Research on capacity - Digit span

• What is digit span?

  How much information can STM hold at any one time.
• Who conducted this research and when?

  Jacobs (1887)
• Procedure-

  The researcher gives ,for example, 4 digits and then the participant is asked to recall these in the correct order out loud. If this is correct the researcher reads out 5 digits and so on until the participant cannot recall the order correctly. This determines the individual's digit span
• Findings-

  Jacobs found that the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3 items. The mean span for letters was 7.3
• Strengths of the study-

  - Lab experiment

  - Replicable
• Weaknesses of the study-

  - Conducted a long time ago and thus lack's validity