Short Term Memory

CapacityChunkingCoding

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Experiment 1 Before proceeding, you will need a pen/pencil and a sheet of

paper. When you go to the next page, you will be presented with a

sequence of numbers, which will appear in the centre of the screen at one second intervals.

Try to memorise the numbers in sequence as they are presented.

When you hear a tone/see the word NOW appear, write the numbers down in the same order as they were presented, (serial recall), on the sheet of paper.

Click on the forward button to start Trial 1 of Experiment 1.

74831962

NOW

5

How did you do? - see below

5 7 4 8 3 1 9 6 2

Miller, (1956) talks of ‘the magical number seven, plus or minus two’, meaning that:

on average, the capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 items of information. (See: Gross et al, 2000, p.12.).

Try the experiment again, this time with letters as the stimulus material, writing them down in the same order as they were presented, when you see the word NOW appear.

You will need a fresh sheet of paper. Click on the forward button to start Trial 2 of Experiment 1.

QAHERSBK

NOWT

Difficult, isn’t it? - Answers below

Q A H E R S B K T

You probably found that you remembered between 5 and 9 items, digits or letters, on each trial, in line with Miller’s (1954) findings.

Now try Experiment 2 - click on the forward button for details.

Experiment 2

Before proceeding, you will need a pen/pencil and a fresh sheet of paper.

When you go to the next page, you will be presented with a line of letters across the centre of the screen which will appear for approximately 10 seconds.

Your task is to remember as many of the letters as you can, in the order in which they were presented.

When you see the word NOW appear on the screen, write down on your paper as many of the letters as you can remember, in the same order as they were presented.

Click on the forward button to start Trial 1 of Experiment 2.

G C E B T E C G C S E G N V Q A S

NOW

Difficult, wasn’t it?

Now try it again, using a fresh sheet of paper, obviously!

Click on the forward button to start Trial 2 of Experiment 2.

GCE BTEC GCSE GNVQ AS

NOW

You probably did better this time - Answers below.

GCE BTEC GCSE GNVQ AS

Why might this be? – (apart from having seen the stimulus material twice, an example of the practice effect). Miller (56) found that the capacity of STM could be

considerably increased by combining, or organising, separate ‘bits’ of information, e.g. letters or digits, into larger chunks.

Use MIND-MAPPING and / or NOTE STRUCTURING / CUE CARDS to build chunks

Armed with your new-found knowledge, click on the forward button to try Trial 3 of Experiment 2, writing your answers on a fresh sheet of paper when the word NOW appears.

1 9 0 0 1 9 1 4 1 9 1 8 1 9 3 9 1 9 4 5 2 0 0 0

NOW

How did you do this time?Answers below

1 9 0 0 1 9 1 4 1 9 1 8 1 9 3 9 1 9 4 5 2 0 0 0

Based on existing knowledge of the two World Wars of the 20th century, you might have been able to reorganise these 24 bits of information into 2 CHUNKS, i.e.:

1 The dates of the two World Wars, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945;2 the beginning and end of the 20th century, 1900 and 2000.

Experiment 3 - Coding in STM

As before, you will need a pen/pencil and a fresh sheet of paper.

When you go to the next page, you will be presented with a sequence of letters, which will appear in the centre of the screen at one second intervals.

Try to memorise the letters in sequence as they are presented. When you hear a tone/see the word NOW appear, write the

letters down in the same order as they were presented, (serial recall), on the sheet of paper.

Click on the forward button to start Trial 1 of Experiment 3.

BDTCPV

NOWEG

How many did you get? - answers below.

B D T G C P E V Remember, to count as correct, the letters must be in the

correct sequence.

Armed with a fresh sheet of paper, click on the forward button to start Trial 2 of Experiment 3.

WLZQRANOW

FM

How did you do this time? - answers

below W L F Z M Q R A

You probably did better on trial 2, above. This is in line with previous research which has found that sequences of letters, (Conrad, 1964), or words, (Baddeley, 1966), which sound similar, are harder to recall from STM than sequences which sound dissimilar.

STM for such material mainly relies on a speech-based or acoustic code, even though the items were presented visually.

There is a case for reading some material out loud when revising

Coding in LTM

Interestingly, when Baddeley tested LONG-TERM MEMORY recall, similar sounding words had little effect, but words with similar meaning caused much confusion, i.e. fewer were recalled.

So LTM is based on UNDERSTANDING meaning DEEP LEARNING REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING USE REVISION TECHNIQUES THAT PROMOTE

UNDERSTANDING.

Further Resources

For more information on the issues covered in this module and more, together with some further interactive experiments, click on the link below:

The End

Content: Vic CobboldTechnical Support: Harry Cobbold.

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