Basic Principles of Memory Flashcards
according to William James, what is primary memory?
portion of present space and time
linked to conscious experience
retrieval is effortless
according to William James, what is secondary memory?
genuine past, unconscious - permanent
retrieval is effortless
what did Atkinson and Shiffrin theorise?
modal / multi-store model of memory
consists of sensory, short term and long-term memory
what is the modal model of memory?
a stimulus
enters sensory memory
if attention is paid, information is transferred to short term memory
if information is rehearsed, information is transferred to long term memory, where it can be retrieved
at all stages, information can be lost through forgetting
sensory memory
sensations persist after stimulus has disappeared subject to rapid decay
stores exist for visual (iconic) and auditory (echoic) information
Sperling’s experiments
subjects presented with matrix of letters for 1/20 seconds
reported as many letters as possible: 5-6 recalled
then sounded low, medium or high tone immediately after matrix disappeared
tone signalled row to report: recall almost perfect
memory for image fades after 1/3 seconds, making entire display difficult to do
short term memory
dual task experiment: eg B is preceded by A true/false
performed while remembering strings of digits
found reasoning time increases with digit load but error rate does not increase
working memory model
created by Baddeley and Hitch consists of: central executive episodic buffer visuo-spatial sketchpad phonological loop
what is the phonological store?
acts like a tape recorder tor limited time
contents are actively refreshed by an articulatory loop
disruption of articulatory loop results in poor retention
evidence for phonological store
Baddeley - phonological similarity effect
presented with 5 words in lists to writ down in order
some shared semantic meaning, some rhymed
large effect of phonological similarity
word length effect
list of five words to write down in order
different syllable length
better recall for shorter words/quicker to say
what is the visuospatial sketchpad?
necessary for holding a sequence of visually guided events
necessary for seeing in ‘the minds eye’
evidence for visuospatial sketchpad
De Renzi & Nichelli: some patients wiht brain damage had impaired digit spans, some had impaired spatial spans - ‘double dissociation’
Logie: visuospatial sketchpad can be further divided into visual cache and inner scribe
Della Sala et al: viewing abstract pictures interfered with visual task
tracing outline of series of pegs on board interfered with spatial task
what is the difference between the visual cache and inner scribe?
visual cache = passively stores visual information about forma and colour
inner scribe = store spatial and movement information + can rehearse contents of visual cache
levels of processing theory - encoding
Craik and Lockhart people asked to make judgements about words: ortographic, phonological and semantic levels (lower case/upper case, rhyme, meaning)
surprise memory test on words later: semantically processed words were best recalled
levels of processing model
shallow and deep levels of processing
semantically information is processed more deeply, leading to good memory retention
= influential - downplays importance of encoding as independent processes - leads to durable memories
what is a problem with the levels of processing model?
is memory strong because encoding was deep?
or do we infer that strong memories must have been deeply encoded?
what is the retrieval practice effect?
Roedifer & Karpicke
students studied 2 passages of prose then solved a maths problem
students were then tested or reread passage
memory tested after 5 minutes, 2 days or 1 week
advantage for study-test conditions
studying then testing yourself leads to better retention
what is transfer appropriate processing?
Morris et al - retireval
2 acquisition conditions - semantic or rhyme
2 test conditions - standard recognition or rhyming recognition
processing is goal directed - shallow task might be better, as retrieval uses same type of processing
what is context-dependent memory?
Godden & Baddeley
learned list of words on land or under sea
tested for words in same condition or opposite
better recall when in same place learned
similar for mood: state dependant memory - Eich & Metcalfe
