Memory

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

Memory is the ability to store, retain and recall information

Question 2

Visual Memory

Answer 2

The ability to look at an object, create a mental image for that object and hold the picture in your mind for later recall and use

Question 3

Acoustic Memory

Answer 3

Sounds, words and other audio input

Question 4

Semantic Memory

Answer 4

Words, concepts or numbers which is essential for the use and understanding of language

Question 5

Coding

Answer 5

The form in which information is stored in the memory store

Question 6

Capacity

Answer 6

The amount of information that can be held in the memory store

Question 7

Duration

Answer 7

The length of time information can be held in a store

Question 8

Research on coding - Baddeley (Aim + Procedure)

Answer 8

Aim - To investigate how information is coded in the STM
Procedure - Baddeley gave different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember.
Group 1 - (acoustically similar words).
Group 2 - (acoustically dissimilar words).
Group 3 - (semantically similar words).
Group 4 - (semantically dissimilar).
Participants were shown the original words and asked them to recall them in the correct order

Question 9

Research on coding - Baddeley (Findings + Conclusion)

Answer 9

Findings - When they had to do this recall task immediately after hearing(STM recall). they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words. When they had to do this recall task after 20 minuets (LTM recall) they did worse with semantically similar words.
Conclusion - This suggests that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM

Question 10

Research on capacity - Jacobs

Answer 10

Jacob gave participants 4 digits and asked them to recall these in the correct order out loud. If this was correct he would give 5 digits and so on until recall was incorrect. Jacobs found that the mean span for digits was 9.3 items whilst the mean span for letters was 7.3

Question 11

Research on capacity - Miller (1996)

Answer 11

Miller found that people tend to have a STM capacity of 7+/- 2, however we can expand this through chunking - grouping sets of digits or letters into chunks.

Question 12

Research on duration of STM

Answer 12

Peterson and Peterson(1959) tested 24 undergraduates students whoeach took part in 8 trials. On each trial each student was given a consonant syllable to remember as well as a 3 digit number. The student was then asked to count backwards from the 3 digit number until told to stop. On each trial they were told to stop after a different amount of time. This is called retention interval. Findings showed that STM has a very short duration unless we repeat something over and over again

Question 13

Duration of LTM

Answer 13

Bahrick (1975) studies 392 participants form Ohio aged 17-74, recall was tested in various ways.
1. Photo-recognition test consisting of 50 photos, some from the participants high school year book
2. free recall where participants recalled all the names of their graduating class
Participants who were tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in photo recognition. After 48 years, recall declined to about 70% for photo recognition. Free recall was even poorer as after 15 years this was about 60% accurate dropping to 30% after 48 years.

Question 14

Evaluation - Artificial Stimuli

Answer 14

One limitation of Baddeley’s study was that the word lists had no personal meaning to the participants. This means we should be cautious about generalising the findings to different kinds of memory tasks which means this has limited application

Question 15

Evaluation - Lacking Validity

Answer 15

One limitation of Jacobs study is that it was conducted a long time ago. Early psychological studies may have lacked the degree of control to reduce confounding variables such as participant distraction. However the results of the study have been confirmed in other research thus supporting its validity

Question 16

Evaluation - Not so many chunks

Answer 16

One limitation of Millers research is that he may have over estimated the capacity of STM as Cowan (2001) reviewed other research + concluded that the capacity of STM was only about four chunks which suggests that the lower end of millers estimate is more appropriate than seven items

Question 17

Evaluation - Meaningless Stimuli

Answer 17

A limitation of Peterson and Petersons study is that the stimulus material was artificial. Try to memories consonant syllables doesn’t reflect most real-life memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful so this study lacked external validity, However we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless things such as phone numbers so the study isn’t totally relevant.

Question 17

Evaluation - High internal validity

Answer 17

One strength of Bahrick et al’s study is that it has higher external validity. Real life meaningful memories were studied. When studies on LTM have been conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower. The downside of such real-life research is that confounding variables are not controlled such as the fact that bahiricks participants may have looked at their yearbook photos and rehearsed their memory over the years

Question 18

Multi store model of memory

Answer 18

Atkinson and Shiffrin(1968) developed the first memory model and they suggested that memory is a process that passes through a number of stores during the journey to long term memory

Question 19

Sensory Register - Coding

Answer 19

It receive information for the five senses:
1. Haptic - touch
2. Echoic - Sound
3. Iconic - Sight
4. Olfactory - Smell
5. Gustatory - Taste
There is a separate sensory store for each sensory input. The main two iconic and echoic information

Question 20

Sensory Register - Capacity

Answer 20

The capacity is potentially unlimited but we need to pay attention to transfer any information to the STM or the information will fade

