Memory

Question 1

Describe the MSM by Atkinson and Shiffrin

Answer 1

The MSM describes a system for how memories are made and stored. It describes 3 stores (sensory register, short-term memory, long-term memory) which are linked by processes that enable info to flow from each. Iconic or acoustic sensory info enters from the senses into the sensory register. Attention moves the info to the STM - info is stored here via rehearsal. Prolonged rehearsal moves the info into LTM. Info can be moved back to STM from here via retrieval.

Question 2

Describe the sensory register

Answer 2

The sensory register is where all sensory info from the environment passes into or is held. Theres different registers in the brain for each sense.

Question 3

Describe STM and LTM in terms of the MSM

Answer 3

The MSM sees STM and LTM as separate and unitary stores meaning it’s possible to damage one without it affecting the other. It’s a passive model as it sees information simply flowing in a linear way.

Question 4

Describe prolonged rehearsal in terms of the MSM

Answer 4

Prolonged rehearsal strategies such as maintenance rehearsal involve repeating information over and over again to hold it in STM. If this rehearsal is prolonged it enters the LTM

Question 5

Describe retrieval in terms of the MSM

Answer 5

It’s the retrieval of information from the LTM for use in the STM e.g. remembering the phone number of an old friend

Question 6

Evaluate the MSM

Answer 6

• A strength of the MSM is that it has concincing evidence to support it from Peterson and Peterson and Bahrick who found STM and LTM have different durations. Peterson and Peterson showed participants could only recall a series of trigrams for 18 seconds in STM, whilst Bahrick showed participants could recall names of classmates from LTM it enters LTM up to 47 years later. Suggesting that as LTM and STM have different durations, each stores must be separate and unitary as the model predicts.

-A limitation of the MSM is that there is evidence to suggest we have more than one type of STM. Shallice and Warrington found after a motorbike accident KF’s STM for digits was poor when read aloud but his recall was better when he read them himself. Suggesting there may be a STM store to process visual info and another to process auditory info. Therefore the MSM may not fully explain memory; instead it may be better explained by the WMM.

-Another is that it only explains one type of rehearsal. Craik and Watkins argued that there’s 2 types of rehearsal- maintenance and elaborative. Maintenance is used for holding info in the STM, however elaborative is needed for storage in the LTM; this I is when you attach meaning to the information to make it more memorable. Suggesting that the MSM is limited as it doesn’t explain the different types of rehearsal.

Question 7

Define coding, capacity and duration

Answer 7

• coding = the way in which. Information is translated into a form which the memory store can understand

-capacity = amount of info which can be held in a memory store

-duration = the length of time info can be held in a memory store

Question 8

Describe research into the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 8

Sperling showed a 3 x 4 grid of letters for 50 milliseconds and played a corresponding tone to each row. They found recall was 75% suggesting capacity of the sensory register is relatively large despite its short duration.

Question 9

Describe research into duration of the sensory register

Answer 9

Triesman briefly played an auditory message followed by a second (either the same or different). Delay between each message varied. It was found they could only recall correctly when the delay was less than 2 seconds suggesting the sensory register has a short duration.

Question 10

Describe research into coding of the sensory register

Answer 10

Crowder showed visual and auditory information, then asked to recall the information either immediately, after a few milliseconds, or after a few seconds. They couldn’t recall visual info from the iconic stores if the delay was longer than a few milliseconds but could recall auditory information from the echoic stores after a few seconds. Suggesting coding for the sensory register is different for the different senses.

Question 11

Describe research into the capacity of the STM

Answer 11

Jacob’s showed a series of numbers/letters at half-second intervals. They asked to recall as many as possible (this is known as a digit-span and refers to STM capacity). Every time the list was recalled correctly another was added until recall was only 50%. It was found STM capacity was 7+- 2 chunks. Later research found chunk size is importantly as participants found not harder to remember up to 7 chunks when information was larger. Miller made observations from everyday life and noted that things come in sevens suggesting capacity of STM is around 7 items. He also found people could recall 5 words as well as they could 5 letters , and suggested they do so via chunking (grouping material into meaningful units.)

Question 12

What is chunking?

