Memory

Question 1

What is encoding?

Answer 1

Changing information so that it can be stored in the brain

Question 2

What is visual encoding?

Answer 2

How something looks e.g ‘seeing’ your house in your mind and counting the number of windows

Question 3

What is acoustic encoding?

Answer 3

How something sounds.
For example, you can hear the words and music if you think about your favourite song in your head.

Question 4

What is semantic encoding?

Answer 4

The meaning of something.
For example, if you know what an elephant is and can use ‘elephant’ in a sentence, you are encoding the word by its meaning

Question 5

What is tactile encoding?

Answer 5

Tactile encoding is memory of what things feel like to touch and olfactory encoding is memory for smells.

Question 6

What is storage?

Answer 6

Holding information in your memory so it can be retrieved at a later point in time

Question 7

What is retrieval?

Answer 7

The process of accessing information that has been stored in your brain and being able to use it.

Question 8

What are the different types of retrieval?

Answer 8

There are three different types of retrieval:

Recognition relates to identifying something previously learned from a number of options.

Cued recall relates to being given a clue to help you remember.

Free recall is when you remember something without any clue.

Question 9

What was the aim of Baddeley’s study of encoding?

Answer 9

Baddeley aimed to see if there was a difference in the type of encoding used in short-term (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Question 10

What was Baddeley’s study of encoding method?

Answer 10

Four groups were given 12 sets of five words to remember.
Group A had similar sounding words, Group B had dissimilar sounding words, Group C had words with similar meanings, Group D had words with dissimilar meanings.
Groups A and B were asked to recall their words immediately (testing STM) whilst Groups C and D were asked to recall their words after 20 minutes (testing LTM).

Question 11

What were the results of Baddeley’s study of encoding?

Answer 11

Group A recalled fewer words than Group B. Group C recalled fewer words than Group D.
Words with similar sounds were more poorly recalled than words with different sounds in STM.
Words with similar meanings were more poorly recalled than words with different meanings in LTM.

Question 12

What is the conclusion of Baddeley’s study of encoding?

Answer 12

STM is encoded by sound and LTM by meaning

Question 13

What are three evaluation points for Baddeley’s study of encoding?

Answer 13

A strength of this study is that extraneous variables were controlled well.
For example, hearing was controlled by giving participants a hearing test.
Therefore we can be more certain that the type of words used was the factor that affected participants’ recall.

A weakness is that encoding in STM does not always involve sound.
Other studies (e.g. Brandimonte et al.) have found that if pictures are used rather than words then visual encoding is used.
This suggests that information does not just go into our STM in an acoustic form.

A weakness is that LTM may not have been tested in the study.
Waiting 20 minutes before recall doesn’t mean the words are in the LTM.
This may mean that the conclusion that LTM encodes acoustically lacks validity.

Question 14

What is long term memory?

Answer 14

These are memories that last a week, month, year or even a lifetime. There are three types of LTM.

Question 15

What is episodic memory?

Answer 15

Memory for events from your life and what you have done.
For example, your birthday party when you were 10

Question 16

What is semantic memory?

Answer 16

Memory about what things mean (your own encyclopaedia).
For example, knowing that the capital of France is Paris.

Question 17

What is procedural memory?

Answer 17

Memory of how to do things. We struggle to consciously explain how to perform these skills but can still do them anyway.
For example, driving a car.

Question 18

What are declarative and non-declarative?

Answer 18

Episodic/semantic memories are called declarative memories because they need conscious recall.
Procedural memory doesn’t need conscious recall so is called non-declarative

Question 19

What are the evaluation points of long-term memory research?

Answer 19

A strength of this research is that brain scans show that different types of LTM relate to different brain locations

This research is supported by case studies of amnesic patients.

A weakness is that distinctive types of LTM are difficult to separate.

Question 20

What is the multi-store model?

Answer 20

It states that there are three memory stores and each has different encoding, capacity and duration. Information moves between these stores through either attention or rehearsal

Question 21

What is sensory memory?

Answer 21

Holds information from the senses for a short time and has a large capacity. Paying attention to information transfers it to the STM.

Question 22

What is short term memory?

Answer 22

Temporary memory store with a limited capacity of between five and nine items or chunks of information, lasting up to 30 seconds.

Question 23

What is the role of rehearsal?

Answer 23

Verbal repetition (rehearsal) keeps information in STM.
If information is rehearsed for long enough it is transferred into LTM

Question 24

What is long-term memory?

Answer 24

Encoded by meaning, this is a permanent memory store with an unlimited capacity and information can be stored up to a lifetime

Question 25

What are the evaluations of the multi store model?

Answer 25

A strength is that there is support for the existence of different memory stores.
Baddeley’s study of encoding shows that STM and LTM encode information differently.
This shows the two types of memory have qualitative differences.

