2.1.5 Individual differences Flashcards
5 reasons for individual differences
-processing speed
-processing capacity
-schemas
-episodic memory
-gender
what is chunking and how does it help STM capacity?
-people can take smaller bits of info and combine them into more meaningful wholes
-bypasses limitations of STM system
-allows people to remember more by grouping info together
evidence to support chunking
-Sakai et al-ppts tested on number sequence and showed they naturally chunked numbers eg phone numbers
-Alloway et al-dyslexic children struggle to process and remember due to poor working memory
why might dyslexic people struggle to chunk info
-struggle to process and organise info
-may take longer as large amounts of info are overwhelming and therefore difficult to process
what else is processing speed and capacity affected by?
age and phonological loop
what is a digit span?
the number of digits that an individual can recall and repeat back in the correct order
study that implies digit span increases with age
Sebastian and Henandez Gil
what did Barlett find that shows how we remember memories differently?
-war of ghosts story
-recall shortened from 330 words to 180
-story distorted by culture
-schemas distort schema to fit with what we know
-remember what we find most interesting
how do episodic memories cause individual differences?
-we have different episodic memories which can cause different semantic memories
-our level of interest, depends on level of detail recalled
what did Palombo at al study about gender?
-questionnaire containing 102 items with 5 point Likert scale
-survey of autobiographical memory
what did Palombo et al find?
-people usually scored low on both semantic and episodic memory, meaning they simply had poor recall
-men scored higher on spatial memory
which side of the brain are men more likely to prefer?
left-assertive, analytical,aggressive
