Memory Flashcards
Whats coding
The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.
What’s 1) capacity and 2) duration
1) the amount of info that can be held in a memory store
2) the length of time information can be held in memory
What’s short term memory and studies
Limited capacity store
Coded - acoustically (sounds) Bradley
Capacity - 5 to 9 items (7+-2 jacobs digit span)
Duration - 18 to 30 seconds Peterson of peterson
What’s long term memory and studies
Permanent memory store
Coding- semantic (meaning) bradley
Capacity - unlimited (wagenaar)
Duration - unlimited (barick)
Coding research
Beddeley gave lists of words to four groups of ps to remember
Group 1 : acoustically similar
Group 2: acoustically different
Group 3: semantically similar
Group 4: semantically different
Short term memory - when asked to recall words straight away, Group 1 had the worst recall. This suggests that information is encoded acoustically in STM. This is because STM gets confused with words acoustically similar and muddles them up, resulting in fewer being remembered
Long term memory - when asked to recall words after 20 minutes, Group 3 had the words recall this suggests info is encoded semantically in LTM, the LTM gets confused by similar meanings the same waythe STM gets confused by similar sounds
Evaluation on coding baddeley
Research often conducted in controlled laboratory conditions. Eg baddeley study. Strength as we can be confident that coding in STM is acoustic and semantic in LTM . High internal validity
Negative - not clear how long we need to wait to test for LTM. Weakness as perhaps we should’ve waited longer than this amount of time to measure long term memory as there are much longer gaps between learning and recall in real life, is coding in ltm really semantic?
Capacity research a01 for short term memory
Short term memory- Joseph Jackson developed a technique to measure digit span.
Procedure- researcher read out 4 digits p tried to recall numbers outloudin order. The number of digits increase until they stop getting it right
Findings - the mean digit span was 9.3 items. This decreased to 7.3 when letters were used instead of numbers
Miller suggested that capacity is about 7+-2 but noted that people expand capacity by chunking.
Information kept in stm is in fragile state, will dissappear if not rehearsed. Maintainance rehearsal occurs when we repea5
Ao1 capacity long term memory
Wagenaar.
Created diary of 2400 events over 6 years and tested himself on recall of events rather than dates. He found he had excellent recall, suggesting the capacity of ltm is extremely large
Evaluation of short term memory’s CAPACITY research a03
The effects of age are acknowledged. Jacob tested individuals of ranging ages and found that digit span increases with age as memory becomes more complex. This is a strength as the estimate of the capacity of Stm accounts for people of all ages.
(Individual differences)
Evaluation of long term memory capacity a03
Results are often based on case studies. For eg, wagenaar used hid own memories to measure his long term memory. Weakness as memories not representative of general population, subjective and hard to app,y to others
Duration research stm A01
Procedure- peterson and peterson
24 participants took part in 8 trials. Student given triagram and 3 digit num to remember, and count backwards from it to prevent rehearsal. Percentage correct decreased as retention interval increased
Conclusion- If rehearsal prevented- stm has limited duration
Duration for ltm research a01
BAHRIK Studied 392 ps from America who were aged between 17 and 74. Recall was tested 2 ways
Photo recognition test - name as may of individuals as you can from 50 yearbook photos
Free recall test- recall all the names from the individuals in the yearbook without any cues,
Found that photo recognition was 90% accurate after 15 years and 70% accurate after 48 years
A03 - long term memory fo DURATION and short term memory
Used meaningful memories as stimuli. Bahrik asked to recall yearbook photos of people they saw and went to school with everyday. This is astrengj as everyday memories where presented, so high external validity and can be generalised to every day memories
Short term memory
One WEAKNESS is that it makes uses of artifical stimuli. For eg, peterson and peterson asked participants to remember nonsense triagrams
Weakness as lacked external validity as it didn’t represent real life memory activities
What’s the multi store model of memory
Atkinson and shiffrins model was the first cognitive explanation of memory. Argues that memory’s made up of 3 seprate unitary stores. Sensory register, stm, and ltm
For info to be retained as memory, the process of attention and rehearsal are required
A03 evaluati9n for multi store model of memory
Strength is that its well supported by a range of research evidence
Eg glazner and cunitz provide clear support for existence of stm and ltm as distinct memory stores.
Procedure - ps heard list of words and Had to recall immediately.
Findings.]- participants had good recall for part of the list (primary affect) and th3 last part of the list(recency affect) words in the middle of the list had poorest revall
Supports msm as it suggests stm and ltm are separate memory stores.
Weakness is that its too simplistic. States that stm is a unitary store, in other words only one type of short term memory. However, evidence from people suffering from amnesia show that this can’t be true. Shallice and Warrington studied patient with amnesia known as kf. Memory for verbal material was poor but visual was unaffected. Suggests that there may be more than one store for stm . This is a serious limitation of msm as its another finding that can’t be explained by the model
