features of memory stores Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the features of memory stores?

A

The features are coding, capacity, and duration.

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2
Q

What does coding refer to in memory stores?

A

Coding refers to the format in which information is stored.

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3
Q

What does capacity refer to in memory stores?

A

Capacity refers to the amount of information that can be held.

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4
Q

What does duration refer to in memory stores?

A

Duration refers to the length of time information can be held.

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5
Q

What is the sensory register?

A

The sensory register is the memory store for each of the five senses, such as vision (iconic store) and hearing (echoic store).

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6
Q

What is the coding in the iconic sensory register?

A

The coding in the iconic sensory register is visual.

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7
Q

What is the coding in the echoic sensory register?

A

The coding in the echoic sensory register is acoustic.

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8
Q

What is the capacity of the sensory register?

A

The capacity of the sensory register is huge.

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9
Q

What is the duration of information in the sensory register?

A

Information lasts for a very short time - less than half a second.

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10
Q

What is short-term memory (STM)?

A

STM is a limited-capacity memory store.

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11
Q

What is the coding in short-term memory (STM)?

A

Coding in STM is mainly acoustic (sound).

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12
Q

What is the capacity of short-term memory (STM)?

A

The capacity is between 5 and 9 items on average.

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13
Q

What is the duration of short-term memory (STM)?

A

The duration is between about 18 and 30 seconds.

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14
Q

What is long-term memory (LTM)?

A

LTM is a permanent memory store.

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15
Q

What is the coding in long-term memory (LTM)?

A

Coding in LTM is mainly semantic (meaning).

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16
Q

What is the capacity of long-term memory (LTM)?

A

LTM has unlimited capacity.

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17
Q

What is the duration of long-term memory (LTM)?

A

LTM can store memories for up to a lifetime.

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18
Q

What are the coding, capacity, and duration for the sensory register (SR)?

A

Coding: Iconic, Echoic, Haptic, Gustatory, Olfactory.
Capacity: High.
Duration: Less than half a second.

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19
Q

What are the coding, capacity, and duration for short-term memory (STM)?

A

Coding: Acoustic.
Capacity: 7±2.
Duration: 18-30 seconds.

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20
Q

What are the coding, capacity, and duration for long-term memory (LTM)?

A

Coding: Semantic.
Capacity: Unlimited.
Duration: Unlimited.

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21
Q

What is the Sensory Register (SR)?

A

The SR is an automatic response to the reception of information by the sense organs.

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22
Q

How is information coded in the Sensory Register?

A

Information is coded depending on the sense organ: visual information is stored iconically, auditory information in echoic format, touch information is stored haptically, taste information in gustatory format, and smells are stored olfactorily.

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23
Q

What is the capacity of the Sensory Register?

A

The capacity of the SR is large as the senses provide detailed information.

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24
Q

What is the duration of information in the Sensory Register?

A

The duration is limited, with different types of information within the SR decaying at different rates.

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25
Q

What did Crowder (1993) find about the duration of the Sensory Register?

A

Crowder found that the SR retains information for a few milliseconds in the iconic store, but for two to three seconds for the echoic store.

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26
Q

What does Crowder’s research support?

A

It supports the idea of sensory information being coded into different sensory stores within the SR, with different stores having different durations.

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27
Q

What was the method used by Sperling (1960) in his research?

A

Sperling flashed a 3 x 4 grid of letters onto a screen for one-twentieth of a second and asked participants to recall the letters of one row.

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28
Q

What is the limitation of sensory memory research?

A

The research often lacks mundane realism because it uses artificial tasks that do not reflect real-life situations.
This questions the validity of the research.

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29
Q

What did Triesman (1964) discover about the echoic store?

A

Participants noticed identical auditory messages if the delay between presentations was two seconds or less, suggesting a limited duration of two seconds for the echoic store.

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30
Q

What does evidence suggest about the capacity of the iconic store?

A

Evidence suggests that the iconic store can hold 15-20 images, but the capacity of other sensory stores is not well studied.

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31
Q

Why are the stores apart from iconic store not well studied?

A

Because they the other stores have a more limited duration, and generally only identified at a pre-conscious level.

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32
Q

What can the limited duration of other stores apart from iconic suggest?

A

That each sense has a different capacity

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33
Q

What is the brief duration of sensory memory (SR) explained by?

A

The brief duration of the SR can be explained from an evolutionary perspective. People only need to focus on perceptual information with an immediate survival rate.

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34
Q

Why do humans struggle to remember sensory information for long periods?

A

Humans are poor at remembering sensory information for long periods if it is deemed unnecessary.

35
Q

What does Short-Term Memory (STM) do?

A

STM temporarily stores information received from the SR and is an active memory system containing information currently being thought about.

36
Q

What was the aim of Baddeley’s (1966) research?

A

To assess coding in STM and LTM.

37
Q

What were the four sets of word lists used in Baddeley’s research?

A

Acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, semantically dissimilar.

38
Q

Give an example of acoustically similar words.

A

Map, man, mad.

39
Q

Give an example of acoustically dissimilar words.

A

Pen, day, few.

40
Q

Give an example of semantically similar words.

A

Big, large, grand.

41
Q

Give an example of semantically dissimilar words.

A

Hot, old, late.

42
Q

What was the purpose of the word list recall study?

A

To assess short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) by recalling the order of word lists immediately and after 20 minutes.

43
Q

What were the findings regarding acoustically similar words?

