What coding experiment did baddeley do in 1966
Acousticaly similar words like cat cab and can, and semantically similar words like big large and great are tested on people
Findings - immediate recall is worse with acousticaly similar words, STM is acoustic
Recall after 20 minutes is worse with semantically similar words, LTM is semantic
What experiment did Jacob’s do and when
Testing digit span - 1887
Researcher reads four digits and the increases until participant cannot recall all in correct order
Final number = digit span
Findings - on average participants can repeat 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters in correct order immediately after they were presented
What experiment did miller do
Magic number - 1956 magic number 7+-2
Observed every day practice, noted that things came in sevens - notes of musical scale, days of week, deadly sins, etc.
Findings - span of STM is about 7 items (+-2) but is increased by chunking (grouping sets into meaningful units)
Peterson and Peterson experiment
Consonant syllables - 1959
Duration STM
24 students given a constant syllable to recall and a 3 digit number to count backwards from. Retention interval varied between 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds
Findings - after 3 seconds average recall was 80%. After 18 seconds it was 3%. STM duration without rehearsal is up to 18 seconds.
Bahrick et al experiment
Duration LTM - 1975
Participants were 392 Americans aged 17 and 74.
Recognition test - 50 photos from high school yearbooks
Free recall test - participants listed names of their graduating class
Findings - recognition test - 90% accurate after 15 yrs, 70% after 48 yrs
Free recall test - 60% recall after 15 yrs, 30% after 48 yrs
Explain multi store model of memory
Stimulus from the environment
I
I
I
Sensory register (iconic) (echoic)
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I attention
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STM
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I prolonged rehearsal
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LTM
What are the different ways you can put things into your long and short term memory
Attention can bring info from you sensory register to STM
Describe sensory register
Sensory Register (Simple)
The sensory register is the first stage of memory.
It takes in information from your senses (like sight and sound) and holds it for a very short time.
- Duration: very brief
- Vision: about 0.5 seconds
- Hearing: about 2–3 seconds
- Capacity: very large (lots of information enters)
- Coding: depends on the sense
- Visual information goes to the iconic store
- Sound goes to the echoic store
Only the information you pay attention to moves into short-term memory. Everything else quickly fades.
Describe episodic buffer
Episodic Buffer (Simple)
The episodic buffer is a part of Baddeley and Hitch’s Working Memory Model.
It acts like a temporary “workspace” that puts information together.
- Combines information from the phonological loop (sound), visuospatial sketchpad (visual), and long-term memory.
- Helps us form complete “episodes” or stories in our mind.
- Capacity: limited (about 4 chunks).
- Coding: flexible — can hold visual, verbal, and long-term memories together.
- Purpose: makes information into a coherent episode so we can understand events.
Remembering a scene from a movie — the images, sounds, and your knowledge all link together in the episodic buffer.
Phonological loop
Phonological Loop
It deals with sound-based information.
- Stores and rehearses speech sounds, words, and other auditory information.
⏳ Capacity:
- Limited — can store as much as you can say in about 2 seconds.
Remembering a phone number by repeating it to yourself uses the phonological loop.
Briefly evaluate research by gabbert et al into eyewitness testimony
Strength
- Research support: Studies like Gabbert et al. show that when witnesses discuss an event, they often include misleading details from others, reducing accuracy. This gives strong evidence that PED can distort memory.
- Police can use this knowledge to separate witnesses and avoid memory contamination, so the research has real-world value.
- Low ecological validity: Many studies use videos, not real crimes, so witnesses may not feel the same stress or emotion. This means results might not fully apply to real life.
- In labs, participants may conform because they want to appear helpful or agree with the other person, which may exaggerate the effect of discussion.
Two criticisms into studies of short term memory
Many STM studies (like digit span tasks) use artificial materials such as numbers or letters.
This doesn’t reflect real-life memory use, so findings may not generalise to everyday situations.
Participants know they are in a study and may try extra hard to remember, which can affect results.
Real STM performance under everyday conditions may be different.
Two criticisms into studies of long term memory
Much LTM research (e.g., patients like HM or Clive Wearing) is based on unique brain-injured individuals.
Because they are unusual cases, the findings may not generalise to everyone.
When researchers study real-life memories (e.g., childhood events), they cannot control what participants originally experienced.
This makes it harder to know exactly what caused differences in LTM performance.
Who proposed the Multi-Store Model of memory?
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
What are the three stores in the MSM
Sensory Register, Short-Term Memory, Long-Term Memory
Key criticism of MSM?
is too simplistic and ignores different types of STM and LTM.
Who proposed the Working Memory Model?
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
What does the WMM explain?
Short-term memory as an active system.
Main components of WMM?
Central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer.
Who studied coding in memory?
Baddeley (1966)
What did Baddeley find?
STM uses acoustic coding, LTM uses semantic coding
Who studied capacity of STM?
Jacobs (1887)
Who studied duration of STM and LTM?
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
Who proposed types of LTM?
Tulving (1985)
