Memory Flashcards
(59 cards)
1
Q
What is memory?
A
- Human memory can most broadly be defined as the process by which we retain information about events that have happened in the past - not just years ago but in immediate past too.
2
Q
Types of memory
A
- sensory memory/register (SM)
- short term memory (STM)
- Long term memory (LTM)
3
Q
What is the sensory memory/register (SM)?
A
- Initial contact for stimuli. SM is only capable of retaining information for a very short time
4
Q
What is short term memory (STM)?
A
- The information we are currently aware of or thinking about.
- The information found in short term memory comes from paying attention to sensory memories
5
Q
What is long term memory (LTM)?
A
- Continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness, but can be called into working memory to be used when needed.
6
Q
What is duration?
A
- how long (in time) a memory lasts before it is no longer accessible.
- STM and LTM differ in duration
7
Q
Explain the duration of short term memory (STM)
A
- short term memories last for very short period of time, unless rehearsed or paid attention to.
- therefore STM is limited in duration
8
Q
Explain the duration of long term memory (LTM)
A
- long term memories can last anywhere can last anywhere from 2 minutes to 100 years.
- LTM has an unlimited duration
9
Q
Explain the features of the Peterson and Peterson experiment (1959)
A
- Participants presented with a 3 letter consonant nonsense syllable followed by a 3 digit number.
- Nonsense syllables were not memorable such as ‘BBC’.
- Participants were then asked to count backwards in 3’s or 4’s to prevent them from rehearsing the nonsense syllable.
- Each participant was given two practice trials followed by 8 real trials. On each trial the time spent counting backwards was different (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds).
10
Q
What were the results of the Peterson and Peterson experiment?
A
- Participants remembered 90% when there was a 3 second interval, but only 2% when there was an 18 second interval.
11
Q
List the positive evaluations of the Peterson and Peterson experiment (1959):
A
- Showed that forgetting in STM can occur if information is not rehearsed.
- Identified that duration of STM as approximately 18secs.
- Highly controlled therefore limited the effect of extraneous variables.
12
Q
List the negative evaluations of the Peterson and Peterson experiment:
A
- Using artificial stimuli therefore they had no personal meaning to the participants – lacked mundane realism.
- means that we may not be able to generalise these findings to different kinds of memory task.
- This therefore lacks external validity.
- Relatively small sample and all students
13
Q
What were the key features of Bahrick et al experiment (1975)?
A
- duration of LTM
- 392 participants from Ohio aged between 17 and 74, using High school year books. Recall was tested in various ways
1. Photo-recognition test of 50 photos
2. Free recall test where they had to recall the names of
students from their graduating class.
14
Q
What were the results of Bahrick’s experiment?
A
- After 15 years 90% accurate in photo recognition.
- After 48 years 70% accurate in photo recognition.
- After 15 years 60% accurate for free recall.
- After 48 years 30% accurate for free recall.
15
Q
List the positive and negative evaluations of Bahrick’s experiment:
A
Positive:
- High external validity, real-life meaningful memories were studied.
Negative:
- Confounding variables are not controlled in these experiments.
- These pictures could have been rehearsed over the years.
16
Q
What is rehearsal?
A
- a way of transferring info into LTM (long-term memory).
- e.g. by repeating it over and over again or by attending to it
17
Q
What is digital span?
A
- A way of measuring the capacity of STM.
- Participants have to repeat back a string of digits in order of presentation
18
Q
List the features of Jacobs’ capacity of STM study:
A
- method: Participants presented with a string of letters or digits.
- Had to repeat them back in the same order. - The number of digits or letters increased until the participant failed to recall the sequence correctly.
- results: majority of the time, participants recalled about 9 digits and about 7 letters (aged 8 years).
- This capacity increased with age during childhood
19
Q
What was concluded in Jacobs’ STM study?
A
- Based on the range of results, Jacobs concluded STM has limited storage capacity of 5-9 items.
- Individual differences were found, such as STM increasing with age, possibly due to use of memory techniques such as chunking.
- Digits may have been easier to recall as there were only 10 different digits to remember, compared to 26 letters
20
Q
List the evaluations of Jacobs’ experiment on STM:
A
- research is artificial and lacks ecological validity - not something you would do in real life.
- Meaningful info may be recalled better, perhaps showing STM to have an even greater capacity.
- Also, the previous sequence recalled by the participants might have confused them on future trials
21
Q
Explain Miller’s theory on span of memory and chunking:
A
- Miller (1956) noted that things come in sevens: 7 notes on musical scales, 7 days of the week…
- This suggests that the capacity of STM is 7 items (plus or minus 2).
- argued that capacity for remembering info can be increased if we chunk items together.
- If we find links between things and group them together then we will remember more.
- e.g. FBI, TNT, NHS, LOL, AQA etc.
