Lecture 4: Human Memory

Question 1

What is memory?

Answer 1

the ability to store and retrieve information over time

Question 2

What is sensory memory?

Answer 2

• a very STM store for information being processing by the sense organs
• has a limited duration to store information, typically less than a second

Question 3

state and describe two types of sensory memory

Answer 3

iconic: deals with visual info, usually decays in less than a second
echoic: deals with auditory info, usually decays in about 5 seconds

Question 4

What is STM?

Answer 4

• Short-term memory
• where informtion is processed and stored but easily forgotten if not rehearsed

Question 5

What is rehersal?

Answer 5

the process of keeping information in STM by mentally repeating it
“magic number 7 plus or minus 2” - Miller, 1956

Question 6

What is chunking?

Answer 6

combining small pieces of info into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in STM

Question 7

What are the different stores of the WMM?

Answer 7

• Central executive
• Articulatory-Phonological Loop
  1. phonlogical store
  2. articulatory control/rehersal process
• Visuo-Spatatial Sketchpad
• Episodic Buffer

Question 8

Draw the WMM

Answer 8

(check notes/google images)

Question 9

Why was the WMM developed?

Answer 9

• Baddeley & Hitch (1974) developed WMM as MSM was criticised for over-simplifying STM as a singl storage system
• WMM proposes STM composing of 3 limited capacity stores

Question 10

What is the WMM?

Answer 10

• focuses specifically on the workings of STM
• consists of central executive, phonological loop, visual-spatial sketchpad & episodic buffer

Question 11

Where did the 3 stores of STM (AP loop, CE & VS sketchpad) stem from?

Answer 11

• dual task technique/interference task
• performace was measured as participants perfom two tasks simultaneously
  observations:
• if one store utilised for both tasks then task performace is poorer than when they’re completely separate due to store’s limited capacity e.g. repeating “the the the” aloud and reading some text silently would use AP loop for both tasks, slowing performance

Question 12

What is the role of the Central Executive?

Answer 12

• manages attention and controls info from the two “slave stores” (AP Loop & Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad)

Question 13

What is the role of the Articulatory-Phonological Loop?

Answer 13

• temporarily retains language-based info consisting of:
  1. an articulatory rehersal process (‘inner voice’) incl. any language presented visually to convert to a phonological state for storage in the:
  2. phonological store (‘inner ear’) which holds auditory speech info & the order in which it was heard (or any visually-presented language converted by articulatory process)

Question 14

What is the role of the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad?

Answer 14

• this temporarily retains visual and spatial info

Question 15

What is the role of the Episodic Buffer?

Answer 15

• facilitates communication between central executive and long term memory