Answer 12

Grouping material into meaningful units

Question 13

Describe research into duration for the STM

Answer 13

Peterson and Peterson shopped trigrams (groups of 3 letters) and asked to either nrecakk or use the brown-Peterson technique to prevent maintenance rehearsal by counting backwards in threes from a specific number for different lengths of time. The longer maintenance rehearsal was prevented, the fewer number of trigrams correctly recalled. 90% of trigrams were correctly recalled after 3 seconds but only 5% after 18. Suggesting the duration for the STM is short - 18 seconds. Later researchsuggested this was actually between 6-30 seconds.

Question 14

Describe coding into STM

Answer 14

Baddeley asked to remember a list of words either acoustically similar/dissimilar , and a list of words either semantically similar/dissimilar. STM and LTM was tested by asking g to recall either immediately or after a delay. It suggested STM encodes acoustically as participants were more able to recall acoustically dissimilar words from the STM as words that sounded the same were harder to remember using maintenance rehearsal so participants made acoustic confusion errors.

Question 15

Describe research into the duration of the LTM

Answer 15

Bahrick asked 392 participants to name as many classmates as possible from either a list of names of a set of photographs. Participants who left school up to 47 years ago could identity up to 80% of names and 70% from photos suggesting duration is very long and up to a lifetime.

Question 16

Describe research coding in terms of LTM

Answer 16

Baddeley asked to remember a list of names either acoustically similar/dissimilar, and a list of words either semantically similar/ dissimilar. STM and LTM were tested by asking to recall either immediately or after a delay. It suggested that LTM encodes semantically as participants were more able to remember semantically dissimilar words from the LTM as words that mean the same were harder to remember using elaborative maintenance rehearsal so participants made semantic confusion errors.

Question 17

Evaluate Bahrick’s research into the LTM

Answer 17

A strength of bahricks research into LTM duration is that it has high external validity which is when the findings of a study can be generalised to real life settings. This is because real life memories were studied. Shepard found when studies into LTM were conducted using meaningless pictures, recall was lower. However confounding variables weren’t controlled; e.g. by chance Bahrick may have selected participants who keep in contact with school friends or look at their yearbook thereby rehearsing the memories.

Question 18

Evaluate Peterson and Peterson research

Answer 18

A limitation of Peterson and Peterson research is that it lacks validity. Which is when the procedure doesn’t measure what it intends to measure. This is because participants in the original study were asked to count backwards in 3’s from 100 to prevent maintenance rehearsal. This means original info may have been lost through displacement rather than spontaneous decay, suggesting this may not be a valid way to measure STM duration.

Question 19

Describe Tulving’s research into types of LTM

Answer 19

Tulving was one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the way in which the MSM viewed the LTM was too simplistic; he proposed there were 3 long-term memory stores, each containing different info: episodic, semantic, and procedural

Question 20

Describe episodic memory

Answer 20

For past events or experiences that. Have happened to us, which we have to consciously remember. They’re created by personally experiencing something. They’re usually associated with the times and places we did them and the emotions about the event. They’re easily forgotten and associated with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

Question 21

Describe semantic memory

Answer 21

For learnt facts and info, which we have to consciously remember. They’re created by having learnt info/general knowledge. We don’t tend to recall the time/place we learnt them. They’re easily forgotten and associated with the temporal lobe.

Question 22

Describe the procedural memory

Answer 22

Of how we perform skills and actions , which become unconscious over time. They’re created by repeating an activity multiple times. We find it difficult to explain to someone else as we recall them without conscious awareness. They’re resistant to forgetting and associated with cerebellum and motor cortex

Question 23

Evaluate Tulving’s types of LTM

Answer 23

• a strength of tulvings explanations for separate types of LTM is that there’s convincing research to support them from studies of the different parts of the brain. Tulving found episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex. The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories and the right in episodic memories. This has been repeated in many research studies and means there’s physical areas for each type of memory and theyre different..

-another is that there’s more convincing research to support it from the case studies of HM & Clive wearing. Both struggled to recall events that happened to them, suggesting a problem with episodic memories. However, their semantic memories were unaffected, suggesting they have separate stores as Tulving believes.

• a limitation of explanations for separate types of long-term memories is that there may only by 2 types of LTM. Cohen and squire disagreed with Tulving’s approach. They agreed with procedural memory, saying it’s different and non-declarative, but argued episodic and semantic memories were both stored in 1 store (declarative memory- these are the memories that are consciously recalled).

