Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
What is duration?
How long the memories are held in the store.
What is capacity?
How much the memory store can hold.
What is coding?
The form in which the memories are held in the store.
What is the capacity of sensory memory?
Attention
What is the capacity of short-term memory?
7+/-2 items
What is the capacity of long-term memory?
Unlimited
What is the duration of sensory memory?
Less than seconds
What is the duration of short-term memories?
Seconds
What is the duration of long-term memory?
Lifetime
How is sensory memory encoded?
The senses
How is short-term memory encoded?
Visual and acoustic
How is long-term memory encoded?
Semantic
How do memories move from one memory store to the next?
Through a process of rehearsal.
How do we rehearse information?
By repeating it to ourselves.
What happens when we pay attention to something?
It is rehearsal enough to ensure it passes from sensory to STM.
Why do we sometimes forget things?
Because the LTM struggles to retrieve all the information that it stores.
What did Glanzer and Cunitz’s 1966 study demonstrate?
The serial position effect
What was the method of Glanzer and Cunitz’s 1966 study?
Gave participants lists of words presented one at a time and then tested their free recall.
Condition 1: participants asked to recall words immediately.
Condition 2: participants given a distraction task before recall
What were the results of Glanzer and Cunitz’s 1966 study?
Serial position curve - the first and last words were recalled best. First word - had time to rehearse primary effect, last word - fresh in STM recency effect.
What is the advantage of using a laboratory experiment?
Replicable and reliable
What were some disadvantages of Glanzer and Cunitz’s 1966 study?
Lacks mundane realism
What happened to HM and what effect did it have on his brain?
Brain damage caused by hippocampus removal operation to reduce severe epilepsy.
Personality and intellect unharmed but can’t form new LTM. Can remember LTM from before.
What does the case of HM suggest about the Hippocampus?
Hippocampus functions as a memory gateway which new memories pass through before entering LTM.
What happened to Clive Wearing and what effect did it have on his brain?
Viral brain infection.
Dramatically reduced memory for personal events and general knowledge. Forgets things in a few seconds and regrets his wife whenever he sees her. Can still talk, walk etc