Cognitive Psychology Memory

University: Psychology

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Brown and Peterson claimed that information in STM can disappear in less than 30 seconds if it is not rehearsed. Their experiment was similar to the one outlined below:

Reading page 48 (from duration in short term memory)
- page 49(up to duration in LTM)

1. In the Peterson and Peterson study why were the participants asked to count backwards in three?

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2. How many trigrams were correctly recalled after 3, 6, and 18 seconds?

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3. What can we conclude from these findings?

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4. This study as been criticised for using artificial stimuli. What is meant by this?

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We have looked at the duration and the capacity of the STM now we need to understand how we process and store memories in the STM – this is known as encoding.


You need to understand the difference between the following:

Acoustic encoding

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Semantic coding

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Are the following words acoustically similar or semantically similar?

1. Tall Long Big ……………………………………………

2. Can Tram Plan ………………………………………….


There have been a number of studies looking at how we encode in the STM and LTM.

Baddeley’s 1966 research tells us about encoding in the STM and LTM.

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Encoding in the STM is mainly …………………………………..

Encoding in the LTM is mainly …………………………………..


Capacity and Duration in LTM

Capacity – It is thought that the LTM has an unlimited capacity

Duration – There has been some research to try and find out how long the LTM is. However, it is difficult to test as just because we don’t remember something doesn’t mean it isn’t there somewhere. Often we cannot remember a person’s name but later it comes back to us and the elderly can often remember childhood events. Therefore, it is thought that memories can last up to a lifetime.

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