What is the Sensory Register? (Sensory Store)
- how it works
sensory store coding
depending on the sense that is picked up - e.g. visual, auditory or tactile. (modality specific)
sensory store duration
less than half a second
sensory store capacity
huge capacity (millions or receptors)
What is Short-term memory (STM)?
Short term memory is your memory for immediate events. It temporarily stores information received from the sensory register.
How is information transferred from the sensory register to Short term memory?
attention
What happens if information is not attended to when it enters the sensory register?
leads to spontaneous decay
STM coding, capacity and duration
Coding: acoustically (Baddely 1966)
Capacity: 5-9 items (Miller 1946)
Duration: 18-30 seconds unless it is rehearsed (Peterson and Peterson 1959)
How is information transferred from STM to LTM?
prolonged rehearsal e.g. verbally repeating a telephone number
How is information transferred from LTM to STM?
retrieval
LTM coding, capcity and duration
Coding: Semantically (Baddeley 1966)
Capacity: potentially unlimited.
Duration: lifetime (Bahrick 1975)
Baddely (1966) on coding in STM and LTM
LABORATORY EXPERIMENT
Baddely (1966) on coding in STM and LTM
Why was immediate recall worse with acoustically similar words?
STM causing acoustic confusion and becoming distracted by sounds of words thus not recalling in order
Why was prolonged recall worse with semantically similar words?
LTM causing semantic confusion and becoming distracted by meaning of words thus not recalling in order
What is a strength of Baddeley’s 1966 study on coding in STM and LTM?
✓ Showed differences between stores
What is a strength of Baddeley’s 1966 study on coding in STM and LTM?
✓ there is a high degree of control over extraneous variables
What is a limitation of Baddely’s 1966 study on coding in STM and LTM?
✘ it didn’t use meaningful material.
Baddeley et al. (1975) supporting seperate STM stores procedure:
LAB EXPERIMENT using a dual task paradigm.
Baddeley et al. (1975) results
Jacobs (1887) on capacity of STM
LAB EXPERIMENT
Jacobs (1887) on capacity of STM
What is a strength of Jacobson’s (1887) study on capacity of STM?
✓ Replication of Jacob’s study
Miller (1946) on capacity of STM