Psychology 210 Week 4

What is the capacity of stm?

10/13/2016

Module 5: Memory is not only of events in your life

-bumper point: 10 things that use memory

Early Information Processing: The Modal Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968) • A lot of short term memory (stm) never makes it to the long term memory • Filters from sensory memory to stm which has an output of behavior

Sensory memory: briefly retains raw (no meaning), sensory information. Empirical facts:

• What seems like a physical stimulus continues to be present after  stimulus is no longer present. If you want to learn more check out Costs are minimized when?

• Information can be extracted after the stimulus is no longer present. Don't forget about the age old question of What is the equity theory?

Iconic Memory: visual sensory memory

1. Wundt’s whole report procedure

What is the duration of stm?

-Flashed for 50 milliseconds  

-Repeat back a row of letters

2. Sperling’s partial report procedure

• Signal given after the square was gone. They didn’t know which row  ahead of time. Better results. Don't forget about the age old question of Is it necessary as part of being a christian to be suffering in some way?

• What were the participants seeing before the letters faded? That is, how  much info is in sensory memory?

• Limit of sensory memory is temporal.

• How fast is fades is a better question

• What is the duration of iconic memory?

• Information decays within less than a second.

• Increased the time of asking what row to repeat after it flashes. • Sensory memory lasts for a second or less. Varies on stimuli.

Define stm.

Echoic memory: auditory sensory memory

• Lasts longer than iconic memory

• Similar techniques as iconic

• Partial report advantage for reporting one stream only.

• Echoic can be cued by category (numbers/words) but iconic cannot. • Echoic has a larger capacity. We hear more than we can see.We also discuss several other topics like What is the main function of the kidney?

Short-Term Memory- Holds and manipulates information. Information that you  are processing at this very moment.

Questions that get asked?

-What is the capacity of STM?

-What is the duration of STM?

Rehearsal: repeating phone number over and over until you reach the phone.  After dialing, you’ll lose the info. Capacity is very limited, short duration.  Don't forget about the age old question of To what extent is society responsible for poverty?

What is the capacity of STM?

• 7 items plus/minus 2

Miller’s (1956) magic 7+/- 2 Digit span

• Presented with a sequence of items

• Asked to repeat them in order

• Sequence increases until failure

Chunking:

• Grouping of items into a single unit We also discuss several other topics like Why does worldwide goat is the most consumed meat?

• Means to deal with large amounts of information

• Depends on knowledge

• STM capacity determined by number of chunks.

Ericcson’s (1980) chunking and memory

• College student and runner S.F. with memory span of 7

• 230 one hour sessions increased his span to 79.

• Using chunking (recoded digits into larger meaningful units)

Chase & Simon’s (1973) chess memory experiment

• Chess players presented with game positions (5s)

• Master and Beginner

• Task: reproduce the positions

• Result: Master’s performance was superior for game positions • No difference when chess pieces were arranged randomly • Superior performance caused by chunking.

What is the duration of STM?

• About 15-20 seconds

Brown-Peterson paradigm

• Presented with sequence of 3 consonants

• Presented with 3 digit number and count backwards and in threes