Memory Flashcards
What is coding?
the format in which information is stored in various memory stores
what is capacity?
the amount of information that can be held in a memory store at a given time
what is duration?
the lengths of time information can be held in a memory store
what is short term memory?
the limited capacity memory store. Coding is mainly acoustic, capacity is between 5 and 9 items on average, duration is between 18-30 seconds
what is long term memory?
the permanent memory store. Coding is mainly semantic, it has unlimited capacity and can store memories for up to a lifetime
what was the aim of Baddeley’s research (1966)?
research coding in LTM and STM
What was Baddeley’s procedure?
used word lists
4 sets of word lists- acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, semantically dissimilar
participants had to recall the word lists
done immediately to assess STM and after 20 minutes to assess LTM
What was Baddeley’s findings?
participants given the list of acoustically similar words had the worst recall
participants given the list of semantically similar words had the worst recall
What was Baddeley’s conclusions?
the lists that had poor recall showed that the words had become confused.
For the immediate recall, acoustically sounding words were not remembered well. This suggests STM is acoustically coded
For the delayed recall, semantically sounding words were not remembered well. This suggests LTM is semantically coded
What was the aims of Jacob’s research (1887)?
research capacity of STM
What was Jacob’s procedure?
developed a technique to measure digit span- how many items an individual can remember, in sequence and repeat back in order
What was Jacob’s findings?
found the mean span for digits across participants was 9.3 items
found that the mean span for letters across participants was 7.3
What was Jacob’s conclusion?
memory can hold 7-9 items
What was Miller’s aim (1956)?
research capacity of STM
What was Miller’s procedure?
observed that things come in sevens
also used the digit span technique, but “chunked” items into groups
What were Miller’s findings?
found people could recall 5 words, as well as they can recall 5 letters (via chunking)
What was Miller’s conclusion?
used the term ‘the magical number 7’ to describe the capacity of STM
What was Peterson and Peterson’s aims (1956)?
Research duration of STM
What was Peterson and Peterson’s procedure?
24 students took part in 8 trials and were given a trigram such as BNT and a three digit number and asked to count backwards to prevent rehearsal. They were stopped after either 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds. This was the retention interval
What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson’s?
found that STM lasts about 18 seconds after this very few people correctly recall the consonant syllable
What was the conclusion of Peterson and Peterson’s experiment?
suggests STM may have a very short duration, unless it is rehearsed
what is a limitation of baddeley’s study?
•did not use meaningful material
•words had no personal meaning to participants
•when information is meaningful people will use semantic coding even in STM
what’s a limitation of jacob’s study?
•it was conducted a long time ago and early research such as this, often lacked control of extraneous variables. For example,some participants may have been distracted.
What’s a limitation of Miller’s study?
•may have oversimplified capacity in STM
•Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM was only 4 chunks which is lower than Miller’s estimate of 7+/-2. This means the accepted capacity of STM may be accurate.
what is a limitation of Peterson and Peterson’s study?
•used artificial stimuli
•consonant syllables/ trigrams do not reflect real life memory activities
•study lacks external validity
Strength and limitation of Bahrick et al’s study?
•high external validity
•using real-life meaningful memories means that the findings are more likely to accurately represent memory in the real world
•confounding variables were not controlled such as the fact some of the participants may have recently overlooked their yearbook photos
what is the multi store model of memory?
a representation of how memory works in terms of three stores called sensory register, short term memory and long term memory. It describes how memory is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and forgotten.
what is the sensory register?
the memory stores for each of our five senses, such as vision (iconic) and hearing (echoic).The capacity of the sensory register is huge and information lasts for a very short time- less than half a second.
who developed the multi store model of memory?
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
what is episodic memory?
a long term memory store for personal events. It includes memories of when the events occurred and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories from this store have to be received consciously and with effort.
what is semantic memory?
a long term memory store for our knowledge of the world. This includes facts and what words and concepts mean. These memories usually also need to be recalled deliberately.
What is procedural memory?
a long term memory store for our knowledge of how to do things. This includes out memories of learned skills. We usually recall these memories without making a conscious or deliberate effort.
what are explicit memories?
can be inspected and recalled consciously
what are implicit memories?
unable to be consciously recalled
what are strengths of the different types of LTM?
•neuroimaging evidence
- there is evidence from brain scans to show that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain.
•clinical evidence- HM could learn new procedural memories but not episodic or semantic memories.
•real life application- allows treatments to be developed. Belleville showed that episodic memories could be improved in individuals who had mild cognitive impairment.
what is a limitation of different types of LTM?
•argument about whether episodic and semantic memory should be separate.
•Cohen and Squire disagree with Tulving’s division of LTM into three types, instead arguing there should be 2.
•very difficult to separate episodic and semantic memory as they are both stored in the prefrontal cortex suggesting some similarity.
what are strengths of the WMM?
•Shallice and Warrington’s study of patient KF who had suffered brain damage. KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally.This suggests just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact.
•Studies of dual-task performance support the separate existence of the visio-spatial sketchpad. Baddeley et al showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks than doing both a visual and verbal task at the same time.
•Brain scanning studies support the WMM. Braver et al (1997) gave their participants tasks that involved the central executive while they were having a brain scan and found greater activity in an area known as the left prefrontal cortex. As difficulty of the task increased, the activity in the left prefrontal cortex also increased. This suggests that there is a biological basis to the central executive component of the WMM, increasing the validity of the model.
what are limitations of WMM?
•evidence from case studies of patients with brain damage need to be treated with caution. May not be reliable as it concerns unique cases with patients who have had traumatic experiences. Baseline measurements are not taken so there is no control to compare the performance after the injury.
•Cognitive psychologists suggest there is a lack of clarity over the central executive. Needs to be more clearly specified than just being an attentional process. WMM could be viewed as incomplete.
who developed the WMM?
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
what is the central executive?
manages attention, and controls information from the the two “slave” stores. It processes information in all sensory forms but it is only able to deal with one strand of information at a time.
what is the phonological loop?
temporarily retains language-based information in auditory form and holds the amount of information that can be spoken out loud in two seconds
•the articulatory rehearsal process of language, allows maintenance rehearsal
•the phonological store which holds auditory speech information and the order in which it was heard
what is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
•temporarily retains visual and spatial information.
•can hold 3 to 4 objects at one time
•consists of the visual cache which stores visual information about form and colour; the inner scribe which deals with spatial relationships and the arrangement of objects