Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

Who created the MSM theory ?

Answer 1

Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968

Question 2

Sensory Register

Answer 2

Capacity - almost unlimited
Duration - less than half a second
Encoding - senses

Question 3

MSM Short Term Memory (STM)

Answer 3

Capacity - 7+/-2
Duration - 18-30 seconds
Encoding - Acoustically

Question 4

MSM Long Term Memory (LTM)

Answer 4

Capacity - Unlimited
Duration - Unlimited/Lifetime
Encoding - Semantically

Question 5

MSM Advantage: Supporting Evidence

Answer 5

• HM had his hippocampus removed.
• He could no longer rehearse info from STM to LTM, so he couldn’t make new memories
• Valid theory in suggesting that there are 3 separate stores

Question 6

MSM Advantage: Real life application

Answer 6

• STM is increased with chunking method to rehearse info (7+/-2)
• Everyday life remembering phone numbers, postcodes

Question 7

MSM Disadvantages: Reductionist

Answer 7

• MSM takes complex memory system and simplifies it into 3 separate stores
• Memory is more complex than MSM suggests

Question 8

MSM Disadvantages: WMM has more detail

Answer 8

• MSM suggests STM is a singular store
• WMM suggests STM made up of 2 slave systems

Question 9

Who made the WMM theory ?

Answer 9

Baddeley & Hitch 1974

Question 10

WMM Central Executive

Answer 10

• organises information to the 2 slave systems

Question 11

Phonological Loop

Answer 11

• Auditory info
• Inner ear: stores what you hear
• Inner voice: rehearses words to keep them in your working memory

Question 12

Visuo-spatial Sketchpad

Answer 12

• Stores spatial and visual info
• Visual cache: stores visual data e.g. shapes and colour
• Inner scribe: records arrangement of objects and transfers info to the CE

Question 13

WMM Advantage: Everyday life

Answer 13

• Dual-task: people can do two tasks at the same time if they are using different slave systems.
• If they are using the same they can not
• Proof of separate encoding STM stores

Question 14

WMM Advantage: Supporting evidence

Answer 14

• KF had brain damage from a motorbike incident
• His verbal memory was impaired but recording visual info was unaffected

Question 15

WMM Disadvantage: Lack of info

Answer 15

• Central executive has lack of clarity
• Described as ‘most important but least understood of the WMM’

Question 16

Two Sectors of Tulvings LTM

Answer 16

• Procedural
• Declaritive

Question 17

Procedural

Answer 17

• Unconcious
• Knowing how to do things e.g. riding a bike, walking

Question 18

Declarative

Answer 18

• Conscious
• Semantic: meanings and facts e.g. London is the capital of England
• Episodic: events we have experienced e.g. birthdays, concerts

Question 19

Amnesia & LTM

Answer 19

• Amnesia patients can recall both types of memories from before diagnosis
• Amnesia patients can only create new procedural memories after diagnosis

Question 20

Schemas

Answer 20

Stored knowledge of objects and situations based on personal experiences

Question 21

Levelling

Answer 21

Simplifying/downplaying details from memory

Question 22

Sharpening

Answer 22

Overemphasising/adding details from memory

Question 23

Assimilating

Answer 23

Changing our schemas to fit new info

Question 24

Accommodation

Answer 24

Changing memories to fit our schemas

Question 25

Bartletts Study: War of the Ghosts

Answer 25

• Pps told a native american story and were told to recall
• When recalled, details were changed to fit schemas (accommodation)
• Native American details were lost and length of story was halved (levelling)