The Nature Of Short Term Memory 

Mind Map on the nature of short term memory!

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  • Created by: KTSammons
  • Created on: 08-12-12 20:31
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  • 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
    • 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
    • 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
      • 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
  • 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

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