Short Term Memory (OCR A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes
2.1.2 Short Term Memory
Holds information that we need for an ongoing task
- Limited duration of 18-30 seconds (Peterson)
- Limited capacity of 7+/-2 (Jacobs) The coding can be sensory or semantic but Baddeley found is mainly acoustic.
Peterson
Investigated the duration of short-term memory
Jacobs
Conducted a digit span test, where the amount of numbers you can recall correctly is the capacity of your short-term memory.
- The results indicated that participants could recall a maximum of 7+/-2 letters or numbers, suggesting that the capacity of short-term memory is limited.
Miller
Found that participants were able to recall more than 7+2 items.
This was done when items of information were grouped together, through a process called chunking.
Chunking
Grouping pieces of information together
e.g., breaking a phone number up into parts to remember it easier
- Hugely improves the capacity of short-term memory
KEY STUDY:
Baddeley
Assessed whether coding in short-term memory and long-term memory is mainly acoustic or semantic.
Asked participants to recall one of four words that either sounded similar, sounded different had similar meanings or had a different meaning.
Found that participants had more difficulty recalling acoustically similar words when tested immediately after learning and more difficulty recalling semantically similar words 20 minutes after learning
- In short-term memory, you rely on what the words sound like to remember them so mainly acoustic coding is used
Summary paragraph: Short-term memory is described as being mainly acoustically encoded as found by Baddeley but can be coded either semantically or in a sensory code. It has a limited capacity of 18-30 seconds, as found by Peterson and a limited capacity of 7+/-2 as found by Jacobs. However, Miller found that individuals can recall more than 7+2 items through the process of chunking