During an excavation skills assessment, Salma is briefly shown a list of trench labels, each a single capital letter, and then writes down as many as she can.
| Number of labels shown | Number recalled correctly immediately |
|---|---|
| 5 | 5 |
| 8 | 7 |
| 12 | 7 |
In separate trials, Salma is shown seven labels and then completes an equipment-checking task which prevents her from repeating them.
| Delay before writing the labels down (seconds) | Number recalled correctly |
|---|---|
| 5 | 6 |
| 20 | 3 |
| 30 | 1 |
Salma says that in the immediate trials, although the labels were printed, she kept them in mind by silently saying each letter to herself. She can also sort photographs of artefacts according to their uses, drawing on knowledge first learned 18 years ago.
Explain how these findings can be understood in terms of the capacity, duration and encoding of short-term and long-term memory.
84 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 5.2 Theories/Explanations, covering 5.2.1 Multi-store Model structure, 5.2.2 Differences between memory stores; criticisms, 5.2.3 Multi-store Model research study: Wilson et al. (2008), 5.2.4 Reconstructive memory: schemas, experience and expectation, 5.2.5 Reconstructive memory: confabulation and leading questions; criticisms, and 5.2.6 Reconstructive Memory research study: Braun, Ellis and Loftus (2002). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.