Memory Flashcards
Talk about research on coding- BADDELEY
Baddeley gave different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember
1- acoustically similar ie cat, cab, can
2- acoustically disimilar ie. pit, few, cow
3- semantically similar ie. great, large, big
4- semantically disimilar ie. good, huge, hot
Participants were asked to recall them in the correct order
When they did this task immediatly, they did worse on the acoustically similar words. Therefore, the short term memory codes acoustically
However after a 20 minuite interval, they did worse on semantically similar words. Therefore, the long term memory codes semantically.
Evaluate the research into coding (baddeley).
Seperate Stores- One strength is baddeley identified a clear difference between the two memory stores. His researcg also stood the test of time as we still believe his findings today. it is also an important step in understanding memory and lead to the multi-store model. This shows it has value in psychological studies.
Artificial- One weakness is it uses artificial activities of reading word lists which has no personal meaning to participants. Therefore, it may not tell us much about coding in different memory tasks, escpecially in everyday life. This suggests that findings have limited application.
Talk about the coding of sensory memory.
The SM takes information from a sense organ and holds it in that form:
Iconic- Visual info from the eyes, things you see, stored as images.
Echoic- auditory input from the ears, things you hear, stored as sounds.
Talk about research on capacity- JACOBS, MILLER
DIGIT SPAN TEST- The researcher reads out four digits and the participants recall in the same order out loud. If this is correct the researcher reads out five and so on until recall fails. He found the mean span of digits was 9.3 and the letters was 7.3.
MEMORY SPAN- Made observations of everyday pracitices and found that things tend to come in sevens, ie. musical scale and days in a week. He concluded that the span of STM is about 7 items plus or minus 2.
He also concluded that this can be increased using chunking of things like letters into words and phone numbers into sections.
Evaluate reseach into capacity
Valid Study- His study has been replicated and found the same results roughly in better controlled studies. This suggests that his study has good validity and a valid test.
Overestimated STM Capacity- Cowan reviewd other research and concluded that the capacity is around 4 plus or minus 1 chunks, This suggests that Millers 5 estimate may be more truthful than his 7 estimate. This tests the validity f his study
What is the capacity of sensory memory?
Sperling presented a grid of letters for less than a second and asked to recall as many as possble. He found that the average was 4 letters.
Talk about the reseach into duration of STM.
PETERSON + PETERSON- Tested 24 students in 8 trials. In each, they were given a consanant syllable (such as YBD) to remember and also a three digit numer. The student had to count backwards from that number until told to stop after varying periods (prevented mental rehursal).
The average recall was about 80% after 3 seconds, and 3% after 18. This suggests that the average duration is arond 18 seconds (without verbal rehersal)
Talk about research into LTM.
BAHRICK ET AL.- Studied 392 Americans aged between 17 and 74 on their highschool graduate class. This was done in two ways- 1- photo recognition test, and free recall.
15 years after graduation had about 90% photo recall accuracy and 70% after 48 years. This was the same for free recall with 60% dropping to 30%. This shows that long term memory can last an extremely long time.
Evaluate research into Duration
Meaningless stimuli- Peterson and Perterson used artificial stimuli that doesnt refelect everyday memory tasks. This means the study lacks external validity.
High External Validity- Bahrick et al.s study however tests extremely meaninful stimuli. when tested on meaningless stumuli, rates dropped.
Control- However, extreneous variables werent controlled so recall couldve been practiced overtime which could reduce valiity.
What is the duration of sensory memory?
Information decays after about 2 seconds,
What is the Multi- Store Model and its key ideas?
Atkinson and Shiffrin developed the multi-store model of memory (MSM), which describes the linear flow between three unitary storage systems.
Atkinson and Shiffrin concluded that the multi store model is:
- Unitary- only one of each store
- Linear- STM cant be leapfrogged
- Rehearsal- the way information is retained in STM and passed to LTM
- Passive- no decision making or problem solving
Talk about the sensory register.
The sensory memory is where information from the senses is stored. It takes stimui from the environment and holds in one of the several registersbut only for up to three seconds before it decays. The coding in each of these stores is modality-specific for example iconic memory is stored from visuals and echoic memory is stored acoustically
Talk about STM.
However, if attended to, sensory information moves into the STM, where its encoded visually and acoustically and sometimes semantically. It can hold a capacity of 5 → 9 items for approximately 18 seconds, however this can be increased by chunking. Maintenance rehearsal can put information back into the STM, however it can decay and dissipate via information retrieval.