Question 21

Sensory Register - Duration

Answer 21

On average the information will decay within about 2 seconds, Walsh and Thompson (1978) found that iconic memory has an average duration of 500 milliseconds and Crowder (1993) found that echoic store retains information for two to three seconds which supports that there are different stores for each sense

Question 22

STM - Coding

Answer 22

Information passed on from the SR to STM in its original form, the STM has to then actively change it into a form it can deal with. It can be encoded three ways:
1. Visually
2. Acoustically
3. Semantically
Typically information is encoded acoustically

Question 23

STM - Capacity

Answer 23

Relatively small so we can store it for longer if we chunk the information so to keep info in the STM we have to use maintenance rehearsal. If we rehearse long enough its passed to LTM

Question 24

STM - Duration

Answer 24

It lasts about 18-30 seconds

Question 25

LTM - Coding

Answer 25

It is coded semantically

Question 26

LTM - Capacity

Answer 26

It is unlimited and inference can happen where other information takes over

Question 27

LTM - Duration

Answer 27

Unlimited unless lost through decay or brain damage and skills tend to stay in LTM longer than facts

Question 28

Evaluation - Supporting research evidence

Answer 28

Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STM's but we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTM's. Therefore this shows that STM encodes acoustically and LTM encodes semantically suggesting they are separate stores

Question 29

Evaluation - There is more than one type of STM

Answer 29

The MSM assumes that STM is one unitary store, however Shallice and Warrington(1970) studied a patient with amnesia known as KF and they found that Kf's STM for digits was very poor when they read them out loud to him but his recall was much better when he was able to read them himself therefore this suggests that STM is not a unitary store but is at least spilt into visual and auditory stores

Question 30

Evaluation - There is more than one type of rehearsal

Answer 30

According to the MSM what matters in rehearsal is the amount you do. So the more you rehearse some information the more likely you are to transfer it to the LT,M and remember it for a long time. However Craik and Watkins (1973) found that this prediction is wrong as what really matters is the type as they discovered that there are two types of rehearsal, maintenance and elaborative. They determined that elaborative is needed for long term storage. this is a very serious limitation of the MSM because it is research that cannot be explained by the MSM

Question 31

Background on the working model of memory

Answer 31

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) criticized the multi-store model of memory for being too simplistic (reductionist). They argued that STM is more complex than just being a temporary store for transferring information to LTM. Instead, they saw STM as an active store, holding several pieces of information while they are being worked on. They proposed a multi-component working memory to replace the single STM which is comprised of 3-4 components.

Question 32

Central Executive

Answer 32

Directs attention to particular tasks. It controls the other slave systems by determining how resources will be allocated (think a control tower at an airport). Information arrives in the central executive from the five senses or from long-term memory via the episodic buffer. It has a limited capacity and codes modality free.

Question 33

Phonological Loop

Answer 33

Controls auditory information. Subdivided into the phonological store (inner ear) and articulatory process (inner voice). The inner ear stores words which we have heard. The inner voice allows us to silently repeat words which we have heard or read (a form of maintenance rehearsal).Capacity is around 2 seconds and codes acoustically.

Question 34

Visuospatial Sketchpad

Answer 34

Processes visual and spatial information (how things look and where they are). Has a capacity of 3-4 objects and codes visually. In 1995, Logie subdivided the VSS into the visual cache (which stores visual data) and the inner scribe (which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field).

Question 35

Episodic Buffer

Answer 35

General store. Added later to the model to account for things that use both visual and acoustic information (dual-tasking). Capacity is limited- about 4 chunks and codes modality free.

Question 36

Evaluation - Lack of clarity over the central executive

Answer 36

The central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory (Baddeley, 2003). It needs to be more clearly specified than just being simply ‘attention’. For example, many believe it may consist of separate components. Therefore, this means that the WMM hasn’t been fully explained. The central executive is also a largely theoretical concept that has not been tested. It has a limited capacity but no-one has been able to quantify it experimentally. As such, it does not meet the criterion of being scientific.

Question 37

Evaluation - Dual task performance

Answer 37

Baddeley et al (1975) showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing both a visual and a verbal task at the same time. This increased difficulty is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave system, whereas when doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no competition. Therefore, this means there must be a separate slave system (the VSS) that processes visual input.

Question 38

Evaluation - The WMM has positive applications to society.

Answer 38

He criticises the visuo-spatial scratchpad, which assumes that all spatial information was first visual. However blind people have excellent spatial awareness although they have never had any visual information. Therefore, the visuo-spatial scratchpad is too simplistic and should be separated into two components – one for visual and one for spatial.

Question 39

Procedural Memories

Answer 39

Memory of actions or motor skills, including how to do things (e.g. riding a bike, driving). These memories require a lot of repetition and practice- they are implicit (no intentional recollection necessary). Procedural memories are automatic.

