Coding,duration,capacity

• What is coding in memory?

  The process of transforming information for storage
• What does capacity refer to in memory?

  The amount of information held in memory
• What does duration mean in the context of memory?

  The length of time information is held
• What were the aims and findings of Baddeley's (1966) study on coding?

  • Aims: To investigate how information is coded in STM and LTM.
  • Findings:
  • STM: worse recall for acoustically similar words.
  • LTM: worse recall for semantically similar words.
• What types of word lists did Baddeley use in his study?

  Acoustically similar and semantically similar
• What design did Baddeley use in his study?

  Independent group designs
• What did Miller (1956) claim about STM capacity?

  We can hold 5-9 items
• What was the procedure of Jacob's (1887) digit span test?

  • 443 female students aged 8-19.
  • Participants repeated increasing strings of numbers.
  • Average span: 7.3 letters and 9.3 words.
• What was the procedure of Peterson and Peterson's (1959) study on duration?

  • 24 students, 8 trials each.
  • Given nonsense trigrams.
  • Counted backwards from a 3-digit number for 3-18 seconds.
• What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson's (1959) study regarding duration?

  80% recall at 3 seconds, 3% at 18 seconds
• What was the procedure of Bahrick et al.'s study on duration?

  • 392 American participants aged 17-74.
  • Photo recognition test with 50 photos.
  • Free recall of graduating class names.
• What were the findings of Bahrick et al.'s study after 15 and 48 years?

  90% photo recall at 15 years, 70% at 48 years
• What percentage of names were recalled freely after 15 years according to Bahrick et al.?

  60%
• What percentage of names were recalled after 48 years according to Bahrick et al.?

  30%