22
Q
List the evaluations on capacity and coding:
A
Negative:
- artificial stimuli.
- lacking validity: digital span.
- not so many chunks (overestimation of STM).
23
Q
Explain how artificial stimuli is a negative evaluation for capacity and coding
A
- based on very old research.
- Lacked adequate control.
- Confounding variables.
- However: other studies have found similar results supporting its validity.
24
Q
Explain how the overestimation of STM is a negative evaluation of capacity and coding (not so many chunks)
A
- Miller may have overestimated the capacity of the STM.
- Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM was only about 4 chunks.
25
What is encoding?
- the way info is changed so it can be stored in memory.
- Info enters the brain via the senses but is then stored in different forms:
1) Visual
2) Acoustic
3) Semantic
26
What are the 2 sub-divisions of LTM?
- explicit (declarative)
- implicit (non-declarative)
27
What is the explicit (declarative) sub-division of LTM?
- Explicit (declarative) as you can put it into words.
- Have to be consciously thought about to be recalled.
- Often formed through several combined memories.
- These include semantic and episodic memories. (E.g. semantic: knowing how to use a pair of scissors, knowing that grass is green, episodic: first kiss, brother’s graduation etc)
28
What is the implicit (non-declarative) sub-division of LTM?
- Implicit (non-declarative) which is more difficult to put into words.
- These can be recalled without conscious thought.
- These include procedural memories (e.g. riding a bike, writing.)
29
What are episodic memories?
- conscious recollection of previous personal experiences together with their context in terms of time, place, associated emotions, etc.
- e.g. favourite song, primary school (friends/teachers), favourite book.
- episodic memory are time-stamped into our brain and we have to make a conscious effort to recall them
30
What role does the prefrontal cortex play in episodic memory?
- The prefrontal cortex in the forward part of the frontal lobe is associated with initial coding of episodic memory.
31
What role does the hippocampus play in episodic memory?
- Memories of different parts of an event are located in the different visual, auditory, olfactory areas of the brain, but are connected together in the hippocampus to create a memory of an episode
32
What is semantic memory?
- Concerns factual knowledge an individual has learned.
- These are not time stamped.
- Linked to episodic as new knowledge is linked to experience.
- e.g. facts about Harry Potter, Capital of France etc.
33
What parts of the brain play a role in semantic memory?
- Some disagreement over which areas involved in the semantic memory however the hippocampus is thought to be involved.
- left prefrontal cortex: Coding associated with the frontal and temporal lobes
34
What is procedural memory?
- Concerned with learning motor skills.
- Without conscious effort.
- Difficult to explain in words.
- Also involved in language.
- e.g. sport, riding a bike, learning to drive etc etc
35
What parts of the brain play a role in episodic memory?
- right prefrontal cortex
- hippocampus
36
What parts of the brain play a role in procedural memory?
- motor cortex and prefrontal cortex
- cerebellum
37
What role does the Motor Cortex and prefrontal cortex play in procedural memory
- These areas are associated with procedural LTM and aid in the memories of how to walk etc
38
What role does the cerebellum play in procedural memory?
- cerebellum helps with timing and coordination of movements, making them smooth and precise.
- Recent research also suggests a role in higher cognitive processes
39
List the evaluations of memory encoding/types of LTM:
Positive:
- good clinical evidence
- neuroimaging evidence
- real life applications
Negative:
- overgeneralisation
- Cohen and Squire (1980)
40
Explain how good clinical evidence supports memory encoding/types of LTM? (Positive evidence)
- Episodic memory severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia. Great difficulty recalling events in the past.
- Semantic memory unaffected – they understood the meaning of words.
- Procedural memory also intact – could walk, tie shoelaces etc.
- Supports Tulving’s view that there are different memory stores in the LTM.
41
Explain how neuroimaging evidence supports memory encoding/types of LTM (positive evaluation)
- Brain scans have been conducted whilst performing memory tasks.
- Tulving (1994) found that episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex.
- This area is divided into two, one on each hemisphere of the brain:
- Left prefrontal cortex – semantic memories
- Right prefrontal cortex – episodic memories.
- Supports the idea in different physical locality of different parts of memory.
42
List the features of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) multi-store model:
- memory consists of 3 stores: sensory register, short-term store, long-term store and info has to move through these stores to become a memory.
- info from our environment (e.g. visual/auditory) initially goes into sensory register. If you pay attention to it, or think about it, the info will pass into short-term memory.
- if info is processed further (rehearsed) then it can be transferred to long-term memory. In theory, info can remain there forever, until something more interesting comes along, like a bee or a cloud)
43
List the positive evaluations / strengths of the Multi-store model:
Positive:
- external validity, supporting research:
- primacy effect
- recency effect
- Korsakoff’s Syndrome
- Milner et al (1957)
44
Explain how research on the primacy effect supports the multi-store model
- research shows ppts are able to recall 1st few items of a list better than those from the middle.
