Memory Paper 1

Question 1

Who created the multi store of memory?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 2

What is capacity?

Answer 2

How much information can be stored

Question 3

What is encoding?

Answer 3

How information is changed to be stored

Question 4

What is duration?

Answer 4

How long information can be stored for

Question 5

What is the capacity, encoding and duration of the sensory register?

Answer 5

Capacity- Large as information comes in from 5 senses which is constant
Encoding- sense-specific as acoustic is the echoic sensory register and visual is the iconic sensory register
Duration- 1/4-1/2 seconds

Question 6

What is the capacity, encoding and duration of the short term memory?

Answer 6

Capacity - 7+-2 items
Encoding- Acoustically
Duration- 18 seconds

Question 7

What is the capacity, encoding and duration of the long term memory?

Answer 7

Capacity- Unlimited
Encoding- Semantically
Duration- Unlimited

Question 8

What does the multi store model of memory look like?

Answer 8

Environmental stimuli- Sensory register- Attention- Short term memory- Rehearsal loop- Rehearsal and Retrieval- Long Term Memory

Question 9

What was Jacob’s 1887 study on the short term memory capacity?

Answer 9

He developed a technique to measure capacity called the digit span technique where participants were given digits to remember. They were asked to verbally repeat them immediately. If right, another digit was added. This stopped when failure occured. The mean digit span was 9.3 and the mean letter span was 7.3

Question 10

What was Miller’s 1956 study on short term memory capacity?

Answer 10

Short term memory could hold 7+-2 items as it only had a certain number of slots the items could be stored in. However, he also noticd people can recall 5 words as well as they can 5 letters. Chunking refers to when items are split up to help improve capacity

Question 11

What was Peterson and Peterson’s 1959 study on short term memory duration?

Answer 11

Tested 24 undergraduate students who ach took part in 8 trials. Participants were given a consonant trigram to remember but also a three digit number. Participants were told to count backwards in 3s from that three digit number from 3-18 seconds. Counting backwards stopped rehearsal. The longer time waited to recall, the less information the short term memory could recall. At 3 seconds, 80% was remembered. At 6 seconds, 50% was remembered and at 18 seconds under 10% was remembered which puts 18 seconds at the duration limit.

Question 12

What was Baddeley’s 1966 study on short term coding?

Answer 12

Participants were given lists of words in 4 groups to remember- acoustically disimmilar/similar and semantically dissimilar/similar. Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order either immediately after and 20 minutes after.

Participants did worse on acoustically similar words when asked to recall immediately. Similar sounding information conflicted with eachother so information is coded acoustically in the SMT.

Question 13

What is Bahrick’s 1975 study on long term memory duration?

Answer 13

Conducted a longitudinal study which followed 392 American participants aged 17-74 who were asked to identify schoolmates from their high school yearbook either by naming them in free recall without clues or by matching photos to names.

Photo recognition- 90% accurate within 15 years, 48% accurate after 45 years

Free recall- 60% accurate within 15 years, 30% accurate after 45 years.

Free recall remembered less than photo recognition. Younger people remembered better than old people but they still remembered which highlights the possibility of an unlimited duration of the long term memory.

Question 14

What is Baddeley’s 1966 study on long term memory coding?

Answer 14

Participants tested 20 minutes after did worse on semantically similar words which highlights the conflict of the words due to the similar meanings.

Question 15

What was the study of HM?

Answer 15

He was unable to form new memories after his hippocampus was removed for epilepsy. This meant he couldn’t transfer information into the long term memory, watching the same films eating breakfast multiple times a day showing the distinct different parts of the multi store model of memory as seperate.

Question 16

What was the study of KF?

Answer 16

After a motorcycle accident, he suffered brain damage where he could not recall verbal information to his STM however his LTM was unaffected and he could remember past memories which indicates the separation of short and long term stores.

Question 17

What are strengths of the multi store model of memory?

Answer 17

-Real life applicable like Bahrick’s study
-Use of artifical settings to establish cause and effect and control extranous variables
-Supporting research like Jacobs, Miller, Mahrick Baddeley, Peterson and Peterson
-Case of HM
-Glanzer and Cunitz- the first few words and last few words are more likely to be remembered than the middle (Primacy effect and recency effect)

Question 18

What are weaknesses of the multi store model of memory?

