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• Coding


  The format in which information is stored in the different memory stores
• Types of coding


  • VISUAL - pictures
  • ACOUSTIC - sounds
  • SEMANTIC - meaning
• BADDELEY study


  1. Presented participants with 4 lists of words which were acoustically similar and dissimilar, and semantically similar and dissimilar

  2. Words presented one at a time

  3. Participants asked to recall the correct order of the words immediately and after 20 minutes
• BADDELEY study found that when asked immediately, participants struggled to recall the correct order of acoustically similar words (acoustic confusion), and after 30 minutes, participants struggled to recall the correct order of semantically similar words (semantic confusion)
• BADDELEY study showed that there are differences between short-term memory and long-term memory
• The understanding from the BADDELEY study led to the creation of the multi-store model of memory
• Artificial stimuli like word lists had no personal meaning to participants, so when processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for short-term memory tasks
• Findings from studies using artificial stimuli have limited application to memory in the real world
• Capacity


  How much information can be held in memory
• JACOBS used a digit span test to assess the capacity of short-term memory, and his findings have been confirmed by other studies
• MILLER's finding


  People could roughly absorb 7 new pieces of information in short-term memory at a time (7 +/- 2)
• VOGEL ET AL conducted research on short-term memory capacity and said 4 chunks was the limit, suggesting MILLER may have overestimated short-term memory capacity
• Duration


  The amount of time information can be held for
• PETERSON & PETERSON study

  1. Participants given nonsense trigrams to remember, and a 3-digit number

  2. Participants had to recall the trigram after a retention interval of counting backwards from the 3-digit number

  3. After 3 seconds, 80% recalled correctly, but recall got progressively worse as the delay grew longer
• The PETERSON & PETERSON study lacked ecological validity as it cannot be generalised to real-life situations, as recalling trigrams does not reflect most everyday memory activities
• BAHRICK study


  1. Used 392 17-74 year olds, recall was tested using yearbooks, photo recognition task and free recall task

  2. Suggests long-term memory can last potentially a lifetime
• The BAHRICK study has high external validity as it investigated meaningful memories, reflecting a more real estimate of the duration of long-term memory
• Short-term memory


  • A temporary storage system for information
• GEORGE MILLER's "the magical number 7 +/- 2"


  The average human can hold approximately 7 +/- 2 items of information in short-term memory simultaneously
• MILLER's research lacks ecological validity and has low mundane realism as it has a low applicability to real-world memory tasks
• PETERSON & PETERSON study

  Found that without rehearsal, information held in short-term memory decays rapidly within 30 seconds
• PETERSON & PETERSON's research shows the temporary nature of short-term memory storage and the importance of rehearsal in maintaining information
• BADDELEY study on encoding in short-term memory


  Participants were given lists of words to remember and recalled them after either hearing similar sounding words (acoustic encoding) or semantically related words
• BADDELEY's findings revealed superior recall in the semantic encoding condition, showing the significance of semantic processing in short-term memory
• Both proactive and retroactive interference can significantly impact short-term memory performance
• KEPPEL & UNDERWOOD study


  Presented participants with multiple lists of words to remember, and found that recall of earlier lists was impaired by proactive interference and vice versa
• Research shows the susceptibility of short-term memory to interference
• Features of short-term memory

  • Capacity, duration, and encoding
• Understanding short-term memory processes can help with potential applications in education, therapy, and beyond
• Multi-store memory model (MSM)


  Represents how memory is stored, transferred between the different stores, retrieved, and forgotten
• The multi-store memory model was developed by ATKINSON & SHIFFRIN to explain how memories are stored
• Multi-store memory model


  1. Begins with the sensory register, which receives raw sense information and attention passes information into short-term memory

  2. Short-term memory receives information from the sensory register or from long-term memory by retrieval, and information is kept in short-term memory by maintenance rehearsal

  3. Long-term memory is encoded semantically (meaningfully), has unlimited capacity and duration, and retrieval must occur in order to remember information, which is then passed back into short-term memory
• TULVING ET AL said there are different types of long-term memory (procedural, semantic, and episodic), which the multi-store memory model does not represent
• The multi-store memory model suggests that the amount of maintenance rehearsal determines the likelihood that information will pass into long-term memory, but CRAIK & WATKINS found that the type of rehearsal is more important, and CRAIK & LOCKHART said that deeper processing is how information enters long-term memory, which contradicts the multi-store memory model
• The multi-store memory model incorrectly represents short-term memory as a single store, and SHALLICE & WARRINGTON found that their amnesia patient KF had poor recall for auditory stimuli but accurate recall for visual stimuli, suggesting there may be multiple types of short-term memory
• The multi-store memory model acknowledges the differences between short-term memory and long-term memory, such as short-term memory being encoded acoustically and long-term memory being encoded semantically
• The case of HM, who had his hippocampus removed and was unable to form new long-term memory memories but could form short-term memory memories, suggests that there is a store for long-term memory memories which is separate from short-term memory memories
• Tulving's types of long-term memory

  Semantic memory (knowledge of the world, facts, and concepts), procedural memory (memory of how to do things), and episodic memory (memory of events in our lives)
• HM and CLIVE WEARING, both amnesia patients, provide evidence for the different types of long-term memory, as HM had normal functioning semantic memory but impaired episodic memory, and CW could play the piano but couldn't remember learning how to, suggesting normal functioning procedural memory but impaired episodic memory
• Brain scan studies show different types of memories are stored in different parts of the brain, supporting Tulving's theory and increasing the validity of his findings