a-level_psychology_3_1_2_memory_20240615133045 Flashcards
What does Coding mean?
The format in which info is stored in the various memory stores
What does Capacity mean?
The amount of info that can be held in a memory store at a given time
What does Duration mean?
How much time information can be held in a memory store
What is Short Term Memory (STM) and what are it’s properties?
- The limited capacity memory store
- Coding is mainly acoustic
- Capacity is between 5-9 items
- Duration is between 18-30 seconds
What is Long Term Memory (LTM)?
- The permanent memory store
- Coding is mainly semantic
- Unlimited Capacity
- Unlimited store of memories
What are the Research Studies for Short Term Memory?
- Baddeley- Coding
- Jacob/Miller - Capacity
- Peterson and Peterson - Duration
What are the Research Studies for Long Term Memory?
- Baddeley - Coding
- Duration - Bahrick
x
Desribe Baddeley’s study. (Aims, Procedure, Findings, Conclusions)
- Aims- Assess whether coding in STM was mainly semantic or acoustic
- Procedure - Uses word lists like cat, mat. There were 4 sets of word lists - acoustically similiar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similiar, semantically dissimilar. Participants had to recall order of word lists. Done immediately to assess STM, 20 min after to assess LTM
- Findings - Participants given list of acoustically similiar words had worst recall. Confused similiar sounds word. Participants given list of semantically similiar words had worst recall.
- Conclusion - Poor recall showed words were confused. For immediate recall, acoustically sounding words weren’t remembered well. Suggests STM is acoustically coded, people remembered other lists fine. For delayed recall, semantically sound words weren’t remebered well. LTM is semantically coded
Desrcibe Jacobs (1887) Study.
- Aims- Research capacity of STM
- Procedure - Developed technique to measure digit span - how many items an individual can remember in sequence and repeat in order
- Findings - Found mean span for digit was 9.3 items. For letters it was 7.3
- Conclusion - Memory can hold 7-9 items
Describe Miller (1956) study.
- Aim - Research capacity of STM
- Procedure - Saw things came in sevens (days of week). Chunked items into groups
- Findings - Found people could recall 5 words, and 5 letters
- Conclusion - Used term ‘magical number 7’ to describe capacity
Desribe Peterson and Peterson (1956) study.
- Aim - Research duration of STM
- Procedure - 24 students did 8 trials and were given consonant syllable (BNT) and a three-digit number and asked to count back down to stop rehearsal
- Findings - STM lasts 18s after this hard to recall
- Conclusion - STM has a very short duration, unless rehearsed
Describe Bahrick (1975) study.
- Aim - Research duration of LTM
- Procedure - Tested recall of people participants had gone to school with using photo recognition and free recall
- Findings - 90% accuracy for photo recog with people who graduated in 15 years and 60% accuracy for free recall. After 48 years, photo recog = 70% and other 30%
- Conclusion - LTM lasts a long time
Baddeley
What is a Limitation of the Research into Capacity, Coding and Duration of STM and LTM?
- Baddeley’s study didn’t have any meaningful material
- Words had no personal meaning
- When info is meaningful people will use semantic coding even in STM
Jacob (too old)
What is a Limitation of the Research into Capacity, Coding and Duration of STM and LTM?
- Jacob’s study was conducted a long time ago
- Early research lacked control of extraneous variables
- Some participants = distracted
- Reduces validity of finding
Miller (oversimplified)
What is a Limitation of the Research into Capacity, Coding and Duration of STM and LTM?
- Miller’s research may have oversimplified capacity in STM
- Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and said that capacity of STM was only 4 chunks lower than 5-9 itms
- Accepted capacity of STM = inaccurate
Peterson (artificial)
What is a Limitation of the Research into Capacity, Coding and Duration of STM and LTM?
- Peterson and Peterson used artificial stimuli
- YCG doesn’t represent real life
- Lacks external validity
Bahrick (real life + extr var)
What is a Limitation and Strength of the Research into Capacity, Coding and Duration of STM and LTM?
- Bahrick = high external validity
- Used memories of real life
- Real life is more accurately representative
- Confounding var not controlled - may have looked at photos before experiment
What is the Multi Store Model of Memory?
- A representation of how memory works in terms of three stores; sensory register, STM and LTM.
- Describes how info is transferred from one store to another, how it’s remembered and how its forgotten.
What does Sensory Register mean (SR)?
[3]
- The memory store for each of our 5 senses, such as vision (iconic store) and hearing (echoic store)
- Coding in iconic sensory register is visual and in the echoic sensory register it’s acoustic.
- Capacity of SR is huge and info lasts for very short time - less than half a second
What does Short Term Memory mean?
Revision
The limited capacity memory store. Coding is mainly acoustic and cacpaity is between 5 to 9 items. Duration is 18s-30s
What does Long Term Memory mean?
Revision
The permanent memory store. Coding is semantic and it has unlimited capacity. Duration is unlimited.
What does iconic store mean?
Vision
What does echoic store mean?
Hearing
What is the coding in the iconic ensory register?
Visual
What is the coding in the echoic sensory register?
Acoustic
What is the capacity for Sensory Register?
Huge
What is the duration of SR?
Less than half a second
What is the coding for Sensory Register overall? [5]
- Iconic
- Echoic
- Olfactory
- Haptic
- Gustatory
Who developed the Multi Store Model of Memory and when?
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
What happens after half a second when info is stored?
It’s forgotten
The SR is _____ specific.
Modality
What does Modality specific mean?
Whichever sense is registered will match the way it is consequently held (for e.g. taste is held as taste)
If attended to, where can sensory information move into for temporary storage?
STM
How is temporary storage primarily encoded?
Acoustic (sound)
How can you increase the capacity of the STM from 30 s?
Chunking (converting a string of items into a number of larger ‘chunks’)
How can you consolidate information from STM to LTM?
Rehearse information via the rehearsal loop helps to retain info in STM, and then conslidate it to LTM
LTM and STM is different
What is a Strength of the Multi Store Model of Memory theory? [3]
- There’s a lot of research to support the fact that STM and LTM are different
- For e.g. KF who was brain damaged, had impaired STM. But his LTM, after testing, was still intact
- STM and LTM are different memory stores
What is another Strength of Multi Store Model of Memory? [3]
- It makes sense that LTM memories are coded semantically
- For e.g. you might recall general example in a political speech, rather than all the words
- MSM has face validity
What is a Limitation of Multi Store Model of Memory? [3]
- MSM incorrectly says STM is single, unitary store
- Shalice and Waarington found that amnesia patient KF had poor STM recall for auditory stimuli, but good recall for visual stimuli
- KF can differentiate between verbal and non-verbal sounds, shows different types of STM