Memory 1 - Multi Store Model

Question 1

What’s memory?

Answer 1

The processes and mechanisms which help us digest, store information and retreive information

Question 2

What’s memory required for?

Answer 2

For all cognitive processes - language, perception, thinking, decision making, problem solving,etc.

Question 3

Stages of memory

Answer 3

Task stages: Event “Study” - Delay Period (time) - Remember “Test”

Processes: Encoding ( incidental vs. intentional) , Storage, Retrieval

Question 4

The Multi-Store Model of Memory

Answer 4

William James (1890) distinguished a ‘primary’ (info that remains in cosnciousness) and ‘secondary’ (memories that have left consciousness) memory

Herman Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) - performed hundreds of experiments on himslef
- Disocevered many methods including - CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) nonsense syllables
- Savings (less time to relearn)
-Learning curve; Forgetting curve
- Effects of overlearning
- Stimilus-stimulus associations
- Voluntary/ Involunatry memory
- Capacity of short term memory = 7
- Recollection (vs. familiarity) - does previous info simply return or knowldge of the info prior existance and cirumstances come back (picked ip by Tulving in the 70s/80s)
-THE SERIAL POSITION CURVE - picked by others in the 60s

Question 5

Short Term Store vs Long-term store (Serial Position Curve)

Answer 5

Free recall tasks - words presented at a fixed pace, recall words in any order, recall % plotted asa function of word’s position in list

Recency effect - last few items mentioned on the list got recalled well (from STS?) - dumps items out of short term store

Primacy effect - First few items tend to be recalld (from LTS?) related to how much somethig is practiced.
Items repeated more are better recalled and lead to long term store

Question 6

The “Modal Model” - Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)

Answer 6

Sensory input Report

Sensory Store - attention - Short Term store - Rehearsal - Long term store
retrieval <——

Decay Displacement Interference

Question 7

Explanation of the Modal Model

Answer 7

Sensory store- large capacity, ms-to-sec duration, modality specific code

Short term store - small capacity (7 +/- 2), <30sec duration, phonological code (RECENCY EFFECT - few items, less than 30 sec)

Long term store - infinite capacity, infinite duration, semantic code (PRIMACY EFFECT, related to rehearsal, stored long-term)

Question 8

Distinction between Short and Long Term Stores

Answer 8

Short -term store capacity - Miller (1956) - Magical number 7 (+/- 2) - people can typically recall between 5-9 items

Mnemonic(pattern of letters, ideas or associations) strategies - ‘chunking’ information into meaningful chunks to help us memorise
visualisation, method of loci(memory enhancment strategy which uses visualisation of familiar spatial enivornments to enhance the info recall)

Question 9

Brown- Peterson Paradigm - Brown (1958); Peterson & Peterson (1959)

Answer 9

• Ps given nonsense triagram of letters (eg. EAL) to remember
• Then count backwards in 3s from a number (numbers shouldn’t interfere with letters)
• Trace decay of unrehearsed items occurs exponentiailly(more rapidly) over 20-30 secs

Question 10

Phonological Confusability Effect

Answer 10

Poor serial recall of similar-sounding words compared to lists of dissimilar sounding words

Conrad (1964) - worse recall on similar sounding letters

Baddeley (1966) - immediate recall worse for phonologically similar words

Info in STS stored using phonological code

Question 11

Long- Term Store- CAPACITY and DURATION

Answer 11

Capacity considered to be limitless
We store everything in long-term memory from language, motor skills, social skills, facts, events and more

Question 12

Long Term Store Coding - Semantic Confusabilitu Effect

Answer 12

If a concept, word, sentance whatever really share semantic features, more diffuclt to recall (encode)

Baddeley (1996) - recall worse if words are semantically similar

SEMANTIC CODE in LTS

Question 13

Sensory Store Capacity & Duration

Answer 13

Hard to study, is it even memory?

Sterling(1960) Partial report technique
Tachistoscopic (machine that projects) he was flashing letter sequences for less than a second, if Ps asked to report all letters could only report 3-4

Reporting is a bottleneck - you forget most letters while reporting first few

Partial report technique: - after display, cued to report one row
-could still report 3-4, therefore stored all 12

Question 14

Second card on Sensory Store Capacity and Duration

Answer 14

Iconic store = Visual store - capcity 12+ letters, duration: 500 msecs, loss via: decay

Echoic store = auditory store, Duration - 1-5 secs, capacity: (depends on stimuli), loss via: decay

Question 15

Neuropsychological evidence

Answer 15

The most robust evidence comes from patients with brain dmagae (memory disorders)

Anterograde amnesia
- cannot make new memories
- intact short-term memory
- reduced primacy but intact recency (Baddeley & Warrington, 1970)

Question 16

Henry Molasion (patient HM)

Answer 16

Epileptic seizures, surgery at 27 - Scovlle removed medial temporal lobes bylaterally (on both sides)
Very unsuaul, epileptic seizures stopped along with ability to create new memories

Brenda Milner
new findings
- memory for past intact (up to 3 years prior to surgery)
-could acquire some skills

Question 17

Impaired Short Term Store (STS) - (KF patient - Warrington & Shallice, 1969)

Answer 17

• Can make new long term memories
• Impaired short-term memory (poor digit span)