Question 24

Describe the WMM as suggested by Baddeley and Hitch

Answer 24

They see the STM as the inter-connection of several stores which deal with info as it’s being “worked on” in memory. They criticised the MSM as overly simplistic as it believed the STM to be a unitary store. The WMM explains memories related to working on tasks that require immediate memory formation and it involves 4 components: the central executive, the phonological loop, visual-spatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer.

Question 25

Describe the central executive of the WMM

Answer 25

Role is to focus attention on the most important tasks that need attending to in the moment. It coordinates the other 3 components of the WMM by allocating them to different tasks. The other 3 systems are known as the “slave systems”. The central executive has limited capacity and cannot store information.

Question 26

Describe the phonological loop in the WMM

Answer 26

The phonological loop slave system is responsible for coordination of auditory info . Coding is acoustic. It preserves the order in which acoustic info is processed. There are 2 divisions, the phonological store which stores spoken words, and the articulatory process which stores written words- words are repeated on loop as part of maintenance rehearsal. The phonological loop has a limited capacity.

Question 27

Describe the visuo-spatial sketchpad in the WMM

Answer 27

The slave system responsible for storing visual or spatial information. It’s stored temporarily in the Visio-spatial sketchpad and it has a limited capacity. It’s further divided into the visual cache which stores visual data and the inner scribe which stores the arrangement of objects in the visual field of view.

Question 28

Describe the episodic buffer as part of the WMM

Answer 28

The function is to receive info from the central executive, phonological loop and Visio-spatial sketchpad and to integrate this into “episodes” so it’s time-sequenced. Info is stored temporarily in the episodic buffer. It’s separate form the LTM but forms an important stage in long-term episodic learning. The capacity of the episodic buffer is limited.

Question 30

Describe the evidence for the WMM

Answer 30

Participants were asked to recall a list of words in one of two ways, using images/maintenance rehearsal. They were then distracted by either the same or opposite method. They found participants recalled more words correctly when distracted with the opposite method in which they learnt the word as it used different systems. But recalled fewer with the same method as it used the same system. Therefore the STM is divided into multiple systems. These work well when they perform 2 tasks which use different systems at the same time, but less when 2 or more tasks used the same time

Question 31

Evaluate the research into the WMM

Answer 31

- a limitation of research into the WMM is its inability to operationalise the dependent variable, which is when its impossible to make the DV objectively measurable, decreasing the internal validity. This is because the experiment assumes the tasks participants had to do made use of the different slave systems. This means as there’s no way to be sure of this it’s impossible to be certain the WMM is a valid model of human memory. -another is that it has low mundane realism. This is when the procedure doesn’t seem mundane/life-like, decreasing external validity, this is because the procedure asked participants to recall artificial info in the form of random words and images, this means the study may not tell us how the STM remembers more meaningful info in real life, making us question the WMM of human memory. -however a strength is that it has convincing evidence to support it form Logie’s dual task study. This showed participants performance on tasks was good when it used different systems. E.G. learning a list of words using the phonological loop followed by a distraction task of learning images, using the visuo-spatial sketchpad. However if the 2 tasks required the same system, one or both tasks would be poor. This provides evidence for the existence of multiple STM stores, something the MSM can’t explain. -an additional strength is that there’s convincing research to support the existence of the central executive. Braver et al carried out brain scans on patients while giving them tasks involving the central executive. They found a lot of activity in the prefrontal cortex and saw this activity increased as the tasks became more difficult. This suggests as demands on central executive increase, it has to work harder to do its job. This provides evidence the central executive has a physical area in the brain.

Question 32

What is interference?

Answer 32

When forgetting occurs because one memory interferes or blocks another. This has been suggested as an explanation for forgetting in the LTM; once info has reached the LTM its permanent and so any forgetting of LTM is likely to be due to the fact we cannot access those memories even though they’re available. Interference between memories means it’s difficult for us to find them and we experience it as forgetting. Mcgeoch and McDonald found interference is worse when the memories are similar. Theres 2 types: retroactive and proactive.