Question 40

Episodic Memory

Answer 40

Personal memories of events (e.g. your last birthday party). This is a type of explicit memory (conscious, intentional recollection). These memories usually include details of an event, the context in which the event took place and emotions associated with the event.

Question 41

Semantic Memory

Answer 41

Memory for facts and knowledge (e.g. the multistore model of memory). Likened to an dictionary/encyclopedia. This is a type of explicit memory (conscious, intentional recollection). Semantic memories usually start as episodic memories but progressively lose their association with particular events and only the knowledge remains.

Question 42

Evaluation - Clinical Evidence

Answer 42

HM and Clive Wearing were impaired due to amnesia and had great difficulty recalling events in their past but their semantic memories were unaffected which supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in the LTM showing they are stored in different parts of the brain

Question 43

Evaluation - Neuroimaging Evidence

Answer 43

There is evidence from brain scans that show different memories are stored in different parts off the brain, as Tulving et al (1994) got their participants to perform memory tasks whilst there brain is being scanned and they found that episodic and semantic memory is recalled from the pre frontal cortex, which supports the fact that there is differnt types of LTM

Question 44

Evaluation - Neuroimaging Evidence

Answer 44

There is evidence from brain scans that show different memories are stored in different parts off the brain, as Tulving et al (1994) got their participants to perform memory tasks whilst there brain is being scanned and they found that episodic and semantic memory is recalled from the pre frontal cortex, which supports the fact that there is different types of LTM

Question 45

Evaluation - Two Types Of LTM

Answer 45

Cohen and Squire (1980) disagree with Tulving’s division of the LTM into three types. They accept that procedural memories represent one type of LTM but they argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store that they call declarative memory. Therefore, Tulving’s theory of LTM may be inaccurate/lack validity.

Question 46

Proactive Interference

Answer 46

When an older memory interferes with a newer one. For example, the teacher having difficulty remembering names of the people in your classes this year, because she still remembers the ones from last year.

Question 47

Retroactive Interference

Answer 47

When a newer memory interferes with an older one. For example, forgetting things from the social influence topic because you have learned research methods, psychopathology, attachment and memory since then!

Question 48

Key Study: Keppel & Underwood (1962)

Answer 48

Aim: To investigate the effect of proactive interference on LTM. Method: In an experiment that is very similar to that conducted by Peterson & Peterson (1959), participants were presented with meaningless three‐letter consonant trigrams (for example, THG) at different intervals (3, 6, 9 seconds, etc.) To prevent rehearsal the participants had to count backwards in threes before recalling. Results: Participants typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, irrespective of the interval length. Conclusion: The results suggest proactive interference occurred, as memory for the earlier consonants (which had transferred to LTM) interfered with the memory for new consonants, due to the similarity of the information presented.

Question 49

Key Study: Baddeley & Hitch (1977)

Answer 49

Aim: To investigate retroactive interference in everyday memory. Method: The sample comprised rugby union players who had played every match in the season and players who had missed some games due to injury. The length of time from the start to the end of the season was the same for all players, and players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played against earlier in the season. Results: The players who had played the most games forgot proportionately more games than those who had played fewer games due to injury. Conclusion: Baddeley and Hitch concluded that this was the result of retroactive inference, as the learning of new information (new team names) interfered with the memory of old information (earlier team names).

Question 50

Evaluating Interference Theories

Answer 50

The results of Baddeley and Hitch are support by other researchers, for example McGeoch and McDonald (1931). In their experiment, participants were given a list of ten adjectives to learn (list A). Once these adjectives were learnt, participants were then given one of six other lists (list B) to learn, which varied in terms of its similarity to the original. McGeoch and McDonald found recall was worse when lists A and B were closest in similarity. This supports the idea of retroactive interference because the more similar the new material is to the previously learnt material, the greater the interference.

Question 51

Evaluating Interference Theories

Answer 51

Although interference research (proactive and retroactive) provides an insight into one type of forgetting, it only explains a specific type of forgetting – memory for similar information. For example, the results of Baddeley and Hitch demonstrate retroactive interference in rugby union players trying to recall team names from earlier in the season and Keppel and Underwood demonstrate proactive interference when trying to learn three‐letter consonant trigrams. Both of these examples highlight interference effects of very similar information and therefore this research is limited in its real world application and are unable to explain forgetting in other situations.

Question 52

Evaluating Interference Theories

Answer 52

Furthermore, interference research is often criticised for being artificial and lacking ecological validity. Most of the research examining interference is carried out in a laboratory, for example Keppel and Underwood (1962) and McGeoch and McDonald (1931), while using particularly meaningless stimuli, such as three‐letter consonant trigrams or simple word lists. As a result these findings do not represent everyday examples of interference and are limited in their application to everyday human memory.