Memory

Question 1

What are the 3 types of memory?

Answer 1

Sensory register
Short term memory
Long ter memory

Question 2

How is short term memory coded?

Answer 2

acoustically

Question 3

How is long term memory coded?

Answer 3

semantically

Question 4

Outline the Peterson + Peterson study, duration of STM

Answer 4

Shown nonsense trigrams (3 random consonants)
for either 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds
Then asked asked to count backwards in 3’s which was an interference task
after 3 seconds = 80% recall
after 18 seconds = 10% recall

Question 5

What is miller’s magic number?

Answer 5

7+-2 items

Question 6

What’s a strength of the MSM

Answer 6

Primacy effect

• Remembering the 1st few items from a list better than words in the middle
• The easier items in the list will have bee rehearsed
• if rehearsal is prevented by an interference task the effect disappears

Recency effect

• Remembering the last few items in the list
• Last words are still in the STM and can be recalled

Question 7

What’s a limitation of the MSM

Answer 7

In real life people don’t always spend time rehearsing , yet they still transfer information into the LTM

The model is oversimplified

Question 8

What is retroactive interference

Answer 8

Is where new information interferes with the ability to recall older information

Question 9

What is proactive interference?

Answer 9

Is where older information interferes with the ability to recall new information

Question 10

What’s a strength and a limitation of Interference theory?

Answer 10

It’s supported by lots of studies many of which were controlled laboratory experiments

In real world situations, struggling to remember French vocabulary if you later start learning German

It doesn’t go into the cognitive or biological processes involved, doesn’t explain how or why interference happens