Cognative Psychology

Question 1

What are the 3 memory stores in the multi store model of memory?

Answer 1

Sensory store
Short term memory
Long term memory

Question 2

How does information move from the sensory store to the short term memory according to the Multi-store model?

Answer 2

Attention

Question 3

How is information transferred from the short term memory to the long term memory according to the multi-store model?

Answer 3

Rehearsal

Question 4

How are memories forgotten in the sensory store?

Answer 4

Decay

Question 5

How are memories forgotten in the short term memory?

Answer 5

Decay or Displacement

Question 6

How are memories forgotten in the long term memory?

Answer 6

Decay or Retrieval failure

Question 7

How is information kept in the STM?

Answer 7

Maintenance rehearsal

Question 8

What is the capacity of the sensory store?

Answer 8

Large capacity

Question 9

What is the duration of the sensory store?

Answer 9

Very little, a few seconds

Question 10

What is the capacity of the short term memory?

Answer 10

7 (+/-2) items
Or
5-9 items

Question 11

What is the duration of the short term memory?

Answer 11

30 seconds

Question 12

What is the capacity of the long term memory?

Answer 12

Potentially unlimited

Question 13

What is the duration of the long term memory?

Answer 13

Potentially unlimited

Question 14

What are real life evidence that supports the Multi-store model?

Answer 14

Brain damaged patients such as HM shows the distinction between the STM and the LTM. He had little memory of personal or public events in his past, but when uninterrupted he could hold small pieces of information in the STM. Validates what the model claims

Question 15

What are studies that support the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 15

Glanzer and Cunitz and the primary recency effect, primary words were remembered because they had been rehearsed and are in the LTM. Recent words were remembered because they hadn’t had time to decay.

Question 16

Weaknesses of the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 16

Simplistic - doesn’t differentiate between different types of memory as shown my Clive wearing who couldn’t recall events of his past life but could remember how to play the piano.

Overemphasis the role of rehearsal - people can learn and remember information without having to rehearse it, we can remember stressful or emotional times even though we don’t rehearse this information

Question 17

What is episodic memory?

Answer 17

Events in our past

Question 18

What is semantic memory?

Answer 18

Factual information

Question 19

Which type of long term memory is time referencing dependent and which is independent?

Answer 19

Episodic is dependent
Semantic is independent

Question 20

Which type of long term memory has continuous and fragmented input?

Answer 20

Episodic is continuous
Semantic is fragmented

Question 21

How are episodic memories retrieved?

Answer 21

Through cues that were encoded at the time of learning

Question 22

How are semantic memories retrieved?

Answer 22

They are not dependent on context so don’t need cues to be retrieved

Question 23

Which type of long term memory can be changed and which is more robust to change after retrieval?

Answer 23

Episodic is more susceptible to change after retrieval compared to semantic which is more robust.

Question 24

Are semantic and episodic memories interdependent?

Answer 24

Semantic memories can work independent to episodic memories, but episodic memories need knowledge to understand the events that happen to us

Question 25

Strengths of Tulving’s theory?

Answer 25

Brain scans of brain damaged patients shows that episodic memories can be affected is there is medial temporal or prefrontal lobe damage, but this doesn’t effect semantic memories Butterworth described case of Dr s who was a neurologist who fell while skiing. He had a loss of episodic memory as the previous 25 years were a blank, however when taken to hospital he asked for a brain scan and correctly diagnosed himself, something he learnt about in the missing 25 years. Therefore his semantic memory was intact.

Question 26

Weakness of Tulving’s Theory?

Answer 26

Tulving is merely labelling differences between types of memories rather than explaining. He is describing not explaining how the different store work. Could be another type of long term memory because Dr S was able to continue to ski after the fall. It’s suggested that both semantic and episodic memories use the hippocampus, this suggests that the two stores.have very little differences, additionally they rely on each other so they are very similar.

Question 27

What happened to HM?

Answer 27

At age 10 he started to have minor epileptic seizures and by 16 he was having major seizures. The major attacks increased over the years in frequency and severity until he was unable to work. No medication seemed to reduce the effect.

Question 28

Why did HM have an operation?

Answer 28

Doctors were unable to find a cause for the seizures. He had been knocked down by a bike at 9 and was unconscious for 5 minutes however later scans and tests came back as normal. The EEG scans failed to find any localised epileptic area of the brain and since medication didn’t work they decided to operate.

Question 29

What operation did HM have?

Answer 29

A bilateral medial temporal-lobe resection. 2/3 of his hippocampus on both hemispheres was removed

Question 30

What happened to HM after the operation in terms of his seizures?

Answer 30

The incidence of seizures was sharply reduced one year after his operation, after this he did experience minor and major attacks but they were less frequent and severe as before.

Question 31

What is the role of the hippocampus?

Answer 31

Consolidates memories

Question 32

How did the case of HM contribute to our understanding of memory?

Answer 32

After the operation HM could no longer make new long term memories, shows that there are separate stores for short term and long term memories He also could remember things from before the operation but after he could not, shows some memory stores are distinct. HM could correctly recall lists of words like non brain damaged patients, his phonological loop was intact and his STM has a capacity of 5-9 items. However if he was distracted from this task, he could recall nothing. Therefore he could not transfer info from one store to another, shows the importance of rehearsal. HM could learn new motor skills and showed improvement, therefore there is a different store for fine-motor skills

Question 33

What kind of amnesia did HM have?

Answer 33

Retrograde and Anterograde amnesia

Question 34

What was the conclusion of the case study of HM?

Answer 34

His retrograde amnesia is suggested to be caused by his epileptic medication and the frequency of his seizures before the operation, rather than the operation itself. However his anterograde was caused by the operation.

Question 35

Strengths of using case studies to understand how memory works?

Answer 35

These case studies occur naturally, this gives the researchers real life insight into a real situation without researchers breaching ethical guidelines by causing harm to participants by altering their brain structure. Therefore it is ecologically valid.