PSYC 336 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Memory Span

• School: University of San Diego
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 336
• Professor: Appleton-Knapp

Document Summary

The acquisition of memories and the working-memory system ii. All mental activities require the coordination of several pieces of information. Use it whenever you have multiple ideas in your mind. Multiple elements that you"re trying to combine or compare. People differ in the holding capacity of their working memories. Some can hold and work with more elements than others. Digit-span task a task used to measure working memory"s storage capacity. Research participants hear a series of digits read to them and must immediately repeat them back. If successful given a loner list. Continues until the participant starts to make errors. The # of digits the person can echo back without errors = person"s digit span. A range often offered as an estimate of the # of items or units able to be contained in working memory. Working memory"s capacity = 7 = at least 5 but not more than 9. Miller proposed that working memory holds 7 plus-or-minus 2 chunks.