Short-term Memory

Question 1

What is the capacity of short-term memory (STM)?

Answer 1

7+/-2 items

This refers to the number of items that can be held in STM at one time.

Question 2

What is the duration of short-term memory (STM)?

Answer 2

18-30 seconds

This indicates how long information can be retained in STM without rehearsal.

Question 3

What type of coding is used in short-term memory (STM)?

Answer 3

Acoustic

Information in STM is processed through sound.

Question 4

Who conducted the key study on the capacity of STM?

Answer 4

Miller (1956)

Miller’s research focused on the digit span technique to assess STM capacity.

Question 5

What was the aim of Miller’s study on STM?

Answer 5

To investigate the capacity of STM

The study aimed to determine how much information can be held in short-term memory.

Question 6

What method did Miller use to assess the capacity of STM?

Answer 6

Digit span technique

Participants heard a list of numbers and tried to recall them in the correct order.

Question 7

What did Miller conclude about the span of short-term memory?

Answer 7

7 +/- 2 digits

This conclusion was based on a review of psychological research.

Question 8

What is chunking in the context of STM?

Answer 8

Grouping information to expand capacity

For example, a mobile number can be split into chunks to aid memory.

Question 9

True or false: Chunking can help increase the capacity of STM.

Answer 9

TRUE

Chunking allows individuals to remember more items by organizing them into manageable groups.

Question 10

What was the aim of the Peterson and Peterson (1959) study?

Answer 10

To investigate the duration of STM

STM stands for Short-Term Memory.

Question 11

In the Peterson and Peterson study, participants were presented with a consonant trigram. What is a consonant trigram?

Answer 11

Three letters which do not form a recognisable word

Example: CPW.

Question 12

What method was used to prevent rehearsal in the Peterson and Peterson study?

Answer 12

Participants counted backwards in threes from a specified number

This method was used to prevent them from rehearsing the trigram.

Question 13

After a 3 seconds delay in the Peterson and Peterson study, what percentage of participants recalled the trigram?

Answer 13

80%

This indicates a high recall rate shortly after presentation.

Question 14

After an 18 seconds delay, what percentage of participants recalled the trigram in the Peterson and Peterson study?

Answer 14

10%

This shows a significant drop in recall as time increased.

Question 15

After a 30 seconds delay, how many trigrams were recalled in the Peterson and Peterson study?

Answer 15

No trigrams were recalled

This indicates that STM has a very limited duration without rehearsal.

Question 16

True or false: In the Peterson and Peterson study, participants were allowed to rehearse the consonant trigram.

Answer 16

FALSE

Rehearsal was prevented by the counting task.

Question 17

High control (eval of capacity of STM-Miller)

Answer 17

-strength, conducted using lab experiment
-high control over extraneous variables, can be confident that IV (number of digits presented) affected the DV (number of digits correctly recalled)
-confident that capacity of STM is 7+/-2 items
-strong internally valid evidence

Question 18

Individual differences in memory (eval of capacity in STM-Miller)

Answer 18

-limitation, STM can hold 7+/-2 items of info is that there are individual differences in memory capacity depending on factors such as age
-Miller found digit span increased steadily with age; 8 yr olds could remember average of 6.6 digits compared to 19 yr olds had digit span of 8.6 digits
People found it easier to recall numbers rather than letters
-STM can hold between 5 and 9 items of info is over-simplistic
May not generalise to how everyones stm works

Question 19

What was the average span for letters and numbers?

Answer 19

Letters- 7.3
Numbers- 9.3

Question 20

High control (eval of duration in STM-Peterson and Peterson)

Answer 20

-strength, conducted using lab experiment
-high control over extraneous variables, can be confident that IV (number of seconds participants were prevented from rehearsing the trigrams) affected by DV (if the trigrams could be correctly recalled)
-unlikely to be affected by confounding variables
-the duration of STM is approximately 18-30 seconds since evidence to support it has high internal validity

Question 21

Low ecological validity (eval of duration in STM-Peterson and Peterson)

Answer 21

-limitation
-participants were shown trigrams and recalling it is artificial and simple task which doesn’t test the true complexity of memory
-results can’t necessarily be generalized to real life
-might not provide externally valid support for claim that the duration of STM is limited to approximately 18-30 seconds