The Nature Of Short Term Memory
Mind Map on the nature of short term memory!
- Created by: KTSammons
- Created on: 08-12-12 20:31
View mindmap
- Short Term Memory
- What is short term memory?
- A temporary place for storing information for short periods of time.
- The nature of short term memory
- Encoding - Physical Trace
- Acoustic Encoding (sound)
- Capacity - How Much
- 5-9 Items (Average of 7 Items)
- Duration - How Long
- Up to 30 seconds
- Encoding - Physical Trace
- Jacobs 1887 - The Digit Span Technique - Capacity
- Measures the Capacity of STM
- Participants repeat an increasingly long sequences of digits in order
- When participants forget one of the numbers in the sequence they have reached their personal STM capacity
- Most people have a digit span of 7 numbers
- Miller
- In 1956 Miller described the capacity of STM as 'THE MAGICAL NUMBER 7 PLUS OR MINUS 2'
- However, other factors influence STM capacity such as mnemonics, chunking or the presentation of items as rythm
- Miller found that the capacity of STM can be increased with a process known as CHUNKING (Grouping items together so that they only take up one space in STM)
- No matter how large a chunk is it only takes up one space in STM
- This means we can store up to 'SEVEN PLUS OR MINUS TWO CHUNKS'
- Other psychologists have found that chunking only works if a single word is used. They also found chunking is more effective if the chunks have meaning
- In 1956 Miller described the capacity of STM as 'THE MAGICAL NUMBER 7 PLUS OR MINUS 2'
- Peterson and Peterson 1959 -Trigram Retention Experiment - Duration
- Aim: To test the duration of STM when rehersal is prevented
- Participants were shown a consonant trigram for 18 seconds. They they counted down from a given number to stop them thinking about the trigram. They then recalled the trigrams for 18 seconds
- Participants were able to recall 80% of trigrams after a 3 second interval.
- Fewer trigrams were recalled as the time of the interval lengthened
- After 18 seconds fewer than 10% of the trigrams were recalled correctly
- Fewer trigrams were recalled as the time of the interval lengthened
- Conclusions: When rehersal is prevented information disappears from STM. So information decays within STM
- Criticisms: Low in mundane realism- Trigrams are hard to remember and may not reflect everyday memory. Low in internal validity- The interval period caused interference. Individual differences could affect results
- Baddeley 1966 - Encoding
- Aim: To investigate the type of encoding used in STM
- Participants were shown either a group of acoustically similar or acoustically dissimilar words. They were then asked to recall these words immediately after.
- It was found that the recall for the acoustically similar words was poor but recall for the acoustically dissimilar words was better
- From this we can conclude that sound is important in STM and therefore it encodes acoustically.
- Criticisms: Low in ecological validity and Lacks mundane realism - People do not recall lists in everyday life so it cant be generalised
- Encoding
- Information enters the brain through the senses.
- It needs to be coded in a uniform way for STM to transfer the information to the memory system
- Criticisms: The results make cognitive sense but we are also able to remember visual images in STM
- Many examples such as shopping lists, ordering meals and mobile telephone numbers suggest that STM encodes acoustically
- Information enters the brain through the senses.
- What is short term memory?
- What is short term memory?
- A temporary place for storing information for short periods of time.
- Other psychologists have found that chunking only works if a single word is used. They also found chunking is more effective if the chunks have meaning
Comments
No comments have yet been made