A

Participants had the worst recall immediately for acoustically similar words, indicating confusion among similar sounding words.

44
Q

What were the findings regarding semantically similar words?

A

Participants had the worst recall after 20 minutes for semantically similar words, indicating confusion among words with similar meanings.

45
Q

What does the immediate recall of similar sounding words suggest about STM?

A

It suggests that STM is acoustically coded, as participants remembered other lists of words well.

46
Q

What does the delayed recall of similar meaning words suggest about LTM?

A

It suggests that LTM is semantically coded, as participants remembered other lists of words well.

47
Q

What was the aim of Jacobs’ (1887) study?

A

To see if there was a pattern in the capacity of short-term memory (STM).

48
Q

What technique did Jacobs develop to measure STM capacity?

A

He developed a digit span technique to measure how many items an individual can remember and repeat back in order.

49
Q

What is the mean span for digits across participants according to Jacobs’ findings?

A

The mean span for digits was 9.3 items.

50
Q

How is capacity determined in Jacobs’ digit-span test?

A

Participants are judged to have reached their capacity when they fail on 50% of tasks.

51
Q

What is the mean span for letters across participants?

A

The mean span for letters across participants was 7.3. This indicates that STM can hold 7-9 items.

52
Q

What was the aim of Miller’s 1956 study?

A

To research the capacity of STM and to try to increase the amount of information recalled.

53
Q

What procedure did Miller use in his study?

A

He observed that things come in sevens and used the digit span technique, chunking items into groups.

54
Q

What were the findings of Miller’s study?

A

People could recall 5 words just as well as they can recall 5 letters via chunking.

55
Q

What conclusion did Miller draw from his study?

A

Chunking can increase the capacity of STM, termed ‘the magical number 7’.

56
Q

What was the aim of Peterson and Peterson’s 1956 study?

A

To research the duration of STM.

57
Q

What was the procedure used in Peterson and Peterson’s study?

A

24 students were given a trigram and a three-digit number, counting backwards to prevent rehearsal, and were stopped after various retention intervals.

58
Q

What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson’s study?

A

STM lasts about 18 seconds, with very few people correctly recalling the trigram after this duration.

59
Q

What conclusion did Peterson and Peterson draw from their study?

A

STM may have a very short duration unless information is rehearsed.

60
Q

What is a limitation of research into memory?

A

Research often uses artificial stimuli, which lack mundane realism and may not reflect real-life situations.

61
Q

How does the use of artificial stimuli limit external validity?

A

It may not represent everyday behavior, as tasks like recalling shopping lists are more familiar than random word lists.

62
Q

What type of coding is primarily used in Short-Term Memory (STM)?

A

Coding in STM is primarily acoustic.

63
Q

What other types of sensory codes are used in STM?

A

Other sensory codes are used for stimuli that are difficult to code acoustically, such as faces and food.

64
Q

What did Daneman and Carpenter (1980) find about individual differences in STM capacity?

A

They found that STM capacity varied between 5 and 20 items based on reading comprehension ability.

65
Q

How does expectation affect STM duration according to Marsh et al. (1997)?

A

If participants were not expecting to recall information, STM duration was only between 2 and 4 seconds.

66
Q

What did Reitman (1974) suggest about the duration of STM?

A

He suggested that the brief duration of STM is due to displacement, where new information pushes out existing information.

67
Q

What is the relationship between duration and capacity in STM?

A

The duration and capacity of STM are closely linked to each other.

68
Q

What is the process for information to be stored in Long-Term Memory (LTM)?

A

All information in LTM is believed to have passed through Sensory Register (SR) and STM.

69
Q

How do the strengths of different memories in LTM vary?

A

Some memories can be retrieved easily and are considered ‘strong’, while weaker memories require more prompting.

70
Q

What was Wagenaar’s (1986) aim in his study on LTM capacity?

A

To see if the capacity of LTM could be measured.

71
Q

What method did Wagenaar use to test his recall of events?

A

He created a diary of 2,400 events over 6 years and tested himself on recall of the events rather than the dates.

72
Q

What were Wagenaar’s findings regarding his recall ability?

A

He could recall and describe most of the events in the diary.

73
Q

What conclusion can be drawn about the capacity of LTM?

A

The capacity of LTM is extremely large.

74
Q

What was the aim of Bahrick’s 1975 study?

A

To research the duration of long-term memory (LTM).

75
Q

How many participants were studied in Bahrick’s research?

A

392 American participants aged between 17 and 74.

76
Q

What methods were used to test recall in Bahrick’s study?

A

Photo recognition (50 photos from a person’s yearbook) and free recall (participants recalled all the names of their graduating class).

77
Q

What were the findings regarding photo recognition accuracy?

A

90% accuracy for participants who graduated within 15 years and about 70% after 48 years.

78
Q

What were the findings regarding free recall accuracy?

A

60% accuracy for free recall after 15 years and about 30% after 48 years.

79
Q

What conclusion can be drawn from Bahrick’s study?

A

LTM lasts for a very long time, especially for faces.

80
Q

What does the evaluation suggest about coding in LTM?

A

LTM may be coded in different ways, including semantically and acoustically.

81
Q

What was a strength of Bahrick et al’s study?

A

High external validity due to the use of real-life meaningful memories.

82
Q

What was a limitation of Bahrick’s study?

A

Confounding variables were not controlled, affecting the validity of the findings.

83
Q

How does the use of artificial stimuli in memory research limit findings?

A

It lacks mundane realism and may not represent everyday behavior.