This document is detailed revision notes with all you could ever need to know on the whole AQA A-level Psychology Memory topic, including AO1 and AO3 content. The notes are subdivided into the subtopics used by the textbook. They include the content from the textbook, which has been combined with e...
Memory
Coding, capacity and duration of memory
Research on coding
Coding: converting information between different forms
Alan Baddeley (1966) – four categories:
Acoustically similar
Acoustically dissimilar
Semantically similar
Semantically dissimilar
Method
1. Shown the words and asked to recall them in the correct order
Findings
When they recalled immediately – recalled from STM – tended to do worse
with acoustically similar words.
When they recalled after 20 minutes – recalled from LTM – tended to do
worse with semantically similar words.
Conclusion
STM codes acoustically
LTM codes semantically
Evaluation
Separate memory stores
o Has stood the test of time
o Important in understanding
o Led to MSM
o Counterpoint: later research showed exceptions to Baddeley’s
findings
Controlled lab setting and replicated
o Findings replicated on numerous occasions
o Distinction between STM and LTM and coding is widely
accepted
o Face validity e.g. revision
o Valuable as it has advanced out understanding of memory and
contributed to memory models
, - Artificial stimuli – lacked mundane realism
o Not meaningful or personal material – learning lists of words
o May not be generalisable to everyday life
o Semantic coding may be used even for STM tasks in real life as
it is meaningful information
o Left for 20 minutes before testing LTM – too soon in comparison
to real life
o Limited application and cannot be generalised
o Lacks ecological validity
Research on capacity
Digit Span (how many numbers recalled) – Joseph Jacobs (1887)
Method
1. Researcher reads out 4 digits and the participant recalls these out
loud in the correct order.
2. If correct, the research reads out 5 digits etc, until the participant
recalls incorrectly.
Sequences should have no meaning, no repetition and not be acoustically
similar.
Findings
Mean span for digits across all participants was 9-3.
Mean span for letters was 7-3.
Span of memory and chunking – George Miller (1956)
Method
1. Made observations of everyday practice
Findings
Things come in sevens: notes on the musical scale, days of the week,
deadly sins.
Conclusions
Span of STM is about 7 +/- 2 items
People can recall 5 words as easily as 5 letters: chunking
Chunking – grouping sets of digits or letters in units or chunks
Evaluation
Jacobs has been replicated
, o Early research often lacked adequate control e.g. distraction
during testing meant digit spans might have been
underestimated (confounding variable)
o May make findings invalid
o Findings confirmed by other, better controlled studies since
o Bopp and Verhaeghen 2 005
o Therefore, it is valid
Real-world application
o Face validity
o E.g. postcodes, number plates
o Helped develop theories e.g. MSM
o Often naturally try to have information not exceeding 7 chunks
– valid and useful in an everyday context
- Not as many chunks
o Miller may have overestimated STM capacity
o Nelson Cowan (2004) reviewed other research and concluded
the capacity of STM is only 4 +/- 1 chunks
o Suggests Miller’s lower estimate of 5 is more appropriate than 7
Research on duration
Duration of STM – Margaret and Lloyd Peterson (1959)
Method
1. Tested 24 students in 8 trials each
2. Each trial: student given a consonant syllable to remember and a 3-
digit number to count backwards from until told to stop
Counting back – prevented mental rehearsal of the syllable
3. Time until told to stop: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds (the retention
interval)
Findings
After 3 seconds: average recall was about 80%
After 18 seconds: average recall was about 3%
Conclusion
o Suggest that STM duration may be about 18 seconds without
rehearsal
Duration of LTM – Harry Bahrick et al. (1975)
Method
1. Studied 392 American participants aged 17-74
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