STM - encoding

• Does the information stay in its original modality or is it re-coded in some way?

Frying Pan Frying

PanFrying

Pan

Visually

SemanticallyAcoustically

P

C

V

T

B

D

BREAK

L

Z

F

X

H

W

BREAK

Conrad (1964)

• In Groups compare your results and draw conclusions:

What were the most common errors made?

Which did you find harder?

What would you conclude?

P, C, V, T, B, D L, Z, F, X, H, W

Task

• Complete the gap fill in your booklets to summarise Conrad’s research

CONRAD (1964)In an experiment to test the encoding of STM, Conrad (1964) showed participants a random sequence of 6 consonants every 0.75 seconds.

There were two conditions – acoustically similar (e.g. G, C, T) and acoustically dissimilar (e.g. F, L, P).

Participants were asked to write down the letters in correct order.

Conrad (1964) frequently found that PPs made errors of recall with acoustically similar letters.

From this, it was concluded that items are stored in the STM in some form of acoustic code.