Memory

• What is the sensory register ?

  • info is held at the 5 senses
  • each sense has its own store
• What are the two main stores involved in the sensory register?


  icohic- visual -coded visually

  ecohoc- sound- coded acoustically
• What is the duration and capacity of the sensory register ?


  duration - fraction of a second

  capacity- massive

  must pay attention to info to pass into stm
• what is short term memory ?

  • used for immediate responses
  • active (changeing) systems
• stm…

  capacity ?

  duration ?

  coded ?

  Capacity - 7+-2

  duration - 15-30 seconds

  coded- acoustically
• What is maintenance rehearsal ?


  Repeating information to maintain it in short-term memory.
• How does info move from stm to ltm?

  If rehearsed long enough
• What is long term memory ?


  Permanent store for info that has been rehearsed

  gone through two stores before
• What is the duration, capacity, and coding of ltm ?


  duration - unlimited

  capacity- unlimited

  coded-semantically
• What study is for duration of LTM?

  Bahrick et al 1975

  • 392 pp from america Ohio aged 17-74
  • High school year books- recall tested in two ways

  1. photo recognition( name list + photo)
  2. free recall (just photos)
• What did Barhick find ?

  Within 15 years - 90% + 60%

  within 48 years- 60% + 20%
• Who studied duration of STM ?


  Peterson &Peterson

  • 24 undergrad students
  • 8 trials-each pp given a trigram and a 3 digit number to remember
  • asked to count back from 3 digit number( stops rehearsal)
  • each trial asked to stop counting at different times going up in 3’s
• What were Peterson & Peterson findings ?

  3 seconds -80% remember

  18 seconds- 12% remember
• Who researched coding ?

  Baddely -1966

  • 72 male + female uni students
  • list of words to 4 groups to remember
  • lists were acoustically and semantically similar or dissimilar
  • shown original words + asked to recall in order
• What were barely results on coding

  When asked to recall STM struggles with acoustically similar

  when asked to recall LTM struggles with semantically similar

  shows different systems code differently
• Who studies capacity ?

  Miller-chunking

  • people learn things in 5’s
  • pp asked to remember lists of either ( trigrams, musical tones, patterns of dots)
  • asked to recall in order
• What did miller find ?

  pp could list 5-9 items before making a mistake

  found capacity could be increased through chunking
• Who disagreed with Miller on capacity ?


  Cowan 2001-

  • capacity was 4 chunks and miller had massively over estimated capacity
• What is evaluation for MSOM?

  1. Baddely (low ecological validity)
  2. most evidence done in labs
  3. shallice and Warrington - patient Kf had amnesia STM for digits was poor but could understand more when read himself