words worse than semantically dissimilar words when recalling from LTM after 20 minutes.

What did Jacob's digit span study discover regarding STM capacity?

Jacob's study found the mean digit span was 9.3, and for letters, it was 7.3.

What was Miller's contribution to understanding STM capacity?

Miller suggested that the capacity of STM is about 7 items, with a range of 5 to 9, and that people can recall 5 words as easily as 5 letters through chunking.

How did Cowan challenge Miller’s findings on STM capacity?

Cowan found that the true capacity of STM is 4 items (plus or minus 1), suggesting Miller may have overestimated it.

What was the method and finding of Peterson's research on STM duration?

Peterson gave participants consonant syllables to remember while counting down from a number, and after 18 seconds, recall was only 3% accurate.

What did Bahrick's study reveal about LTM duration?

Bahrick's study showed that within 15 years of graduation, recall was 90% accurate, and after 48 years, it dropped to 70%, with lower rates in free recall tests.

What is a limitation of Peterson's study on STM?

Peterson used artificial stimuli, lacking external validity since we rarely remember meaningless information.

What is the significance of Bahrick's study in terms of external validity?

Bahrick's study had high external validity as it used meaningful memories instead of artificial stimuli, unlike Peterson's study.