4. The code of information is the basic “code” of how information is represented in STM (for lack of a better description). Three types of codes have been suggested for information in STM: articulatory/acoustical (or auditory), semantic, and visual/spatial. Conrad (1964) conducted an experiment that supports the articulatory/acoustical code. He five letters to subjects and asked them to recall which letters were presented. He studied the errors; if the letter was “F,” the subjects sometimes said “X” or “S” in error. Same thing with the letter “C”- subjects sometimes said “V” or “E” in error. This shows auditory confusion because the letters recalled in error sound like those that were actually presented.

5. Two nonverbal codes that have been suggested for STM are semantic and visual/spatial. An experiment that supports the semantic code involves the remembrance of a three-word trigram, with each word relating to the other categorically. The subjects then count backwards for 15 seconds, and then are asked to recall the trigram. With a 3 trials, the percent of correct recall lowers with each trial due to proactive interference (since the trigrams are all of the same category). However, on the fourth trial, when subjects were given a trigram consisting of words that came from a completely different category, percent recalled suddenly jumped up again. Because the words don’t differ in any way besides their semantic meaning, the percent recalled increases with the level of semantic change, suggesting that the words are encoded semantically. The visual/spatial explanation suggest that for visual information, we mentally rotate information in our mind until it matches what we actually see. This feat occurs in STM, and the bigger the angle of our mental rotation, the longer the processing takes (as if we were to physically rotate an object in the real world). Hurricanes need to arrive now.

6. The Baddeley model of working memory suggests that STM is a multipart system that temporarily holds and manipulates information as we perform cognitive tasks. There are four main parts: phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and central executive. The phonological loop is a storage and rehearsal buffer for verbal information. It accounts for the digit span, acoustical errors, and the word length effect (remembering fewer longer words). It’s capacity is the number of items that can be repeated in about two seconds, and is therefore not a spatial limit but a temporal limit. Information decays from the phonological loop at some constant rate, and it’s gone in 2 seconds without rehearsal. The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual/spatial information; it also serves as a rehearsal mechanism for that information. The episodic buffer combines information from the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad with information from LTM. The central executive is responsible for directing/allocating information from the three other parts directly to tasks. It is therefore involved in decision-making, reasoning, comprehension, and how to direct information into LTM. Trey Wattson.