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PsychSim 5: Short-Term Memory

PsychSim 5: SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Mizani Washburn Name: __________________________________________

Section: ________________________

January 4, 2014 Date: __________________________________________

In this activity you will learn about the common model of memory storage. Capacity of Short-Term Memory What is the magical number in terms of short-term memory (STM)? What does this mean? The magic number is 7 unrelated items. It means that the actual number of items that an adult can hold in STM is from 5 to 9, for most people and for most tasks, things become unpredictable after about 7 unrelated items, then the items tend to get lost or drop out. Chunking Expands STM Capacity What is chunking?

The memory technique of organizing material into familiar, meaningful units.

Give an everyday example of chunking. Acronyms can use chunking, like PEMDAS in math that helps you remember Parenthesis, Exponent, Multiplication, Division, Adding, and Subtracting STM Format or Code Can the auditory code used in STM help explain why people have a slightly better memory for random lists of seven digits (09) than for random lists of seven letters (AZ)?

Many letters have the same vowel sounds, however, only two of the digits from 0 to 9 share a vowel sound. The auditory code also helps tell why people have a slightly better memory for numbers or letters presented orally than they do for the ones shown visually.