This contains the content for coding, capacity and duration for AQA A level psychology for the topic of memory in paper 1. All content follows the AQA specification.
Capacity: how much information the STM has at any one time.
- Jacobs gave Ps a number of digits to repeat. If done correctly, one digit is added.
- Did this until failure - determines the digit span. Mean digit was 9.3. With letters 7.3.
Miller suggested the span of STM is 7 + or - 2.
- Noticed people recall 5 words as well as 5 letters. CHUNKING helps improve capacity.
Coding: the format information is stored (visual, acoustic, semantic).
Information is converted into a construct, stored in the brain indefinitely; recalled from STM
or LTM.
Baddeley: Gave different lists of words to 4 groups of Ps to remember:
- Group 1: Acoustically similar
- Group 2: Acoustically dissimilar
- Group 3: Semantically similar
- Group 4: Semantically different
STM condition (tested immediately after) LTM condition (tested 20 minutes after)
Ps did worse on acoustically similar words. Ps did worse on semantically similar.
LTM encodes semantically and STM encodes acoustically.
- LTM gets confused when retrieving the order of words that are semantically similar,
gets distracted by the semantic similarities and mixes them up.
Duration: length of time information can be held in memory.
Peterson and Peterson tested 24 undergraduate students.
- 8 trials, they had to remember a consonant trigram and a 3-digit number.
- Count backwards from that number until told to stop either after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18
seconds. To prevent ‘rehearsal’ of the consonant trigram.
Findings:
- 3 seconds - 80% of the trigrams were recalled correctly.
- 6 seconds - fell to 50%.
- 18 seconds - less than 10%.
The longer Ps counted backwards, less likely they recalled the trigram correctly. STM has a
duration of 18 seconds. If not rehearsed, it is not passed into LTM.
Bahrick: longitudinal study, 392 American Ps 17-74. Identified schoolmates from their
highschool yearbook by naming them in a free recall test, or matching photos to names.
Photo recognition: 90% accurate within 15 years. 48% accurate after 48 years.
Free recall (no clues): 60% accurate within 15 years. 30% accurate after 48 years.
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