short term memory

• short term memory store

  retains information for an ongoing task
• duration

  18-30 seconds, limited duration
• capacity

  limited, 7+-2
• coding

  sensory and semantic, but main code that short term memory uses is acoustic
• miller 1956


  suggested that we can sometimes combine individual letters into larger more meaningful chunks
• chunking

  chunking is when we group individual letters together into meaningful units
• miller suggested that the capacity of stm is determined by the number of chunks not the number of individual items that we have to recall
• miller still agreed, however, that the maximum capacity of stm is 7 but isn't limited to 7 individual letters, but 7+-2 chunks of information
• by chunking we can hugely improve capacity of stm