Capacity of STM

• Despite the many functions of STM.................?

  It does have limitations in its capacity
• What did Millar 1956 refer to '7' as?

  the "magic number for the capacity of the STM"
• What did Jacob 1987 do in his study?

  Jacobs study of immediate digit span investigated the capacity of the ATM
• How was Jacobs digit spanning study carried out?

  He read aloud lists of either letters or numbers (THESE HAD TO HAVE JUST ONE SYLLABLE DO ''W'' AND ''7'' WERE NOT USED)

  He increased the length of these lists until pps could successfully recall them only 50% of the time
• What did Jacobs conclude from his digit spanning study?

  • STM capacity for digits=9 , and for letters=7
  • STM increased with age- 8year olds recalled 7 digits, whereas 19 year olds recalled 9
  • therefore STM has a limited capacity between 5-9, and age allows use to learn strategies for remembering
• what is generally accepted?

  that the amount of information that can be stored is limited to :

  7 + or - 2 items (or chunks) of information