The Effect of Age on Short Term Memory
The effect of age on short-term memory Aim: The Aim of this investigation is to assess how the ageing process affects short-term memory. What is memory? Memory refers to the storage, retention and recall of information including past experiences, knowledge and thoughts. Memory for specific information can vary greatly according to the individual and the individual's state of mind. It can also vary according to the content of the information itself. There are 3 types of memory: * Sensory - Information is passed from sensory memory into short-term memory by attention, thereby filtering the stimuli to only those, which are of interest at a given time. * * Short-term memory - Acts as a scratch pad for temporary recall of the information under process. Short-term memory has a limited capacity. Chunking of information can lead to an increase in the short-term memory capacity. This is why hyphenated phone numbers are easier to remember than a single long number. * * Long-term memory - Is intended for storage of information over a long period of time. Information from the working memory is transferred to it after a few seconds. Unlike in working memory, there is little decay. * The structure and function of the brain The brain, together with the spinal cord, makes up the central nervous system. This is the 'control centre', which coordinates the body's
Give a Brief Account of Different Characteristics of Short-Term Memory, Long-Term Memory and Evaluat
Give a Brief Account of Different Characteristics of Short-Term Memory, Long-Term Memory and Evaluate Research That Demonstrates These Differences. A memory in short-term memory (STM) does not last long, the duration is limited. It cannot hold a lot of information. The information it deals with is the immediate past and can only be held for a short period of time without rehearsal. The information tends do be encoded acoustically most of the time. Long-term memory (LTM) deals with information from the distant past. It can hold information, theoretically, from two minutes to last the whole of the person's life. The capacity of LTM is unlimited; therefore it is able to hold an unlimited amount of information. The information tends to be encoded semantically most of the time. Baddeley's study on encoding in STM and LTM (1966) proved that the STM tends to be encoded acoustically and LTM tends to be encoded semantically. In the STM study, the list of acoustically similar words was recalled worst, therefore showing that STM would encode information on an acoustic basis. The criticism in this was that STM uses other ways to encode information. Visual images, such as faces would be hard to encode in STM by means of sound. In the LTM study, the list that was worse recalled was the semantically similar words. This showed that LTM tends to encode information on a semantic basis. The
effects of chunking and unchunking on short term memory
Introduction Memory is the ability to store and recall information which has either been experienced or learnt. There are two components, short-term and long-term memory. The nature of memory consists of duration (length of time), encoding (means of remembering) and capacity (amount of information stored). The nature of short-term memory is different from the nature of long-term memory. Short-term memory is the information which is immediately accessible or active. However, it has a limited duration time. Peterson and Peterson (1959) did a study using trigrams and found that duration lasted 18 seconds when recall was prohibited. Encoding in short-term memory is predominantly done acoustically, by sound, rather than visually, sight or semantically, meaning. Conrad (1964) conducted a study with acoustically similar and acoustically different letters; he concluded that similar letters such as 'B' and 'P' caused confusion in recall due to acoustic similarity. The capacity of information in short-term memory is also limited. The first systematic experiment on the short-term memory span was done by Jacobs (1887). The aim of the experiment was to see how much information could be stored in the short-term memory or active memory. The study consisted of using the serial digit span technique, using both letters and numbers; however, excluding 'w' and '7' because they contain two
Describe two differences between Short term memory (STM) and Long term memory (LTM) in term of duration and capacity.
Psychology-Ms Wilson Rebecca Johnson Memory Q1. Describe two differences between Short term memory (STM) and Long term memory (LTM) in term of duration and capacity (3 marks) STM has duration of 3-18 seconds whereas the duration of LTM memory can last anything from a few minutes to a lifetime. The STM theory was supported by Peterson and Petersons Study (1959), which was their Trigram experiment. They attained this evidence by asking the participants to remember a single nonsense syllable of three consonants i.e. KPD. They were then given another task to do to stop them rehearsing the trigram. Their recollect was tested after 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds and the recall had to be in correct order to count. They discovered that 80% of participants recalled the trigrams very well after 3 seconds, but this dropped dramatically to 10 % after 18 seconds. The supporting evidence for the duration of LTM was brought about by Ebbinghaus who tested his memory using nonsense syllables after delays ranging from 20 minutes to 31 days later and found that a large proportion of the information in LTM was lost comparatively quickly, i.e. in the first hour and thereafter stabilised to a much slower rate of loss. Linton used a diary to record at least 2 everyday events from her life each day for 6 years and then she had to aimlessly test her later recall of them. The results were that there was
Does the use of a distracter affect short-term memory?
Does the use of a distracter affect short-term memory? Abstract After reading over the studies of Peterson and Peterson, and Glanzer and Cunitz, this investigation has been based around the subject of distracters and interferences with short-term memory. The aim of determining whether the use of a distracter affects short-term memory was investigated by asking participants - students - to memorise a list of words. After the first list they were simply asked to write down as many of the words as they could remember, however after they had looked at the second list they were presented with a distracter and then asked to write down all memorised words. The results and statistical test - Sign test (calculated value: 0, critical value: 3) - indicate that the use of a distracter does actually disrupt short-term memory as less words were recalled in the distracter condition. The theory is that the distracter inhibits any short-term memory being converted into long-term memory. Background The Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory (1968, 1971) describes memory as a sequence composed of three stages. Sensory-memory is the initial stage and comes about from stimulation of the sensory organs, such as noticing a bright colour. The next stage, short-term memory, is memory that has passed from sensory memory, into short-term memory and can be retained long enough for it to be used, such as
Short Term Memory & Long Term Memory. Capacty and duration of each and the results of experiments to test memory.
