What was the name of that film my friend recommended? What did I have for dinner yesterday? What was my full home address with postcode? How did once ice skate? If you ever asked yourself any of these questions, you put your memory into practice. Humans rely on their memory system constantly; with a faulty memory system, life would be very complicated. Let'sLet's take a look at memory and its features in this explanation.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenWhat was the name of that film my friend recommended? What did I have for dinner yesterday? What was my full home address with postcode? How did once ice skate? If you ever asked yourself any of these questions, you put your memory into practice. Humans rely on their memory system constantly; with a faulty memory system, life would be very complicated. Let'sLet's take a look at memory and its features in this explanation.
The explanation will start by presenting the types of memory.
Then the features of short-term memory will be reviewed.
Naturally, the features of long-term memory will also be discussed.
Moving on from this, the explanation will present how memory is measured in psychology.
The types of memory will be presented, before closing with a list of memory tests used in psychology.
Memory is the cognitive process through which information is acquired, stored, retained and retrieved. The cognitive takes place in three steps: encoding, storage and retrieval.
Encoding refers to transforming sensory information into a form the brain can process.
Storage refers to the retention of such information in the brain.
And retrieval refers to the process by which stored information is recovered or accessed.
Different types of memory emerge depending on how memory is stored in the brain.
The four main different types of memory are probably not new to you. These are long-term memory (LTM), short-term memory (STM), sensory memory and working memory.
LTM refers to the semi-permanent storing of information that allows the retrieval of such information hours, weeks or years after it was encoded and stored.
You are using LTM daily when you write, for example, because you learned how to write at a young age.
STM refers to the storing of information that is needed to be able to retrieve information shortly after it has been stored.
You are using STM when you mentally repeat a list of groceries your mum just asked you to buy, for example.
Sensory memory refers to the information that comes through the senses and is stored as long as the sense is being stimulated.
You may have sensory memory when smelling a flower.
Working memory is the memory for information that is shortly stored in the brain to execute other cognitive ta
You are using your working memory when solving a mathematical equation.
The differences between the different memory types can be narrowed down when the memory features are explored. Memory has three main features:
Let's take a look at the features of both LTM and STM.
The capacity of the STM system is small. Miller (1956) conducted a study in which he read participants a series of random numbers. The findings suggested that most people could only recall 5 to 9 digits. Even more, when participants were presented with pairs of numbers, they could recall 5 to 9 pairs. This suggests that information is grouped or chunked when stored, and short-term memory has a capacity of 7 (plus or minus 2) items.
7 +/- 2 is sometimes referred to as the magic number in psychology.
In what relates to the encoding of STM, it has been suggested that STM encoding is acoustic. Such a conclusion was drawn from Wickelgren's (1965) study, in which he read out loud four letters to participants. To avoid rehearsal, Wickelgren asked participants to write down eight interference letters as a distraction task. The results indicated that when the interference letters were phonetically similar to the letters participants had to remember, participants made more mistakes. This, in turn, was evidence that information encoding is acoustic.
Peterson and Peterson researched the duration of STM in 1959. Participants in this study had to learn trigrams one at a time in intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 seconds.
Trigrams are combinations of three letters that are not real words, such as TBU, PLF or MNW.
After learning each trigram (and to avoid rehearsal), participants were asked to do a mental math exercise.
The results indicated that the shorter the interval between learning and recall was, the better the performance. After 3 seconds, around 80% of the trigrams were recalled, while after 18 seconds, only 10% were recalled. This was taken as evidence that the duration of this type of memory is of around 18 seconds, which can be described as short.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish the capacity of LTM. Can you quantify all that you know? It is very hard. LTM capacity has been explained in terms of neuronal networks. Given that memories are dependent on neuron connections and that these cannot be unlimited, it is logical to conclude that LTM is not infinite. At the same time, the number of connections in our brains is enormous. Although psychologists acknowledge that there must be a limit to LTM capacity, they work based on the assumption that LTM capacity is unlimited, given its vast potential.
The encoding of LTM is related to semantics. Baddeley (1966) conducted a study in which participants had to learn a list of words. The list could contain words similar in sound (e.g. hat, cap, rat, man, at) or similar in meaning (e.g. large, enormous, big, giant, huge). Twenty minutes after the learning phase, participants were asked to reproduce the list of words. The results showed that more mistakes were made when the words were similar in sound, suggesting that LTM encoding must be semantic.
The study of the duration of LTM has also been shown to be complex. While memories are stored for years, there is also information that cannot be recalled after hours. You may remember the name of someone you were introduced to two years ago, but you may not remember the name of someone you were just introduced to minutes ago. The duration of LTM is somewhat explained by theories of forgetting, for which you find a designated explanation.
As you probably realised from the studies reviewed, they use different ways to measure memory. The following section reviews the measurement of memory.
It is probably apparent that memory is not observable, although everyone can relate to it. The fact that it is not observable makes memory difficult to be measured. And because of this, psychologists have invested decades of research in developing tools to measure memory.
In experimental research, several paradigms have been employed to measure memory. Here we will review three:
Although the development of such paradigms has greatly benefited memory research, memory can also be assessed through memory tests. Let's move on to learn about the types of memory tests.
Memory tests are used to assess the memory abilities of individuals. Further, memory tests can detect potential memory difficulties or diseases, such as dementia.
The different psychological memory tests emerge based on the memory they measure. This way, there are tests for STM, LTM and working memory.
Here you will find a list of some memory tests and the type of memory they measure.
One of the subscales within the BAS3 is similarity. This is measured by telling a child to tell another thing that goes along a list, such as orange, strawberry, and banana. The children could answer apple. Then the researcher would ask the child to say what the overall category is, in this case, fruit.
The cognitive process of memory takes place in three steps: encoding, storage and retrieval.
LTM and STM have different capacities, encodings and durations.
There are different types of paradigms to measure memory such as the free call and recognition, the priming method or the sentence verification paradigm.
Different memory tests measure different types of memory.
Testing memory refers to assessing the memory abilities of individuals. By testing memory, memory difficulties and diseases can be detected.
Many tests are used to test memory among which we find the BAS3, WISC V, WPPSI-IV, WMRS, TOMAL-2 or the WAIS.
Memory is crucial for humans' survival.
Long-term memory, short-term memory, working memory and sensory memory.
Testing capacity of memory, duration of memory, and issues with coding information would help determine memory functioning.
What was the aim of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?
Peterson and Peterson (1959) aimed to investigate the duration of short-term memory.
Memory is the cognitive process through which information is ____.
Acquired, stored, retained and retrieved.
What type of stimuli did Peterson and Peterson (1959) use in their study?
Peterson and Peterson (1959) used trigrams, these are combinations of three letters that are not real words.
What are the three features of memory?
Encoding, duration and capacity.
Did Peterson and Peterson (1959) include a distraction task? If so, what was it?
Yes, to avoid rehearsal Peterson and Peterson (1959) asked participants to do a mental math exercise.
What did Peterson and Peterson (1965) find in their study?
They found that the shorter the interval between learning and recall was, the better the performance. After 3 seconds, around 80% of the trigrams were recalled, while after 18 seconds, only 10% were recalled. This was taken as evidence that the duration of this type of memory is of around 18 seconds, which can be described as short.
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