Question 33

Define proactive interference

Answer 33

Where older memories interfere with an attempt to remember newer memories

Question 34

Define retroactive memories

Answer 34

Where newer memories interfere with an attempt to remember older memories

Question 35

Describe the supporting evidence for interference

Answer 35

McDonald and mcgeoch asked participants to learn a list of words until they could remember then with 100% accuracy, they were then given a new list to learn. There were 6 groups of participants 1. Synonyms, 2. Antonyms, 3. Words unrelated to the original list, 4. Nonsense syllables, 5. 3-digit numbers, 6. No new list. They found the synonyms produced the worse recall; when the participants were given material that was very different to the original list, like the numbers, the mean number of items recalled increased. Suggesting interference was worse when the memories were similar. It’s likely the synonyms for group 1 became confused with the old material from the original list.

Question 36

Evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 36

- a strength of interference as an explanation for forgetting is that there is a lot of research evidence that supports the theory. For example from Mcgeoch and McDonald, who found interference is strongest when info is similar. Schmidt who found newer memories had interfered with older memories of street names causing them to be forgotten. These provide evidence that info can become confused in memory and both types of interference are likely cause of forgetting in LTM. As the findings come from lab studies, with high control over variables, we can be confident that interference is a valid explanation for forgetting. -a limitation is that the research into interference uses short time periods in lab studies between learning and recalling words. E.g learning 2 lists of words in 20 minutes. This reduces learning into a short time period, which isn’t reflective of how we learn and remember most info in real life. Therefore we may not be able to generalise the findings from research outside a lab setting; the role of interference may be exaggerated. -another is that interfence effects may be overcome using cues. Tulving and Poltska gave participants 5 lists of 24 words to learn, organised into 6 categories; it was assumed categories would be obvious when presented. They found 70% for the first word list but fell as participants were given a cued recall test and given the name of the categories as a cue; recall rose to 70% again suggesting words were stored in the LTM but interference prevented access. But when given a cued recall test it was easier to access them.

Question 37

Describe retrieval failure due to absence of cues

Answer 37

The reason why people forget info may be due to absence of cues; when we store info in memory, we associate cues with this that are stored at the same time. If these cues aren’t available at the time of recall, it may appear that we have forgotten that info; however this is actually due to retrieval failure- being unable to access memories that are there. This is when we forget because the cues are different from when we learnt the info.

Question 38

Discuss Tulving’s encoding specificity principle

Answer 38

Tulving’s specificity principle argues that we are most likely to remember something when cues are similar to cues present when we first learn the info. There are two types of cue dependent forgetting: context-dependant forgetting and state-dependent forgetting

Question 39

What is context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 39

Occurs when there is an absence of external cues (e.g. the environment we were in) which were present at the time of learning and aren’t when we try to remember.

Question 40

What is state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 40

When there is an absence of internal cues which were present at the time of learning and aren’t present when we try to remember e.g. caffeine.

Question 41

Evaluate retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 41

- a strength of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting is that there is a lot of research evidence. Godden and Baddeley asked 18 Scottish scuba-divers to learn 36 words of 2-3 syllables either underwater/on land. They were then asked to remember the words in either the same/different context. They found participants remembered the words correctly when they recalled them in the same context as they were learnt. 32% in the underwater condition and 37% on land. Carter and Cassaday asked participants to learn lists of words and passages of prose when they had either been given anit-histamine drugs or not. They were then asked to recall the info in either the same state of a different one. They found that performance on the memory test was better when participants learnt and recalled words in the same state. These studies indicate that retrieval failure occurs in real life settings as well as in lab conditions helping to increase the validity. - a limitation of retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting is that context effects may only occur when memory is tested in certain ways. godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater study using a recognition test instead of recall. They found there were no context dependent effects. Participants performance was the same in all. Four conditions regardless of whether or not the environmental contexts for learning and recall were matched.this suggests that true presence or absence of contextual cues only effects memory when you test it in a certain way. - a limitation of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting is that there is a problem with the encoding of specificity principle. The ESP cannot be tested, and this leads to a circular reasoning. In experiments where a cue leads to successful recall of a word, we assume that the cue was encoded at the time of learning. If a cue doesn’t lead to successful recall of a word, we assume the cue wasn’t encoded at the time of learning. However, these are just assumptions and there’s no way to test whether or not the cue has been encoded.

Question 42

Misleading info