Memory 1 Flashcards
What are the 3 types of long term memory?
- Episodic memory
- Semantic memory
- Procedural memory
What is episodic memory?
Episodic memory consists of personal memories that a person might have. It is the memory of experiences and the things that you have done. These memories are time-stamped, so you can recall the time, place and any additional details about the event.
What is semantic memory
Semantic memory is about having the meaning of every word that you know being stored in your long term memory. With semantic memory, we should be able to use these words in sentences. This isn’t usually time-stamped
What is procedural memory?
Procedural memory is “muscle memory”, where we can perform tasks without conscious awareness and is our memory of learned skills, which is stored in our long term memory. For example, learning how to ride a bike or touch-typing would be procedural.
What is encoding?
Encoding is when information that we receive is then translated in a way that can allow it to be stored in our brain
What is storage?
Storage is when information is held in our brain for a long period of time - like a lifetime
what is retrieval?
Retrieval is when information that is stored in your brain is recovered
What are the types of encoding?
- Visual
- Acoustic
- Semantic
How can memories be encoded visually?
Some of our memories can be visualised, and that is the way that they are stored. The mind converts this visual image to a form which can be understood
how can memories be encoded acoustically?
Where some of our memories are stored based on what they sounded like, where we have our memories that are accessed using sound. The mind converts this acoustic sound to a form which can be understood
how can memories be encoded semantically?
We store our memories based on the meaning of words and concepts, so understanding the meaning of something and being able to use it in daily conversations.
what are the types of retrieval?
- recognition
- free recall
- cued recall
What is recognition?
Recognition is when the information is presented and you can identify what you recall from what is there in front of you
what is free recall?
Free recall is when we can recover and retrieve memories from our memory stores easily without any cues or support
What is cued recall?
Cued recall is when we can only recover and retrieve memories from our memory stores once provided with a clue or cue to remind us.
How does the information that we receive enter our memory?
Once we get the information from our senses, we encode it into a storable language that allows it to be stored in our long term memory.
describe the the multi-store memory model
The multi-store memory model is a cognitive model of memory, which shows the path in which information is taken through in order from the sensory memory store to the short term memory store, to the long term memory store. This model is linear.
What is the order of the multi memory store that the information gets transferred through?
Sensory memory store —-> Short term memory store –(prolonged rehearsal)–> Long term memory store
What is duration?
How long something lasts; the length of time information can be held in memory.
What is capacity?
Capacity is a measure of how much information can be held in a memory store
What is coding?
Coding refers to the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores. For example acoustic
Describe the sensory memory store in the MSM
The beginning of any memory starts when information is received by one of the senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, sound) by an external stimuli, for example, if you hear a person talking, the message that you heard will be encoded acoustically in the SMS.
What is the capacity, duration and coding in the sensory memory store
- Coding: the sensory memory store is a storage place that holds memories gathered from our senses, so these memories are coded in a form appropriate to the sense
- Duration: Information remains in your sensory memory for less than half a second - unless attention is paid to the memory
- Capacity: All of the information that you gather from the world passes through our 5 senses so it has an unlimited capacity
describe the short term memory store
The short term memory store (STM) is known as a limited capacity store, where it is the next store from the sensory register if we pay attention to the information that we receive. In order to keep the information in a rehearsal loop we use the maintenance rehearsal.
What is the capacity, duration and coding in the STM?
- Capacity: in our STM, we can only remember between 5 and 9 chunks of information, or 7 +/- 2
- Duration: The duration of the memories in this store is less than 30 seconds, and if you repeat the chunks of information verbally over and over again, they will stay in your STM (maintenance rehersal)
- Coding: the coding in this store tends to be acoustic
Describe the LTM store
The long term memory store is the final memory store in this model, where, if the information that was in the STM store was constantly rehearsed (prolonged rehearsal), it would be stored in the LTM store. This is our permanent memory store
What is the capacity, duration and coding in the LTM store?
- capacity: the capacity of the long term memory store is technically unlimited since our brain is constantly removing any unneeded information
- duration: the duration of the LTM is potentially up to a lifetime and is our permanent memory store
- coding the encoding in the LTM store tends to be semantic rather than acoustic, since the meaning of words are being constantly used in daily life
What is a strength of the Multi-store model? use PBT
(Murdock’s study)
- One strength of the multi-store model of memory is there is evidence for the different memory stores.
- This is because Murdock found evidence for the serial position effect. He found that words at the end of a list were recalled well (recency effect), due to being in the STM and words at the beginning of the list were also recalled well (primary effect), due to being in the LTM due to the prolonged rehearsal of those words, while the words in the middle were not recalled very well. This means that he found that each memory store is independent, just like the model suggests
- This evidence increases the validity of the multi-store model.
