Using Chunking to Increase Capacity of STM

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Using Chunking to Increase Capacity of STM

The aim of the investigation was to repeat the experiment carried out

by Bower and Springston in 1970. A laboratory experiment was carried

out to demonstrate how chunking could be used to increase the capacity

of STM. Participants were presented with a letter sequence. The

independent variable was the chunking and the dependent variable was

how many letters the participants recalled. A repeated measures design

was used and the participants were an opportunist sample of 20

students, between the ages of 16-18 years. The results were analysed

using the Wilcoxon test.

Therefore the directional hypothesis that the participants remembered

more of the acronyms than the non-related trigrams is significant. The

graphs and the results extended this by showing that more acronyms

were remembered than the non-related.

Introduction

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Memory is the process of storing information and experiences for

possible retrieval at

some point in the future. This ability to create and retrieve memories

is fundamental to

all aspects of cognition and in a broader sense it is essential to our

ability to function

properly as human beings. Our memories allow us to store information

about the world

so that we can understand and deal with future situations on the basis

of past

experience. The process of thinking and problem solving relies heavily

on the use of

previous experience and memory also makes it possible for us to

acquire language and

to communicate with others. Memory also plays a basic part in the

process of

perception, since we can only make sense of our perceptual input by

referring to our

store of previous experiences. Even our social interactions with

others are dependent

upon what we remember. In a sense it can be said that our identity

relies on an intact memory, and the ability to remember who we are and

the things that we have done. Almost everything we do depends on our

ability to remember the past.

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