Memory Flashcards
LTM - capacity, duration and coding
Capacity: potentially infinite
Duration: lifetime (bahrick)
Coding: semantic (baddeley)
Types of LTM
Episodic - memories of events (explicit)
Semantic - facts and knowledge (explicit)
Procedural - how to do things (automatic)
Evidence for types of LTM
Patient HM - only had procedural LTM
Brain scanning - shows different areas of the brain working at different times
- hippocampus for episodic
Evidence against types of LTM
Over reliance on brain damaged patients
May be 4 stores, priming, programmed thoughts through advertising
STM - capacity, duration and coding
Capacity: 5-9 items (miller)
Duration: 18-30 seconds (Peterson and Peterson)
Coding: acoustic (baddeley)
describe sensory memory
capacity - 12-16 items
duration - around 0.5s
coding - 5 senses
echoic - retaining info from sound
iconic - retaining info from visual
Describe MSM
Sensory input
Sensory memory
Attention moves it to STM
(Rehearsal loop)
Rehearsal moves it to LTM
LTM - STM by retrieval
Lost by forgetting
Spontaneous decay from sensory memory
Evidence for MSM
Clive Wearing - had LTM but couldn’t make new STMs
support for separate stores
Patient HM - had LTM but no STM
- BUT had procedural LTM but not explicit, shows separate stores but there are more LTM stores
Recency effect - those at end easier to remember as have not been displaced from STM
Primacy effect - those at beginning rehearsed and put into LTM
Limitations of MSM
Patient KF - had visual but not verbal STM shows evidence for more stores
Reductionist, oversimplified
Rehearsal not always needed to enter LTM
Rehearsal doesn’t always make information stay in LTM
Describe WMM
Central executive
- receives all the information
- sends it to right store to be processed
(vague and untestable)
Phonological loop - stores auditory information based on tone, volume, pitch etc
- inner ear - speech perception
- inner voice - process speech production
Visuo-spatial sketch pad - visual and spatial info
- visual ceche- mental image
- inner scribe - spatial awareness
Episodic buffer - integrates information from other stores, sends to LTM
- added later
LTM
Strengths of WMM
Acknowledges memory is active, unlike MSM
Patient KF - had visual but no verbal STM, evidence there’s separate stores of STM
Limitations of WMM
Patient HM - had procedural but no explicit LTM, evidence for more LTM stores
Reductionist, oversimplifies human memory
Explanations for forgetting for STM
Limited capacity and duration
Decay and displacement (pushed out)
Explanations for forgetting from LTM
Interference theory
Retrieval failure
Proactive interference (IT)
Old info and memories effect recall of new info
Supported by Underwood
Retroactive interference (IT)
New memories or info effects recall of old memories
supported by Muller
Support for Interference Theory
Underwood - earlier lists easier to remember than later ones
- supports proactive interference
Muller - harder to recall lists after distraction task
- supports retroactive interference
Weaknesses of Interference Theory
Research is artificial so can’t be generalise to real how it
Doesn’t explain why or how it happens - incomplete explanation