Monday 8 February 2010

Limitations of Short-term memory

(Azalea)
This Information Processing Model shows us a clear picture about the procedures of information transformation. See below:

Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. Tametiger18 February 2010 at 05:54

    “Short-term memory is the type of memory we use when we wish to retain information for a short time to think about it.”

    "Short-term memory is characterized by:
    o A limited capacity of up to seven pieces of independent information.
    o The brief duration of these items last from 3 to 20 seconds.
    o Decay appears to be the primary mechanism of memory loss."
    - from: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/memory.html

    According to the meaning of short-term memory, there are two obvious major limitations which can be classified by duration and capacity of memory.

    In terms of the duration of memory, a certain amount of information can only be kept in short-term memory for a short time. Unless we repeat those information several times or transfer them into long-term memory through deeper brain activities, otherwise, we may lose those information quickly.

    Another limitation of short-term memory is its limited capacity, which can be described as memory span. The memory span of human being can be decided by human age, gender, and can be influenced by the outside environment and the familiarity extent with the information. It means the more we know about the information, the wider we can expand our memory span.

    Although short-term memory is limited by the duration and capacity, it has the important value of application for some special vocations, like typist and translators. Their works highly rely on the short-term memory. And, with long-term practice, their capability of short-term memory will be enhanced, which means the duration of short-term memory will be longer and the capacity will be expanded.

    Moreover, the short-term memory is very useful in many aspects, but, it is not a desirable method for learning. Maybe, we can use it to receive a lot of information as fast as we can. Eventually, we should reform information in our short-term memory by analyzing, managing and transferring to become our long-term memory.
    (Azalea)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tametiger21 February 2010 at 18:11

    (Sharon)Factors Affecting Short Term Memory

    "It is very difficult to demonstrate the exact capacity of STM due to the fact that it will vary depending on the nature of the material to be recalled. Until now, there is no way of defining the basic unit of information to be stored in the STM store. It is also possible that STM is not the store described by Atkinson and Shiffrin. In that case, the task of defining the task of STM becomes even more difficult.
    Some other factors are listed below: Reading Aloud: Digital spans tend to increase if the digits are read aloud by participants instead of being read sub-vocally. Baddley (1999) suggests that the sounds are also stored in the echoic store which makes storing it easier."

    (For more information, please refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-term_memory)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tametiger21 February 2010 at 18:14

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tametiger21 February 2010 at 18:15

    (Sharon)As Azalea pointed out, duration and capacity of short-term memory have been obvious limitations. Meanwhile, when being recalled, information stored in STM becomes harder and fuzzier than that stored in LTM.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tametiger21 February 2010 at 18:18

    (Sharon)
    From this link:
    http://www.skagitwatershed.org/~donclark/hrd/learning/memory.html

    You could find 'Learning and Memory' and get an overview understanding of three stages of learning through memory:

    "In cognitive psychology, memory is usually divided into three storage systems: sensory, short-term, and long-term."

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)