memory Flashcards
describe structure of MSM
sensory register picks up different senses and codes them modality specific, if these are paid attention to the info arrives at the STM with maintenance rehearsal keeping it in the STM and elaborative rehearsal moving it into the LTM, by retrieval info from LTM can go into the STM
coding, capacity, duration of each parts of the MSM
Sensory register: modality specific, unlimited, 250ms
STM: acoustic, 7+- 2, 18-30 seconds
LTM: semantic, unlimited, forever
positives of MSM
Cunitz (1966)-got ppts to recall list of words, ppts able t recall words at the start of the list (moved fro LTM by the primacy effect) and at the end of the list (recency effect) and the middle wasn’t recalled very much this was due to the info being replaced
Baddley- got ppts to recall a 4x 10 word list in 4 conditions: acoustically similar/ dissimilar and semantically similar/ dissimilar he found that acoustically similar was recalled the worst due to it not being kept in the STM followed by semantically similar words this shows that semantically and acoustically similar words cause confusion. shows STM is coded acoustically
Bahrick- 392 ppts ages 17-70 recalled old friends from school photographs found that 90% recalled after 15 years and 80% after 48 years this shows that LTM has a very long duration
Negatives of msm
Artificiality of the experiments- all of the experiments testing MSM were done in a lab setting this means that it lacks ecological validity, also the tasks the ppts had to do were highly artificial meaning it lacks mundane realism and they wouldn’t encounter such tasks irl decreases generalisability of findings to normal life- memory operates differently
Based on inference- as there is no way of actually seeing/ testing what memory is and how its stored the MSM is based on an inference by an individual who has a rough idea this individual could be wrong
LTM and STM aren’t unitary stores, MSM refers to them as unitary stores however this isn’t the case. In the case study of KF who was suffering with amnesia struggled to recall digits that were read to him but was able to recall words when he read them himself- shows there are 2 stores for STM- visual and auditory. The WMM provides a better explanation as a result
Features of the WMM
Central executive- receives the information and passes it onto the different sub system, controls attention, capacity of 4 items
phonological loop- receives auditory info and processes it . inner voice repeats words and this holds info, limited capacity of what can be said in 2 seconds
visuo spatial sketchpad- receives and processes visual info, contains inner scribe which shows the relationship between objects in 3D space
Episodic Buffer-holds and integrates info from all of the other stores including LTM
improving EWT (4 things)
make ewt recall in reverse order
take ewt to the place it happened
make ewt report everything that happened
change the perspective of which the ewt is thinking from- ask them to report what happened from the victims perspective for example
WMM evaluation
KF- (criticism of MSM positive of WMM)- struggled to recall words when read to him (articulatory process damaged) but could read them out himself- visuospatial sketchpad still intact.
baddley- did a study where ppt had to recall angles in a letter whilst their eye had to follow a light (2 visual tasks) and found performance was worse than when they had to follow the light and do a verbal task- suggesting the 2 are separate stores.
model is based on inference- no way of actually seeing the WMM just assumed based on behaviours and experiments
experiments into memory highly artificial- lacks mundane realism- memory works differently irl
central executive criticised as vague and even baddley agreed.
improving EWT evaluation
fisher et al- 7 detectives trained in cognitive interview vs 9 trained in regular interviews. after their training, those trained with CI received 47% more info- shows how important CI is in real life application
CI is time consuming- takes a lot of time to conduct and requires a lot of training requiring lots of money- not useful for underfunded police
cost benefit analysis- additional resources spent on CI may be worth it on its impact on society with reduced crime
not effective in young kids as they are egocentric (can only view things from their perspective)
