Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
what are the types of memory and what are they?
sensory memory- initial contact from stimuli
Short term memory- information we are currently thinking about, comes from paying attention to sensory memories
long term memory- continual storage of information which is usually outside of our awareness, can be called working memory when in use
how do we remember?
encoding- sensory information changed to we can make sense of it
storage- we put information to the back of our minds until needed
retrieval- the ability to recover information in storage
how long do the three types of memory last?
SM- Transient, only there is we pay attention
STM- seconds, minutes
LTM- hours, days, weeks, years
why do we forget
AVAILABILITY- we do not pay attention
ACCESSIBILITY- we cannot retrieve he information
INTERFERENCE- information is confused, 2 pieces of information are confused
how accurate is our memory?
memory is fragile and falible,
- there is the freudian theory of ‘repression’ where undesired memories are repressed.
- theres Bartlett’s theory of reconstructive memory, where memory is a constructive process involving prior knowledge and beliefes, -the phenomenon of false memory where we posses memories that never happened that we believe to be true
what can influence memory performance?
age
emotional status (anxiety or stress)
brain injuries or surgery
what was Peterson’s and Peterson’s experiment (1959)
participants showed nonsense trigrams and to recall them after 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds. during pause they were given an interference task of counting backwards
results- after 3 secs 80% remembered, after 18 secs 10% remembered
conclusion- when rehearsal is prevented very little can be kept in STM.
describe Bahrick et als experiment
participants asked to list classmates (in free recall) then shown photos and asked to recall names or given names and asked to match them to a name.
results- within 15 yrs- 90% accuracy on recognition, 60% on free recall
after 30 yrs- 80% accuracy on recognition, 40% on free recall
conclusion- longterm memories in real life settings
describe Jacobs (1987) experiment
participants presented with string of letters or digits to repeat back in the same order. the number of letters increased
results- participants recalled 9 digits, 7 letters
conclusion- Jacob’s concluded STM has a limited capacity of 5-9 items. but there were individual differences.
describe Millers (1956) research into capacity of STM
magic number of 7, plus or minus 2.
we use chunking to combine individual items into larger chunks to increase capacity
describe Baddeley (1966) experiment
participants given 4 sets of words either acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar or semantically dissimilar. independent groups design asked to recall words immediately or following a 20 minute task.
results- difficulty recalling acoustically similar words when recalling immediately (STM), difficulty recalling semantically similar words when recalling when recalling after an interval (LTM)
conclusion-
-patterns of confusion suggest STM likely to rely on acoustic encoding
-LTM on semantic encoding.
what factors influence the capacity of STM
influence of LTM
reading aloud
rhythmic grouping
pronunciation time (2 secs)
what factors effect the duration of STM
maintenance rehearsal
deliberate intention to recall
amount of information
what factors effect the encoding in STM
sounds of words
other types on encoding
what factors effect the duration of LTM
childhood amnesia
how is duration measured
thorough learning
what factors effect the encoding in LTM
acoustic encoding
visual encoding
describe Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) experiment
ps given a list of words, one at a time then asked to recall them in any order. participants split into two groups, immediate recall, or recall after counting backwards for 30 seconds.
results- immediate recall groups remembered the first and last delayed group remembered the start.
conclusions- words at start in LTM, words at end fresh in STM, primary and recency effect
describe Milners (1966) case study of a brain damaged patient
HM
- brain surgery to reduce severe epilepsy resulted in brain damage
- HM’s personality and intellect was intact
- could remember events from before the surgery
- he could not form and new memories
- this suggests that the hippocampus is involved in new memory making
evaluate the MSM
influential early model
-supports idea that STM and LTM are qualitatively separate stores
-over simplification of memory structures and processes.
-Baddeley dual task study (1973) participants given digit strings to rehearse while at the same time carrying out verbal reasoning
results- recall digit strings and perform accurately at VR
conclusion- STM consists of separate stores
- Craik and Tulvig (1975) pps given a list of nouns and were questioned about each one. there were three kinds of questions, shallow processing, (was it in capitals) phonemic processing (did it rhyme with), semantic processing. (was it a fruit)
results- remembered words from condition 3 and least from 1
conclusion- elaborative rehearsal rather than maintenance rehearsal
- suggests that STM and LTM are simple “one box” stores. Schacter suggests the LTM has semantic memory( knowledge), episodic memory( events), procedural memory ( learning to ride a bike)
who came up with the WMM
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
outline Atkinson and Schiffen (1968) Multi-Store Model
Environmental Stimuli Sensory Memory Attention Short Term Memory Maintainance Rehearsal Long Term Memory Retrival
what is the central executive
> acts as an attention device, >supervises whole system
decides which sub-system to send info to
involved in problem solving, decision making, planning
very limited capacity
describe the WWM
STM is a flexible and complex systems that consists of a central control mechanism assisted by ‘slave systems’ - the phonological loop and visual spatial scratchpad.
what is the visual- spatial scratchpad
> deals with how info looks and is laid out
manipulates info
limited capacity, which is independent to the phonological loop
what is the Phonological loop
> auditory information
holds acoustically coded items for up to 2 seconds
articulatory control process, which allows subvocal repetition, keeping alive info in the working memory
limited capacity, independent to VSS
Evaluate the WMM
> credible explanation compared to MSM
RLA used as criteria by with Sz are diagnosed. After Park stated that problems with working memory define between healthy and non healthy patients.
> central executive is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything. It is more complex than represented. EVR case study of man who had brain surgery who could perform well as reasoning tasks but not make decisions (what to eat) this suggests the CE is more complex
what is the episodic buffer
aded later by Baddeley in 2000, an initial model lacked a general store for all different kinds of info.
>LTM relates to the model
>integrates info from other components of working memory and also LTM and puts into sequential order
Limited capacity