duration of the STM & LTM

what is duration?

the length of time that the memory store holds information for

what does research into the duration of the STM suggest?

that information can only be held in STM for a limited period of time

how long can information be held in STM for according to research?

18-30 seconds

how can the duration for which information is held in the STM be extended?

through rehearsal

what is rehearsal?

repeating the information over and over

who conducted research into the duration of the STM?

peterson and peterson (1959)

what did peterson & peterson ask 24 students to listen to?

a nonsense trigram

what is a nonsense trigram?

a random string of 3 letters

example of a nonsense trigram:

wrt

what was heard after hearing the nonsense trigram?

a random 3 digit number

what did the participants have to do involving the 3 digit number that they heard?

count backwards in 3s from this number

why did the participants have to count backward in 3s from the 3 digit number that they heard?

in order to prevent rehearsal of the tribes,

after how many seconds were the participants asked to recall the trigram?

3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds

after how many seconds was the highest level of recall?

3 seconds

what percentage of participants recalled the trigram after 3 seconds?

90%

did the level of recall increase or decrease as the duration increased?

it decreased rapidly, there was only 2% recalled after 18 seconds

what does research into the duration of the LTM suggest?

that it can potentially last up to a lifetime

can the information still be stored in the LTM even if information cannot be retrieved?

yes

who conducted research into the duration of the LTM?

bahrick et all (1975)