can someone please give me feedback on this duration into memory q 8 marker

Duration is the length of time information can be held in the memory store. Peterson and Peterson researched the duration of short term memory. In this study participants were given constant syllables (a trigram) to remember (as well as a 3-digit number as well to prevent mental rehearsal of the constant), from this participants were stopped at different timings (retention intervals.) The findings of this study was that
after 3 seconds 80% of the trigrams were recalled and after 18 seconds 30% were recalled, therefore concluding that STM has a very short duration (about 18 seconds.)

However, a limitation of this research is there is alternative explanations as to why we might forget in the STM. For example, the memory trace disappears if not rehearsed (spontaneous decay), in this study participants counted down during the retention interval meaning they were unable to rehearse. This means that information becomes displaced, for example as interference theory lays out, the new information replaces the old. Therefore, this study lacks internal validity because it cannot produce to an extent a trustworthy cause-and-effect relationship as information could have been displaced, therefore acting as a potential confounding variable in this experiment.

Another limitation of this research is there is significant meaningless stimuli. For example, memorising constant syllables is artificial material. This means that it does not reflect most real-life memory activities where we try to memorise more meaningful information. Therefore, this study lacks external validity as it comprises our confidence that the study results are applicable to these real-life other situations that the study does not reflect, we cannot make these generalisations to these instances, therefore limiting the application of this research. However, some real-life activities reflect the trigram, there is instances we try to remember meaningless information, for example, phone numbers. Therefore, the study is not totally irrelevant as it can be applied to real life to an extent.

Bahrick researched the duration of the long term memory. In this study participants were tested on recall of their high school yearbooks, this was done by either photo-recognition or a free-recall test. The findings of this study was that in photo-recognition after 48 years 70% of recall was correct and in free-recall, although this was less, recall was still after 48 years a significant 30%, therefore concluding that LTM duration lasts very long.

This research is supported by the high levels of ecological validity it has. For example, this study included real-life meaningful memory activities (the recall of a yearbook is personal), therefore this reflects memory for real life events. Therefore, these findings into the duration of LTM can be generalised to everyday human memory, there is significant real-life application.