memory! Flashcards
improve my long term memory
define coding
the format or ‘type’ of info which is being stored in each memory store
which type of coding is used in STM?
acoustic
which coding is used in LTM?
semantic
acoustic and semantic
what two results did Baddeley find from his study?
- MORE mistakes are made when recalling ACOUSTICALLY similar words straight after learning them
- MORE mistakes are made when recalling SEMANTICALLY- similar words 20 mins after learning them
define capacity
the volume of info/ data which can be kept in any memory store at any one time
what is the capacity for our STM?
and our LTM?
STM= 7+/-2 items (Miller)
LTM= unlimited
what study did jacobs conduct?
digit span
what did miller conclude?
the capacity of STM is thought to be 7 +/- 2 items (Miller)
-Miller’s idea that things come in groups of 7 (e.g. 7 days of the week)
MAGIC NUMBER 7
how can we increase our memory?
chunking- grouping sets of letters and digits into chunks
what were the findings of Jacobs’?
Jacobs also demonstrated that the mean letter span was 7.3 and the mean digit span was 9.3(i.e. the number of letters or digits we can recall after increasing intervals)
define duration
the amount of time that info can be stored in each memory store
what is the duration in our STM? and our LTM?
STM= 18-30 secs
LTM= unlimited
who conducted a study on duration? and describe the process?
Peterson & Peterson (1959)
- used a repeated measures design
- got students to recall combinations of 3 letters
- but distracted them with a 3 digit number and asked them to say them aloud backwards in 3 e.g. 456, 453, 450 to prevent rehearsing
- after intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 and 18 secs they were asked to recall the 3 letter combination
what were the findings of the Peterson & Peterson (1959) study?
- after 3 secs, recall was over 80%
- after 18 secs, recall was about 3%
- Therefore, STM duration without rehearsal is up to 18 secs
what are the drawbacks of having the intervals longer than 18 secs?
-INCREASE in demand characteristics (practise effect)
- repeating it 6 times= ORDER EFFECTS
- COUNTER-POINT= counterbalancing wouldn’t work in this experiment
what is the case study for LTM?
Bahrick & Al (1975)
describe the study of Bahrick
- 392 US graduates aged between 17 and 74
- 1) Recognition test- 50 photos from High School yearbooks
- 2) Free recall test- ppl listed names from their class
- Field experiment= high ecological validity
LTM
what are the results from Bahrick’s study?
Recognition test=
- 90% accuracy after 15 yrs
- 70% after the age of 48
Free recall=
- 60% recall after 15 yrs
- 30% after the age of 48
what are the three components of the MSM?
- sensory register
- STM
- LTM
what is the evidence from Sperlings (1960) sensory store
3 x 3 grid
-high tone= top row
-medium tone= middle row
-low tone= bottom row
- Whole thing 5 items recalled= 42%
- One row= 3 items recalled 75%
= ppts should have been able to remember 4 items from a row, but only 3 items were remembered -> info DECAYS rapidly in the sensory store
describe the sensory register
- all stimuli from the environment pass into the SR -> 5 stores for each of the 5 senses
- Coding= modality-specfic, depending on the sense (visual in iconic and acoustic in echoic)
- Duration= very brief, less than 0.5 secs
- Capacity= very large
info passes into the STM if attention is paid to it
describe our STM
limited capacity
- coding= acoustic
- duration= about 18 secs unless info is rehearsed
- capacity= between 5-9 items before forgetting occurs
MAINTENANCE REHEARSAL- repeat material long enough, it will enter our LTMs
describe our LTM
a PERMANENT memory store
- coding= mostly semantic
- duration + capacity= unlimited
recall information via RETRIEVAL
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
what study did Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) conduct?
showed ppts a list of 20 words, presented one at a time and then asked them to recall
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
what is the serial position effect?
asking ppl to remember a list of words that is GREATER than the capacity of STM (tendency to remember words from start to finish)
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
what is the primary effect?
tendency for people to remember the first 5 or so words from the beginning of the list
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
what is the recency effect?
tendency for people to remember the last 5 or so words from the end of the list
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
how does Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) support the MSM?
primary effect= first words are best rehearsed and transferred to the LTM
recency effect= last words are best presented (most fresh at start of STM recall)
who suggested there were different types of LTM?
Tulving (1985)
- semantic
- episodic
- procedural
what is procedural memory?
LTM- implicit knowledge on how to do things once you have acquired a skill
What is declarative memory?
