Cognitive Psychology

Small sections of cognitive with the theories.

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  • Created by: Kristy
  • Created on: 13-10-12 11:21

Sound Matters in short-term memory.

Conrad (1964)

Conrad used strings of letters to investigate short-term memory. A typical string has to be letters of irrelevance for Example; BBQ or BBC Would not be in the string of letters.

These letters were shown on screen for approximatley three quaters of a second.

The errors in recall were very interesting; The letters V, B and P were mixed up quite frequently. Conrad claimed it was the sound of the letters that mattered in encoding in the STM. Eventhough they were shown on a screen, the visual information must have been changed into sound on the way to the subjects' memory for such errors to occur.

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The capacity of short-term memory is limited

Miller (1956)

'The magic number 7 +/-2'

Jacobs (1890)

Used letters which didn't have more than one syllable (For example; would not use 7 or W because they have two syllables). By using a metronome, he showed an item every half a second.

He found that:

  • The average digit span was just over nine.
  • The average digit span for letters was seven.
  • As we get older, we get better at remembering both digits and numbers.
  • The Capacity of STM is Limited.
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