Memory 1

Question 1

What are the 3 types of long term memory?

Answer 1

• Episodic memory
• Semantic memory
• Procedural memory

Question 2

What is episodic memory?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What is semantic memory

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is procedural memory?

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

What is encoding?

Answer 5

Encoding is when information that we receive is then translated in a way that can allow it to be stored in our brain

Question 6

What is storage?

Answer 6

Storage is when information is held in our brain for a long period of time - like a lifetime

Question 7

what is retrieval?

Answer 7

Retrieval is when information that is stored in your brain is recovered

Question 8

What are the types of encoding?

Answer 8

• Visual
• Acoustic
• Semantic

Question 9

How can memories be encoded visually?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

how can memories be encoded acoustically?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

how can memories be encoded semantically?

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

what are the types of retrieval?

Answer 12

• recognition
• free recall
• cued recall

Question 13

What is recognition?

Answer 13

Recognition is when the information is presented and you can identify what you recall from what is there in front of you

Question 14

what is free recall?

Answer 14

Free recall is when we can recover and retrieve memories from our memory stores easily without any cues or support

Question 15

What is cued recall?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

How does the information that we receive enter our memory?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

describe the the multi-store memory model

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What is the order of the multi memory store that the information gets transferred through?

Answer 18

Sensory memory store —-> Short term memory store –(prolonged rehearsal)–> Long term memory store

Question 19

What is duration?

Answer 19

How long something lasts; the length of time information can be held in memory.

Question 20

What is capacity?

Answer 20

Capacity is a measure of how much information can be held in a memory store

Question 21

What is coding?

Answer 21

Coding refers to the format in which information is stored in the brain. For example acoustic

Question 22

Describe the sensory memory store in the MSM

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

What is the capacity, duration and coding in the sensory memory store

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

describe the short term memory store

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What is the capacity, duration and coding in the STM?

Answer 25

- **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

Question 26

Describe the LTM store

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is the capacity, duration and coding in the LTM store?

Answer 27

- **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

Question 28

What is a strength of the Multi-store model? use PBT (Murdock's study)

Answer 28

- 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.

Question 29

What is another weakness of the multi-store model? (flashbulb memory)

Answer 29

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.

Question 29

What is the serial position effect?

Answer 29

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.

Question 29

what is a weakness of the Multi-store model? **(too simple)**

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

What is the recency effect?

Answer 30

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.

Question 30

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

What was the aim of Murdock's serial position curve study?

Answer 31

To see how the recall of words relates to the serial position curve

Question 32

what did the serial position curve show?

Answer 32

it showed the effect of the position of words in a list on the recall of those words

Question 33

what was the research method used in the Murdock study?

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

What was the method in the Murdock's study?

Answer 34

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 20 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.

Question 34

Who were the participants in Murdock's study?

Answer 34

the participants were students who were taking a psychology course

Question 35

What were the results of Murdock's study?

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

What is a weakness of Murdock's study?

Answer 36

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

Question 37

what is the conclusion of the Murdock study?

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

What is a strength of Murdock's study? RM (both features)

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

what was the experimental design used in Murdock's study?

Answer 39

repeated measures

Question 40

What is a strength of Murdock's study?

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

what is a distractor task?

Answer 41

A distractor task is a task that is used to occupy the short term memory store in order to test the accuracy of recall.

Question 42

What is a weakness of Murdock's study? RM (no ecological validity)

Answer 42

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.