A weakness is the model is too simple as it suggests we only have one STM and one LTM.
Research shows STM is divided into visual and acoustic stores, and LTM into episodic, semantic and procedural memory.
So, memory is more complex than the model proposes.

A weakness is that research that supports it used artificial materials.
For example, word lists or nonsense syllables.
This means that the results would not illustrate all the different ways we use memory.

Question 26

What is the primary and recency effect?

Answer 26

Words at the beginning of a list are remembered more as they have been rehearsed and have become long-term memories.
Words at the end of a list are remembered more as they have been heard recently so are in short-term memory.

Question 27

What is the aim of Murdock’s serial position curve study?

Answer 27

Murdock set out to see if memory of words was affected by where words are located in the list

Question 28

What was the method of Murdock’s study?

Answer 28

Words from the 4,000 most common words in English were chosen randomly.
Participants listened to 20 word lists with 10 to 40 words on them.
They recalled the words after each list.

Question 29

What were the results of Murdock’s study?

Answer 29

Recall was related to the position of the word in the list.
Murdock found higher recall for the first few words (primacy effect) and the last words (recency effect) in the list, compared to recall of the words in the middle of the list.

Question 30

What was the conclusion of Murdock’s study?

Answer 30

This shows the serial position effect, i.e. the position of a word determines the likelihood of recall.
These results support the MSM as the first few words were rehearsed, so are in LTM, and the last few words are in STM.

Question 31

What is the evaluation of Murdock’s study?

Answer 31

A strength of the study relates to it being carried out in laboratory conditions.
Things like familiarity of the words could be controlled.
Therefore, we can be more certain that it was the position of the words that affected recall.

A weakness of the study is that the task was artificial.
Lists of words were used which relates to just one type of memory.
Therefore, the results don’t relate to how we use our memories in other ways, such as for personal events.

A strength is that research with amnesiacs supports the conclusions of the study.
Carlesimo et al. found that some amnesiacs can’t store long-term memories and do not show a primacy effect but do show a recency effect.
This shows that the primacy effect is related to long-term memory.

Question 32

What was the aim of Bartlett’s war of the ghosts study?

Answer 32

Bartlett investigated how memory is reconstructed when people are asked to recall an unfamiliar story – in particular a story from a different culture.

Question 33

What is the method of Bartlett’s study?

Answer 33

Participants were shown the War of the Ghosts story.
They recalled it after 15 minutes, then after weeks, months and years.
Bartlett recorded the recall

Question 34

What were the results of Bartletts study?

Answer 34

Participants changed the story.
They left out information that they were less familiar with. The story was shortened and phrases were changed to those used in the participants’ own culture.

Question 35

What is the conclusion of Bartlett’s study?

Answer 35

The study shows that we use our knowledge of social situations to reconstruct memory, as details of the story were invented to improve meaning

Question 36

What are the evaluation points of Bartlett’s study?

Answer 36

One weakness relates to a lack of control.
For example, participants were not told that accurate recall was important. Other studies found recall was better when participants were told this.
This suggests that recall is more accurate than Bartlett concluded.

Bartlett’s own beliefs may have affected the results.
He analysed the recollections himself. His belief that recall would be affected by cultural expectations may have biased the interpretation of the results.
Therefore, we cannot fully trust the conclusion

A weakness is that the story was unusual.
Recall of the story may not reflect everyday memory processes as these would not be affected by cultural expectations.
Therefore, this study tells us little about everyday memory.

Question 37

What is the theory of reconstructive memory?

Answer 37

The War of the Ghosts study demonstrated that memory is an active process. People remember overall meaning of events and, when retrieving information, they rebuild.

Question 38

Is memory accurate?

Answer 38

No

We do not have exact recall.
Elements are missing and memories are not an accurate representation of what happened.

Question 39

What is reconstruction?

Answer 39

We record small pieces of information in long-term memory.
During recall we recombine them to tell the whole story. Each time, the elements are combined slightly differently

Question 40

How do social and cultural influences affect memory?

Answer 40

The way that information is stored and recalled is affected by social and cultural expectations, like ‘going fishing’ rather than ‘hunting seals’

Question 41

What is effort after meaning?

Answer 41

We focus on the meaning of events and make an effort to understand the meaning to make sense of the parts of the story.

Question 42

What are the evaluation points of reconstructive memory?

Answer 42

A strength of the research is that it reflects how we use memory in our everyday lives.
The research doesn’t use word lists or nonsense syllables but instead uses a story.
This makes the results more relevant to real-life memory processes.