What is another weakness of the multi-store model?
(flashbulb memory)
Another weakness of the MSM is that it can’t explain flashbulb memory. This is because when a significant (or emotionally arousing) event occurs, it doesn’t need any rehearsal and didn’t need to go to the STM, going straight into the LTM, where the memories are formed straight into the LTM. This means that this model is unable to explain how memory actually works since it is unable to actually account for flashbulb memory. Therefore, this reduces the validity of the results.
What is the serial position effect?
The serial position effect describes the tendency of people to recall the first and last words in a list of words the best. It is basically how the position of words on a list can influence the recall of these words.
what is a weakness of the Multi-store model?
(too simple)
A weakness is the model is too simple as it suggests we only have one STM and one LTM. This is because research shows STM is divided into visual and acoustic stores, and LTM into episodic, semantic and procedural memory, so, memory is more complex than the model proposes. Therefore, this reduces the validity of the results since it suggests that memory is more complex than the model displays and reduces its accuracy.
What is the recency effect?
The recency effect refers to what happens last - we are more likely to accurately recall the last few words on a word list because it was the last thing for us to hear, therefore remaining in our STM and we would be able to accurately recall those words. Therefore, the last few words get recalled the best.
What is the primacy effect?
The primacy effect refers to what happens first - we are more likely to recall the first few words in a list because we are constantly rehearsing it, transferring those words to our LTM, allowing it to be accurately recalled.
What was the aim of Murdock’s serial position curve study?
To see how the recall of words relates to the serial position curve
what did the serial position curve show?
it showed the effect of the position of words in a list on the recall of those words
what was the research method used in the Murdock study?
The research method used was a laboratory experiment, where any extraneous variables were kept under control and all procedures were standardised to ensure the replicability of the study.
What was the method in the Murdock’s study?
In order to create the word lists, Murdock randomly selected words from the 4,000 most commonly used words in english. 16 participants were presented with a list of between 10-40 words at the rate of 1 word per second. Once they had heard all 20 words, they were asked to recall as many words as they could at any order. This is called free-recall, where they were not given any cues to recall the words. They were then given 90 seconds to recall the words. The test was repeated with the same participants 80 times over the period of a couple of days. A different list of 20 words was used each time.
Who were the participants?
the participants were students who were taking a psychology course
What were the results of Murdock’s study?
The words at the end of the list were recalled first (recency effect) and words from the beginning of the list were recalled quite well (primacy effect). The words in the middle of the list were not recalled very well. Murdock displayed his results in a serial position curve.
What is a weakness of Murdock’s study?
One weakness of the study is the participants in the study. This is because Murdock’s participants were all a similar age and studied in a psychology course. This means that due to their familiarity with any psychological theories, they may have tried to guess the aim and might have altered their behavior in order to impress the researcher (participant bias). This makes the sample unrepresentative of the population, reducing the generalizations that can be made about the effects of serial position on recall. This would reduce the validity of the study since we don’t actually know if serial position actually affects our recall
what is the conclusion of the Murdock study?
Murdock concluded that the first few words were recalled well and this is called the primacy effect. It is argued that the primacy effect occurs because the first words have been rehearsed and them passed into long term storage.
The last few words were recalled very well and this is called a recency effect. This is explained that this occurs because the last few words that were heard will still remain in the short term memory store, allowing it to be accessed.
Overall, the results of the study have been discussed to support the idea that there are separate stores for information, as described by the multi-store model of memory.
What is a strength of Murdock’s study? RM
A strength of Murdock’s study is that it was a lab experiment. This is because by being in a controlled environment where the researcher can control any extraneous variables that can affect the accuracy of recall e.g. caffeine, fatigue, it can ensure accurate results. Additionally, Murdock used standardised materials to carry out the study, allowing the study to be replicated, thus increasing the reliability of the study.
what was the experimental design used in Murdock’s study?
repeated measures
What is a strength of Murdock’s study?
A strength of Murdock’s study is that other studies support his findings. This is because in another study, the participants were given a distractor task after being provided the words before having to recall the words. The distractor task took up the capacity of the STS so the last few words were no longer available. When participants were allowed to recall the words, they found that the words at the start had been recalled accurately (primacy effect) and the words at the end of the list were recalled the most accurately (recency). Therefore, this study confirms Murdock’s conclusions on the effect of serial position on recall.
what is a distractor task?
A distractor task is a task that is used to occupy the short term memory store in order to test the accuracy of recall.
What is a weakness of Murdock’s study? RM
A weakness of Murdock’s study is that a lab experiment can alter participants’ behaviour. This is because due to the experiment being set in a lab instead of a real-life setting, participants might be over-aware that they are being studied, leading them to alter their behaviour and act unrealistically as a result. Therefore, this reduces the ecological validity of the results.