LTM- explicit knowledge- two further sub-divisions (episodic and semantic)- arranged hierarchically
what is episodic memory? what are the 3 types?
- related to a specific time and place
- Autobiographical- memories about specific life events
- Flashbulb- detailed and vivid memories about an event
- Experimental- using already existing semantic knowledge but putting it into an experimental context (e.g. memory game)
give one piece of evidence for the separate components of LTM
HM= had most of his hippocampus removed which meant that he could not create new memories, however, he could learn new skills which would suggest that his procedural memories were unaffected.
- Clive Wearing= a musician who had a brain infection (herpes simplex encephalisis) which damaged his hippocampus and left him with seriously impaired STM of only 7-30 secs. Clive still had the ability to play the piano (procedural), but he could play the piano (declarative).
B&H
who made the MSM? and what was their assumption?
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
- believed memory was not unitary but a number of different stores
- 2 visual tasks= poorer performance but 1 visual and 1 verbal means no interruption
what are the 4 components in the MSM?
- Central executive
- Visuospatial sketchpad
- Episodic buffer
- Phonological loop
the monopoly looking guy on ppt
describe the purpose of the central executive
- has a limited capacity
- determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated
- involves reasoning and decision making skills
- selects strategies (e.g. a boss of a company collects info from many diff sources and stores this in a large database- LTM)
describe the phonological loop
-limited capacity
-deals with auditory info and preserves word order (inner ear)
- Baddeley (1986) further subdivided into:
- phonological area= holds words heard
- articulatory process= holds words heard?seen and silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice)
describe the visuospatial sketchpad
- stored in the inner eye
(visual= what things look like
spatial= relationships between things) - limited capacity= 3-4 objects
- Logie (1995) suggested subdivision:
- visuo-cache (store)
- inner scribe for spatial relations
describe the episodic buffer
- Baddeley (2000)= added this as a more general store
- buffer extra storage system but with limited capacity of 4 chunks -> integrates info from all other areas
2 tasks
outline Baddeley & Hitch’s (1976) experiment
Gave ppts two tasks to perform simultaneously
1. True or false task occupied the Central Executive as it tested verbal reasoning
ALONG WITH EITHER:
- asked to say ‘the the the’ (involves the articulatory loop)
- asked to say random digits ( involves both the central executive and the articulatory loop)
up to 5. slide 26
what were the results from Baddeley & Hitch’s (1976) study?
- the true or false task was slower when given the 2nd task involving both the central executive and articulatory loop
CONCLUSION: completing two tasks that involve the same component causes difficulty
describe the word length effect
the phonological loop holds the amount of info that you can say in 1.5-2.0 secs (Baddeley et al 1975) -> harder to remember a list of long words compared to shorter words -> inhibits rehearsal
BUT..
word effect disappears when tied up with a articulatory suppression task (e.g.’the,the, the’) = repetitive task means u can’t rehearse the shorter words.
what is interference?
one memory disturbs the ability to recall another. This might result in forgetting or distorting one or the othet or both. MORE likely to happen if memories are similar
what are the two different types of interference?
proactive and retroactive
define proactive interference
previously learnt info interferes with the new info you are trying to store
- a new memory interferes with older ones
e.g, learning french and spanish simultaneously
which researcher looked into which words were recalled better? and the result?
Mcgeoch and Mcdonald (1931)- -more similar the interference is to the words being remembered, the worst the recall is
U&P (1960)
which researcher investigated whether old learning interfered with new? and describe the procedure
Underwood & Postman (1960)
Procedure:
- ppts divided into 2 groups
- Group A were asked to learn a list of word pairs (e.g. cat-free) then a second list of word pairs where the second word was not similiar (e.g. cat-glass)
- Group B were only asked to recall the first list of word pairs only
- Both groups were asked to recall the first list
what were the results of U&P’s (1960) study?
Results:
- Group B recall of the first list was more accurate than the recall of Group A.
Conclusion:
- this suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with ppt’s ability to recall the list (example of retroactive interference)
B&H (1977)
name and describe a real-life study of word recall
Baddeley & Hitch (1977)
- rugby players were asked to recall names of teams recently played
- some of the interviewees had sustained an injury so missed a few games
Results:
- recall for the last game was equally good whether the game was played some time ago or last week
- this shows that incorrect recall was not down to decay but was realted to the number of intervening games