The Memory Theory Of George Miller's Short Term Memory

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George Miller’s magical number 7, plus or minus two, helps confirm the capacity of short term memory (Miller, 1956). Most people 18 and over can hold 5 to 9 items in their short term memory (Miller, 1956). Miller believed that short term memory could only hold his magic number because of the limited “slots” in which memory could be placed in the brain. Miller reached this conclusion by getting the participants of the initial study to listen to a number of tones that were different by pitch. Every sound was produced solely, and the participant was asked to match each sound corresponding to the other tones that they had already heard. This was done by giving each sound a number. When the experiment ran on through around 6 or 7 tones, the participants …show more content…
It was created around the thought that if one were to complete two visual tasks at the same time, that person would do terribly compared to someone doing the same tasks separately. There are four components to this model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). The Central Executive is the main part. Data comes from the senses and is passed through here. The central executive acts as a switch board and directs the senses to the specific other blocks. The Phonological loop holds information in a speech form. This allows memories encoded by sound to be held for a small moment of time. The Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad stores visual information, as well as spatial, and is responsible for creating the images that you see when accessing memory. Lastly, the Episodic Buffer is a limited capacity “store” that combines all the information from the rest of the Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). The model suggests that perhaps short term memory is separated into different memory slots; one for acoustic processing and one for …show more content…
That is why things such as phone numbers only have 7 digits. Peterson and Peterson’s study showed that short term memory lasts for 18-20 seconds and improves with rehearsal techniques. The Working Memory Model that Baddeley created, shows that short term memory is separated into different slots when it comes to visual or audio senses. Shallice and Warrington completed a study that supports the model. Richard Knox tested gender and short term memory and found that females tend to have a larger capacity for short term memory when it comes to looking at things. The studies included in this Literature Review are important because it sets the basis for understanding the basics of short term

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