Memory; Coding, Capacity and Duration

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Coding
The format in which information is stored in various memory stores.
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Capacity
The amount of infomation that can be held in a memory store.
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Duration
The length of time information can be held in memory.
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Short-Term Memory (STM)
The limited capacity memory store. Coding is mainly accoustic (sounds), capacity is between 5 and 9 items on average, duration is between about 18 and 30 seconds.
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Long-Term Memory (LTM)
The permenant memory store. Coding is mainly semantic (meaning), it has unlimited capacity and can store memories for up to a lifetime.
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Baddeley (1966) - Research on Coding
Gave different lists of words to 4 groups which they were asked to recall. STM recall was worse with acoustically similar words. LTM recall was worse with semantically similar words. Therefore, coding is semantic in LTM.
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Jacobs (1887) - Research on Capacity (Digit Span)
Participant has to recall several digits, getting more each time. Found the mean span of digits was 9 and for letters were 7.
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Miller (1956) - Research on Capacity (Chunking)
Noted things tend to come in 7s e.g music scale, days of the week. Span of STM is 7 +- 2 . However, can recall 5 words as well as 5 letters by chunking - grouping together letter or digits.
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Peterson (1959) - Reasearch on Duration of STM
24 participants, 8 trials. Given a trigram (e.g YCG) and a 3 digit number which they had to count backwards from. This was to prevent rehearsal of the trigram. Stopped at different times (3,6,9,12,15,18), called retention interval.STM,short duration
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Bahrick (1975) - Research on Duration of LTM
395 particpants (17-74), yearbooks. Photo recognition; 15 years 90%, 48 years 70%. Free recall of names; 15 years 60%, 48 years 30%. Shows LTM lasts a long time.
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Evaluation on Coding - Artificial Stimuli
Uses artificial stimuli, list have no meaning to participants. Issues in generalisability to memory tasks e.g may use semantic for STM. Finding of Baddeley' that it has limited findings.
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Evaluation on Capacity - Lacking Validity
Out of date, lacked control e.g participants may have been distacted decreasing their performance. Confoundign variables weren't controlled. However, other studies support its validity.
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Evaluation on Capacity - Not so many Chunks
Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM. Cowan looked at other research and suggested capacity is actually about 4 chunks.
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Evaluation of Duration - Meaningless Stimuli in STM Study
Peterson' sstuyd used artifical stimuli, memorising syllables doesn't reflct real life memory task where we try to remeber soemthing memorable. Lacks external validity. However, do remember meaningless things e.g phone numbers, not irellevant.
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Evaluation of Duration - Higher External Validity
Bahrick studies real life memories. Previous research on LTM using meaningless pictures found lower recall. Cofounding variables aren't controlled in real life studies e,g could have studies the year books
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Card 2

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Capacity

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The amount of infomation that can be held in a memory store.

Card 3

Front

Duration

Back

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Card 4

Front

Short-Term Memory (STM)

Back

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Card 5

Front

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Back

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