Answer 18

-Ecological validity and mundane realism as artificial stimuli is used
-Lack of validity as longitudinal study of Bahricks may have had altercations with people having social desirability bias and wanting to look like they had a better memory
-Case study of KF is not generalisable (Shallice and Warrington) as his verbal in STM was poor but verbal was fine
-Crask and Watkins- type of rehearsal is what matters rather than rehearsal itself as elaborative rehearsal is needed for long term memory
-Brown and Kulik- flashbulb memory which don’t need to be rehearsed and are surprising information which suggests the MSMs validity needs to be questioned

Question 19

What are the three types of long term memory?

Answer 19

Semantic, episodic and procedural

Question 20

What is the semantic memory?

Answer 20

Responsible for storing information about general knowledge and the World such as facts. It involves conscious thought so is declarative

Question 21

What is the episodic memory?

Answer 21

Responsible for storing information about events that have personal meaning such as first days at school. It involves conscious thought so is declarative

Question 22

What is the procedural memory?

Answer 22

Responsible for knowing how to do things like actions and skills. It doesn’t involve conscious thought so is non-declarative

Question 23

Who proposed the idea of types of long term memory?

Answer 23

Tulving

Question 24

What is are aspects of episodic memory?

Answer 24

Autobiographical memory- specific life events have personal meaning
Flashbulb memory (Brown and Kulik)- detailed, vivid memory that is stored on one occasion and lasts a lifetime, can be recalled to short term memory

Question 25

What is declarative memory?

Answer 25

Conscious recollection of information

Question 26

What is Tulving's supporting evidence of the types of long term memory?

Answer 26

Tulving (1989) wanted to see whether episodic and semantic memories were associated with different parts of the brain. He injected himself with radioactive gold into the bloodstream and used brain imaging to look at the blood flow. He thought of memories from his childhood and it showed that when episodic memory is activated, it is linked to the front part of the brain, shown through blood flow. He thought of facts which showed that when the semantic memory is activated, blood flow increases to the back of the brain. This indicates long term memory has separate stores and is not unitary.

Question 27

What is Clive Wearing's case study in relation to types of long term memory?

Answer 27

He lost the ability to make short term memories. He doesn't remember his childrens names which indicates damage to semantic memories and doesn't remember events which highlights damage to the episodic memory. However, his procedural memory is in tact as he can still play piano which highlights there are different sections of long term memory, indicated by the damage or absence of it. However, it is a case study so lacks generalisability and may not be applicable to other cases, showing the inability to make general laws.

Question 28

What are strengths of the types of long term memory?

Answer 28

-Practical applications as it helps with creating treatments or interventions to improve memory such as Belleville et al who devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people. A test on episodic memories showed that a trained group of participants did better than a control group, highlighting improvement and effectiveness -Supporting evidence like Tulving and the case study of Clive Wearing

Question 29

What are the weaknesses of the types of long term memory?

Answer 29

-Validity of supporting evidence such as case study being ungeneralisable and Clive Wearing's memory condition pre-accident not being taken into account with his case -Critiquing evidence such as Bucker and Peterson which reviewed evidence of episodic and semantic memories being located in the front and back of brain. They found that episodic memories are linked to the right prefrontal cortex and semantic memories, the left prefrontal cortex

Question 30

What is the working memory model?

Answer 30

A system of active processing and short term storage of information that challenges the MSM as a unitary store for short term memory

Question 31

Who proposed the WMM?

Answer 31

Baddeley and Hitch

Question 32

What are the different components of the WMM?

Answer 32

Central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer

Question 33

What is the central executive?

Answer 33

The main component,seen as the boss that allocates attention of information and decides when the other slave systems should be used

Question 34

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 34

Responsible for processing sound-based information. It has a limited capacity and has two components: the phonological store and the articulatory loop. The phonological store receives information from the environment and internal dialogue, acting as an inner ear. The articulatory loop is used for verbal rehearsal, preparing speech and thinking in words. It is measured by how long it takes to say something and acts as an inner voice.

Question 35

What is Paulesu et al's research on the phonological loop?

Answer 35

He investigated the components of the phonological loop where participants were asked to memorise a series of numbers (phonological store) and rehearse the sounds of letters in their head (articulatory loop) while having a PET scan. It was found that different patterns of blood flow were seen in different areas of the brain depending on the task. Sound rehearsal and the articulatory loop was linked to Broca's area which highlights that the phonological loop has different stores.