STM & LTM Capacity LTM has been considered by many scientists to have an unlimited capacity. It is possible to lost information from LTM by decay or interference, but this is not due to it's capacity. STM has a very limited capacity (storage space). An example this short capacity is if you are told a phone number, you can just about write it down with no delay. If there were some sort of distraction task or delay, the last figure in the number will be displaced. If the phone number is repeated, this acts as a rehearsal. However when new information is trying to get in (the distracter task) some of the numbers will be displaced from your STM. Another example of your STM's capacity is arithmetic. When faced with simple addition or subtraction, we normally have no problems working something out, however when faced with more complex formulas we start to struggle. This shows that our STM can only perform a small number of processes at one time. Many psychologists have performed experiments to try and obtain a better understanding on the capacity of our STM. One of those is George Miller. He conducted a test he called 'The magical number 7, plus or minus 2.' In which he discovered that it is more manageable to remember a series of letters if they are broken down into 'chunks' of 3 each. The reason is that instead of learning different letters, you are now remembering the
The Effects of Chunking and Distraction on Short Term Memory Recall
The Effects of Chunking and Distraction on Short Term Memory Recall. Abstract. This report aimed to investigate the effects of distraction and chunking on short term memory performance. A serial recall task was used to investigate this in a sample of 20 male and female undergraduate student in a within subject design. This data was analysed with a two way repeated measures ANOVA and the results show that there are significant improvements in recall when the items are chucked. In addition there is a significant deterioration in recall following the distraction technique. However, there are no interaction effects between these factors. These findings are discussed in terms of potential means of improving short term memory. Introduction. It is generally accepted that there are three different memory systems; sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. These distinctions were first defined by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971). Sensory memory is that which holds information from the senses for up to several seconds at the most. Short-term memory in contrast, is whatever we are thinking about at any given moment and has a relatively rapid input and retrieval. Miller (1965) argued that human short term memory has a span of approximately seven items, plus or minus two. Finally, long term memory is the permanent memory system which has a virtually unlimited capacity but
Investigation into acoustic and visual encoding in short-term memory
Investigation into acoustic and visual encoding in short-term memory ) Abstract The investigation aims to look into acoustic and visual encoding in short-term memory (STM). The research associated with this experiment is supported by Conrad's (1964) study into acoustic confusion. The experimental hypothesis was tested and led the researcher to accept it, as it stated that acoustic coding in STM would be used even when information is presented visually whereas the Null hypothesis was due to chance alone and predicted that there will be no significance or difference in participants recall when using acoustic or visual coding in STM. Repeated measures was the design used for this investigation, as it involved exposing every participant to each of the experimental conditions, so in effect participants were used as their own controls. Opportunistic sampling was used to select participants to take part in this investigation. The findings of this investigation direct us towards accepting the experimental hypothesis that a vast number of people would use acoustic coding in STM. The statistical test used was the Sign Test as the statistical significance was 0.05% of the results with a critical value of one, which clearly suggested that the experimental hypothesis could be accepted, as the hypothesis was one tailed leading to reject the null hypothesis. The conclusions drawn from
Does time have an effect on short term memory/ free recall?
Research Methods 1. Does time have an effect on short term memory/ free recall? Abstract. The aim of this experiment was to determine how memory is related to time, theorists have acknowledged that memory is associated to time, so with this theory in mind, a hypothesis was made, with the prediction that if a group of people were separated into 2 groups, and group 1, was given 60 seconds, and group 2, 30 seconds, to memorise some information projected on the wall, the group that was given 60 seconds, would score significantly higher than the group which were given 30 seconds. INTODUCTION In everyday life Memory plays a significant part, and throughout development, it is a form of learning, due to remembering things, we learnt before, it becomes permanent. Memory can be defined as the ability to retain knowledge. Psychologists have been interested in memory since Ebbinghaus (1885) pioneered the first set of memory research, memory can be said to be related to time, and the ability of an organism to register, store, retain and retrieve information. Hebb (1949), Broadbent (1958), Waugh & Norman (1965) all agreed that there is a distinctive part of accepting memory is related to time, "William James made the distinction between primary and secondary memory which correspond to short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM)". (Gross. R, (2005) Psychology, The science
Memory - Outline findings and/or conclusions of research into the duration for short term memory
PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT MEMORY . Outline findings and/or conclusions of research into the duration for short term memory. This experiment was demonstrated by Peterson and Peterson (1959). Participants of the experiment were shown a trigram (BGM or VRW). Then the participants were asked toto count backwards in threes to stop them thinking about the letters. After intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12 and 18 seconds, participants were asked to recall the trigram. They found that participants were able to recall 80 per cent of the trigrams after 3 second intervals. Further on, fewer trigrams were recalled as the time interval lengthened. After 18 seconds, fewer than 10 per cent of the trigrams were recalled correctly. Peterson and Peterson concluded that items disappear from Short term memory (STM) only when rehearsal is prevented. Therefore Decay is the mechanism for forgetting in Short Term Memory. 2. Outline one explanation of Forgetting In LTM and give one criticism of this explanation. Forgetting might be caused by the Interference Theory. It was assumed that one set of learning interferes with another and wipes out the memory. Interference Theory has been tested by means of Paired-associate learning. The participants are initially presented with several pairs of words (e.g. cat-tree). The first word in each pair (cat) is known as the stimulus term, and the second word is known as