A weakness is that not all memories are reconstructed.
For example, in the study participants often recalled ‘something black came out of his mouth’ because it was quite a distinctive phrase.
This shows that some memories are accurate

A strength is that reconstructive memory explains problems with eyewitness testimony (EWT).
Bartlett’s research showed memory is affected by expectations so shows that people do not always recall accurately.
Therefore, EWT is no longer solely relied on as evidence in criminal investigations

Question 43

What is interference?

Answer 43

If two memories compete with each other, one memory may prevent us from accessing the other memory

Question 44

What is the aim of McGeoch and McDonald’s study of interference?

Answer 44

McGeoch and McDonald aimed to see whether the accuracy of recalling a list of words would be affected by a competing set of words.

Question 45

What was the method of McGeoch and McDonalds study?

Answer 45

Participants learned a list of ten words and then were shown a new list.
There were five different new lists: words with the same meanings as the first list, words with opposite meanings, unrelated words, nonsense syllables, three-digit numbers, or no new list was given.

Question 46

What were the results of McGeoch and McDonald’s study?

Answer 46

When participants recalled the initial list of words, their memory was affected by the new list.
The effect was strongest when the new list had words with similar meanings to those in the first list.

Question 47

What were the conclusions of McGeoch and McDonald’s study?

Answer 47

This shows that interference from a second set of information reduces the accuracy of memory.
Interference is strongest when the two sets of information are similar.

Question 48

What are the evaluation points of McGeoch and McDonald’s study?

Answer 48

A strength of the study was that there was high control.
Techniques like counterbalancing were used to reduce the impact that learning the lists in the same order would have on the results.
This means that the study was less biased.

A weakness of the study is that it does not reflect real-life memory activity.
We don’t often have to remember lists of words or very similar things.
This means that the conclusion about the effect of interference is limited because of its artificiality.

A weakness with interference is that it may not be an explanation of forgetting.
It may be that information is not forgotten but just cannot be accessed because an appropriate cue has not been given (Tulving and Psotka).
Therefore interference doesn’t cause inaccurate memories.

Question 49

What is context in memory?

Answer 49

Other things that are present at the time of learning act as a cue for recall. This improves the accuracy of memory.

Question 50

What was the aim of Godden and Baddeley’s context study?

Answer 50

Godden and Baddeley aimed to see if context improved recall. They used ‘underwater’ (wet) and ‘on the beach’ (dry) as the two contexts.

Question 51

What was the method of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 51

Divers listened to and recalled words in the same or different settings:
Same context: dry/dry, wet/wet.
Different context: wet/dry, dry/wet.

Question 52

What were the results of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 52

Recall was highest in the two matching conditions (dry/dry or wet/wet). When a person is in the same environment for learning and recall, their memories were more accurate.

Question 53

What was the conclusion of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 53

Context of learning acts as a trigger or cue when trying to remember information, and thus improves the accuracy of memory.

Question 54

What are the evaluation points of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 54

A weakness relates to the research using lists of words.
Research with more complex materials in real life produced better recall.
This suggests that context does not affect memory as much as Baddeley suggested.

A weakness is that the study was unrealistic as participants recalled the words almost immediately.
This does not relate to scenarios like exams where the gap between learning and recall is longer.
Therefore research only tells us about short-term recall.

A weakness with context is that it only acts as a cue for recall if the context at the time of learning and recall are very similar.
This rarely happens in real-world situations (Smith).
Therefore, context only improves memory recall in limited situations

Question 55

What are false memories?

Answer 55

A memory for something that did not happen but a person thinks it is a true memory.

Question 56

What was the aim of Loftus and Pickrell’s false memory study?

Answer 56

Loftus and Pickrell aimed to see if false memories could be created in participants through suggestion.

Question 57

What was the method of Loftus and Pickrell’s study?

Answer 57

Participants were given four stories about childhood events of which three were true and one false (getting lost in a shopping mall was the false one).
The story was created with the help of a relative so that it sounded realistic.
Participants read each story and wrote what they remembered.

Question 58

What were the results of Loftus and Pickrell’s study?

Answer 58

68% of the true episodes were remembered.
Six out of 24 (25%) of participants recalled the false story fully or partially. The rest had no memory of it.

Question 59

What are the evaluation points of Loftus and Pickrell’s study?

Answer 59

An issue is that the false memory event is not of the same traumatic kind that could be found in therapy.
Harmless events might be implanted easily but traumatic events may not.
Therefore, conclusions that can be drawn about false memories are limited.

The research raises ethical concerns.
Even though participants were debriefed, they may be left with implanted false memories which lingered after the study was finished.
Therefore the study may have caused psychological harm, an ethical issue.

A strength is that this research has implications for eyewitness testimony (EWT).
The results suggest that police questioning could accidentally implant false memories.
Therefore this research has been beneficial in explaining why EWT might be unreliable.