Talk about LTM
This is the potentially permanent store where information can be elaboratively rehearsed to move to LTM mainly semantically. Psychologists believe it can last a lifetime however if we want to recall, memories can be retrieved from LTM to STM to be rehearsed.
What is some research to support the MSM?
Brain Scanning Research- Further research from brain scanning techniques has supported the MSM and the idea of separate memory stores. STM lighted up and associated with activity in the prefrontal cortex and LTM with the hippocampus.
HM- Suffered very bad epilepsy from age 16, he had surgery to remove his hippocampus. This cured the epilepsy. His STM was normal and he could hold verbal memory for 15 seconds but he couldn’t transfer to LTM however his memory for new motor skills seemed unaffected
KF- He damaged his head in a motor bike incident ending with a poor STM (only 1-2 digits) but LTM was normal
What are some Limitations to the MSM and its supporting research.
There is evidence that there is more than one store of STM, like KF. He damaged his head in a motor bike incident ending with a poor STM. However, the defective was for verbal info however visual info was fine.
Research into the working memory model suggests there could be 4 stores in STM not one and 3 stores in LTM
What are the 3 types of LTM?
Tulving (1985) was one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the MSM’s view of LTM was to simplistic.
Episodic, Semantic, Procedural
What is the Episodic Memory?
- Personal memories of events i.e.. last birthday party
- Explicit Memory- it requires conscious thoughts to recall the memory which happens quickly but you’re still aware you are recalling the information
- These memories usually include details of the events, the context in which the event took place and the emotions associated with it.
- They are time stamped which means you can remember when they happened and they contain information about how events relate to each other in time
What is the Semantic Memory?
- Memory of facts and knowledge about the world
- less personal and more practical
- Explicit memory
- not time stamped, we dont usually remember where we first heard them
What is the Procedural Memory?
- Memory of actions and skills like how to do things like riding a bike.
- These memories require a lot of repetition and practice- implicit
- Normally hard to describe even if the actions are easy to perform
- automatic
- Recall the memories without conscience awareness
Evaluate the types of long-term memory.
One strength is the famous cases of HM and Clive wearing: The episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage, However, their semantic memories were relatively unaffected. They still understood the meaning of words. Their procedural memories were also intact for example Clive Wearing could still remember how to play the piano. This is evidence to support there is different stores of LTM.
Heindal et al investigate learning in people with huntingtins disease (degenerative disease in the brain). They found that HD patients had no problems learning new facts and knowledge but severe problems learning new motor skills. This shows procedural and semantic are two different systems.
Tulving performed brain scans on 6 volunteers and found that the pps were using their episodic memory part of frontal cortex was active and when pp’s were using semantic, back cortex. Shows 2 separate systems.
Understanding the types of LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems for example as people age they experience memory loss but research has shown that this is specific to episodic memory as it becomes harder to recall memories of personal experiences that occurred recently, therefore the research has real life examples.
What is the working memory model?
BADDELEY AND HITCH:
Model explains how short term memory works. They said the multi store model was too simplistic, it had been developed to directly change the concept of a single unitary store. The evidence is based on dual task paradigms
What is the Central Executive and the evidence?
- The most important component- drives the system and is involved in problem solving/ decision making - ‘supervisory’ role
- It divides our attention and allocates ‘slave systems’ to tasks
- Has limited capacity and so can attend to a limited number of things at one time
- processes info from all the senses
Evidence- MRI scans were used to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks (reading a sentence and recalling the final word in each sentence)
The same brain areas ( pre frontal cortex) were active in either dual or single task conditions, but there were significantly more activation in dual task condition- the CE is therefore working harder.
Talk about the phonological loop and evidence for it.
- Stores a limited number of speech based sounds for brief periods (auditory information)
- The phonological loop is split into the phonological store which stores the words you hear and the articulatory process allows maintainace rehearsal (repeating words in a loop to keep them in the working memory model).
- Two components: Acoustically coded inner ear, items stored 1-2 seconds. Articulately control process as inner voice, allows sub vocal repetition of the items stored in the phonological store.
Evidence- studies: condition 1 → 5 familiar and 1 similar word, condition 2 → polysyllabic words were harder as cant rehearse on the loop.
Supports the idea of a phonological loop we into only state for 2 seconds.
