Attachment and memory

• Sensory memory is the shortest-term element of memory and holds sensory information for a very brief period of time.
• Short term memory studies= Jacobs, miller, Peterson et al and Baddeley
• The findings of Jacobs study includes a technique called digit span to measure the capacity of stm. The participants must recall digits in a correct order out loud, which is known as serial recall. He found that the mean digit span was 7.
• Millers study suggested that capacity of stm was 7 +/- 2 items. Noting that people can recall around 5 digits, this was done by a technique called chunking.
• The duration of stm was conducted by Peterson and Peterson. Participants were given a trigram of three syllables with a three digit number. They were given intervals that increased the more they got right to recall the trigram. Recall was accurate after 3 seconds but by 18 it declined (10%)
• Baddeley gave participants one of 4 lists of words they had to recall ( acoustically similar/ dissimilar and semantically similar/dissimilar ). The findings were that participants did worse in acoustically similar and semantically similar words. This meant stm was encoded acoustically and ltm semantically.
• a limitation of Jacobs study was that it lacks validity as it used artificial stimuli, which gives the study no personal meaning. This means that it has no real life application to everyday life. However it can be replicated.
• A limitation of Petersons duration study is that it also lacks mundane realism and external validity. This suggests that recalling constant syllables doesnt reflect everyday life.
• the study for sensory memory was done by Sperling. The participants had to look at a chart for 50 milliseconds and then asked to recall the letters. Then they had to recall single rows of letters when particular tones were heard. Sperling found that pp could remember around 4/5 letters.
• encoding for sensory memory was though the 5 senses. Duration was 1/2 a second and the capacity was very high
• Bahrick investigated the duration for long term memory. 390 American graduates were shown photos from their yearbook and had to recall the names that matched with the photos given. 90% were able to recall after 14 years and 60% after 47 years. this shows that the duration lasts up to a lifetime.
• A strength for Bahricks study is that it has high levels of ecological validity. As the pp recalled real life information by matching classmates names to photos. Therefore, the results reflect real life events and can be applied to real life situations.