Final answer:
Sensory memory can hold a large amount of information but only for a brief period, typically up to a couple of seconds before it's either transferred to short-term memory or discarded.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question about the capacity and duration of sensory memory storage refers to how much information the sensory memory can hold and for how long. The correct answer is: c) A large; brief. Sensory memory can hold a large amount of information for a very short period of time, typically up to a couple of seconds before it either moves into short-term memory or is discarded. This stage helps us make sense of the plethora of sensory information we experience at every moment, like sights, sounds, tastes, and smells.
If the information from the sensory memory is deemed important, it will be transferred to short-term memory, which generally has a limited capacity of about 7 items (±2) and lasts approximately 15 to 30 seconds. Items in short-term memory may then be encoded into long-term memory, where they have the potential for more permanent storage. Sensory memory acts as the very first filtering system for the enormous amount of sensory data we encounter.