Exploring the dynamics of short-term memory (STM), this overview delves into its capacity, duration, and the critical Peterson and Peterson study from 1959. The study's findings on STM decay without rehearsal and its implications for memory theory and educational practices are discussed, highlighting the importance of active engagement for memory retention.
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Short-term memory acts as a buffer for incoming information, temporarily holding it for processing
Short-term memory has a limited capacity, typically able to hold about 7±2 items
Short-term memory can last from a few seconds to about half a minute without active maintenance
Retention in short-term memory is essential for the encoding of information into long-term memory
Attention, motivation, and the presence of distractions can significantly affect the efficiency of short-term memory retention
The 1959 study by Lloyd and Margaret Peterson focused on the duration of short-term memory
The Peterson and Peterson experiment was a controlled laboratory study with an independent variable of retention interval and a dependent variable of recall accuracy
The experiment showed a rapid decline in recall accuracy as the delay interval increased, indicating the transient nature of short-term memory without rehearsal
The Peterson and Peterson experiment significantly advanced our understanding of memory, but has been critiqued for its artificial setting and small sample size
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Without active maintenance, the duration of STM can last from a few seconds to approximately ______.
half a minute
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Petersons' method to prevent STM rehearsal
Used counting backwards by threes or fours as a distractor task.
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Type of stimuli used in Petersons' STM study
Trigrams consisting of consonant-vowel-consonant sequences.