Question 36

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 36

A limited capity storage which deals with visual and spatial information, acting as an inner eye. The visual cache looks at what things look like and aspects like colour and depth whereas the inner scribe looks at where things are like movement information.

Question 37

What is Logie et al's research into the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 37

He investigated the visuospatial sketchpad as participants were asked to play a video game while partaking in a visually distracting task and a verbal memory distracting task. For the visual task, the performance of the game in terms of perception and movement got worse. For the verbal task, the visual elements of the game got worse. This indicats the existence of seperate components for visuospatial and sound based components, highlighting the limited capacity and risk of information overload.

Question 38

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 38

A general, back up store that connects to both the long term memory and short term memory.

Question 39

What are strengths of the WMM?

Answer 39

-Supporting research such as Shallice and Warrington's case study of KF as it highlights the different sections of the STM as his phonological loop was damaged but his visuospatial sketchpad was intact -Baddeley's research in 1975 as partipants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time but also visual/visual and verbal/verbal tasks. There was worse performance when both tasks were the same which indicates the limited capacity of the slave systems -Lab conditions are controlled which increases the validity

Question 40

What are the limitations of the WMM?

Answer 40

-KF case study may lack validity as his memory pre-accident is not known and the concept of a case study has the inability to make general laws, lacking generalisability -Central executive is labelled as the most important but least understood part of the WMM by Baddeley which critiques a lack of clarity, decreases validity -Tasks in the studies lack mundane realism and lack validity due to the artificiality -Inferences are used as the WMM is non-observable so the assumptions lack scientific credibility

Question 41

What are explanations of forgetting?

Answer 41

Interference Theory and Retrieval Failure

Question 42

What is interference theory?

Answer 42

Two pieces of information conflict with eachother which results in forgetting one, both or a distortion of the memory. Information is not able to be recalled from the long term memory

Question 43

What is proactive interference?

Answer 43

When past information interferes with new information so new information is not able to be retrieved

Question 44

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 44

When new information interferes with past information so past information is not able to be retrieved

Question 45

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 45

Due to a lack of cues, the information stored in the LTM is unable to be recalled to the STM

Question 46

What is the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 46

Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and found that the cue has to be the same at encoding and retrieval for it to be effective. Forgetting will occur if the cues are different

Question 47

What is context dependent forgetting?

Answer 47

External environment providing cues like the room

Question 48

What is state dependent forgetting?

Answer 48

Internal environment providing cues like mood

Question 49

What was McGeough and McDonalds study on the interference theory?

Answer 49

Aim- Aimed to see if the effects of interference is worse when the material learned is similar Method- The participants were given 2 word lists which had 6 conditions. The 2nd list was manipulated for words to begin very dissimilar and to end very similar Findings- It was found the degree of similarity between the two lists was the greatest predictor of accuracy when the participants were asked to recall Conclusion- The strongest interference was by synonyms suggesting that interference is dependent on the similarity of the material

Question 50

What are strengths of the interference theory as a way of forgetting?

Answer 50

-Baddeley and Hitch (1977) supporting evidence asked rugby players to recall every team they had played in that season. Some players didn't play as many games due to injuries. It was found that the players that played the most games named the least teams, showing that the interference of the old and new teams led to a lack of recall. This increases the validity of the theory as it is a real life example -Lab-based studies are used for studies of interference as variables can be controlled to establish a cause and effect between forgetting and interference

Question 51

What are weaknesses of the interference theory as a way of forgetting?

Answer 51

-Lacks mundane realism in lab based studies which shows the artificiality of the methodology may not make it generalisable to real life -Tulving and Psotka proposed that LTM information is stored but there is a lack of cues which creates an inability to recall. Participants were given lists of words to organise and recall. The recalling when a new list was added decreases. However, an overall cued recall test was at 70% performance which indicates that it is the cues that affect forgetting more than interference, decreasing the validity as the interference theory due to contradictory evidence

Question 52

What is evidence for context dependent cues by Godden and Baddeley?

Answer 52

Aim- To investigate if the environment affects recall Method- 18 participants from diving clubs were asked to recall 32 unrelated words and had 4 conditions to do so which included learning either under water or on the beach and recalling either under water or on the beach Findings- Learning and recalling on the beach remembered more words than learning/recalling in a different environment. More words were remembered when encoding and retrieval happened in the same place Conclusion- Context dependent cues affect the amount and effectiveness of retrieval