Memory Flashcards
Explain the WMM?
- Explains how STM functions
- Central Executive: supervisory role. Monitors incoming data- focuses and divides attention- alllocates subsystems to tasks. Limited processing capacity. Doesn’t store information.
- Visuo-spatial sketchpad: stores visual and spatial information- allows you to visualise. Limited capacity of 3-4 objects. Subdivided in visual cache, which stores visual data and the inner scribe that records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
Phonological Loop- acoustic coding. Stores info in the order that it arrives. Phonological store- the words that you hear. Articulatory process- allows maintenance rehearsal. Lasts about 2 seconds of what you can say.
Limitation of the CE?
Lack of clarity over its nature- Baddeley himself believes it should be more cl;early specificed, perhaps divived into subsystems. Most important but least understood element of teh WMM- an unsatisfatcory component which challenges the integrity of the WMM.
What is proactive interference?
Older memory interferes with a new one
Retroactive interference?
New memory interferes with an old one.
McGeoch and McDonald?
Studied the effect of similarty on retroactive interference. P’s had to learn a list of 10 words followed by a new list. Interference is stronmger when memories are similar.
Evaluation?
Strength: Evidence of interference in real-world situations- Baddeley and Hitch asking rugby players to recall all teams they played against during a rugby season. Those who played the most games had the poorest recall- increases validity.
Limitation: interference is temporary and can be overcome by cues- Tulving and Psotka gave p’s lists of words from different categories, one at a time. P’s didn’t know what the categories were. Recall was about 70% for the first list and progressively worsened. (proactive). At the end, he gavce a cued recall with the categories. Recall rose back to 70%- shows a temporary loss of accessibility to LTM info, which was not predicted by inteference theory.