- multi-store model explains as earlier items will have been rehearsed better and transferred to LTM.
- if rehearsal is prevented by an interference task, the effect disappears.
- e.g. Glenzer and Cunitz
45
List the features of Glenzer and Cuniz’s (1966) experiment on MSM:
- showed ppts a list of 20 words (presented one at a time) and then asked them to recall them.
- serial position effect: ‘when asking people to remember list of words greater than capacity of STM, they have a tendency to remember words from beginning+end of list’.
- comprised of primary effect and recency effect
46
What is the primary effect? (MSM / Glenzer and Cunitz)
- tendency for people to remember the 1st 5 or so words/items from the beginning of a list.
47
What is the recency effect? (MSM / Glenzer and Cunitz)
- tendency for people to remember the last 5 or so words/items from the end of a list.
48
Explain how research on the recency effects supports the memory store model
- ppts also tend to remember the last few items of a list better than those from the middle.
- as STM has capacity of around 7 items, words in the middle of the list, if not rehearsed, are displaced from STM by the last few words heard.
- these last words are still in STM at the end of the experiment and can be recalled.
49
Explain how research on people with Korsakoff’s syndrome supports MSM
- Korsakoff’s syndrome: amnesia mostly caused by chronic alcoholism).
- they can recall last items in a list (unimpaired recency effect) suggesting an unaffected STM.
- however, LTM is very poor.
- This supports the model by showing that STM and LTM are separate stores
50
How does Milner’s research support the memory store model (also list the key features)?
- Milner et al (1957) did case study on patient called HM who suffered from severe and frequent epilepsy.
- seizures based in hippocampus. Doctors surgically removed part of brain around this area.
- operation reduced epilepsy, but led to memory loss.
- could form STMs, but unable to form new LTMs
- study supports idea that different types of memory are separate systems in the brain
51
List the negative evaluations (limitations) of the memory store model:
- more than 1 type of rehearsal / real life application of rehearsal.
- oversimplified (more than 1 type of STM and LTM)
- Use of artificial materials
52
Explain how there being more than 1 type of rehearsal / real life application is a limitation of the MSM
- people don’t always spend time rehearsing, yet will transfer info into LTM.
- rehearsal not always needed for info to be stored and some items can’t be rehearsed, e.g. smells.
- Craik and Watkins (1973) found that the importance of the amount of rehearsal is false:
- type of rehearsal is what really matters:
- maintenance: only maintained in the STM.
- elaborative rehearsal: linking existing knowledge or meaning
53
Explain how oversimplification is a limitation of the MSM
- assumes there is only 1 LTM store and STM store. Disproved by evidence from brain damaged patients, suggesting several different STM stores and other evidence suggesting different LTM stores.
- Patient K.F. case study, Shallice and Warrington (1970).
- found STM store for non-verbal sounds.
- at least one STM store processing visual info and 1 for auditory info.
- supports working memory model
54
Explain how Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed the WMM
- believed memory is not just 1 store but a number of different stores.
- they based their model on results from studies that used ‘interference tasks’:
- if ppts performed 2 tasks simultaneously that use the same system, performance is affected, e.g. saying ‘the,the,the’ while silently reading is hard.
- however, if 2 tasks involve different systems, performance isn’t affected on either task (e.g. saying ‘the, the, the’ whilst tracking a moving object
55
List the key features of the central executive (WSM):
- a key component in the model.
- directs attention to tasks. Decides what working memory pays attention to.
- pays attention to senses - similar to sensory store.
- has limited capacity + controls ‘slave’ systems that also have limited capacity:
- phonological loop
- visuo-spatial sketchpad
- episodic buffer
56
List the features of the phonological loop (1st slave system):
- deals with auditory info and preserves word order, inner ear.
- Baddeley (1986) further subdivided it into:
- phonological store, holds words heard (inner ear)
- articulatory process (holds words heard/seen) and silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. A kind of maintenance rehearsal
57
List the key features of the visuo-spatial sketchpad (2nd slave system):
- visual and/or spatial info stored here (inner eye:
- visual = what things look like.
- spatial = relationships between things.
- Logie (1995) suggested subdivision:
- visuo-cache (store), an inner scribe for spatial relations, stores info on colour/form
58
List the features of the episodic buffer (3rd slave system):
- Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more general store.
- Buffer is an extra storage system.
- briefly stores info from the other subsystem and integrates it together, along with info LTM, to make complete scenes or ‘episodes’
59
List the evaluations of the working memory model
Positive:
- research support
- Further research support
Negative:
- WMM does not fully explain all of memory
- the explanation of the central executive is unclear
