Memory

Question 1

What is coding?

Answer 1

Coding refers to the format or type of information which is stored in any memory stores. This was researched by Baddely in 1966

Question 2

Evidence for coding of STM and LTM

Answer 2

Baddely 1966

Baddely researched into the coding of the LTM and STM
Type of experiment: laboratory experiment, volunteer sampling

Procedure: Participants were given a list of 10 words and placed into groups of 4, List ABCD.

Group 1: List A
Acoustically similar words (sound the same) e.g cap map lap
Group 2: List B
Acoustically dissimilar words ( sound different) e.g pen hot big
Group 3: List C
Semantically similar words (related meaning) e.g large huge big
Group 4: List D
Semantically dissimilar words (unrelated meaning) e.g good late cat

Conditions:
1: Recall words immediately (STM)
2: Recall words after 20 mins (LTM)

Findings and conclusions:
Participants in condition 1 had troubles recalling accoustially similar words, thus the STM must rely on acoustic coding
Participants in condition 2 had troubles recalling semantically similar words, thus the LTM must rely on semantic coding.

Question 3

What is capacity?

Answer 3

Capacity refers to the volume of data which is able to be retained in a memory store at once. This was researched by Miller through the technique of chunking, which suggests that putting items into groups of 7 allows improved recall.

Question 4

Theory of chunking

Answer 4

Miller 1956 published famous article, ‘The magical number seven plus or minus two’ which reviews research into STM
Miller believed we can hold 7+/-2 items in our STM and our STM stores ‘chunks’ of information rather than individual numbers or letters
- Explains why we are able to remember phone numbers which we chunk into three e.g 0744 .. 663 ..63 ..98

Question 5

What is duration?

Answer 5

Duration refers to the amount of time that information can be stored in a memory store. This was researched by Peterson (1959) who found that the STM had a duration of 18-30 seconds and Bahrick et al (1975) who found that the LTM has an unlimited duration.

Question 6

Evidence for duration of STM

Answer 6

Peterson and Peterson 1959
Conditions:
Laboratory experiment
24 psychology student ppts

Procedure:
Asked to recall meaningless trigrams e.g TGH, CLS.
After trigrams were heard, ppts weren’t expecting asked to count backwards in 3/4 from a random digit until they saw a red light appear. This was to prevent rehearsal.

Findings:
The longer each ppt has to count backwards, the worse accurate recall of the trigram was.
After 3 seconds. 80% trigrams were recalled correctly
After 6 seconds, 50%
After 18 seconds, less than 10%

Conclusion:
STM has limited duration of around 18 seconds when rehearsal is prevented, this information is forgotten or decayed
This supports the MSM as it shows duration of STM. If a person is not able to undergo the rehearsal loop, info is not transferred to the LTM.

Question 7

Evidence for duration of LTM

Answer 7

Bahrick et al 1975

392 participants aged 17-74
Condition 1) Free recall test - list names of all old school friends they could remember
Condition 2) Photo recognition test- 50 pictures, match name and face

Findings:
Participants that were tested within 15 years of graduation had a 90% accurate recall
Participants that were tested after 45 years of graduation had accuracy of 80% verbal and 70 visual.
Free recall was less accurate than photo recognition test - 15 years was 60% and 48 years was 30%

Question 8

Who made the Multi store model of memory

Answer 8

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Question 9

What is the process of the MSM?

Answer 9

The brain obtains sensory information from the environmental stimuli. As the stimuli enters the sensory register, due to its modality specific encoding, it is categorised into either iconic (visual), echoic (auditory) or other stores for taste etc. The sensory register has a duration of 250 milliseconds, however, has a large capacity as it retains all information transferred to other stores. If attention is paid to the information, it is transmitted into the STM.
The STM has a capacity of 7+/-2 items, but can be improved by Miller’s chunking technique. It has a limited duration of 18-30 seconds as researched by Peterson (1959), and a coding of acoustic information, in the form of sound/spoken words. Through prolonged maintenance rehearsal/ elaborative rehearsal, the information can be transferred into the LTM. If not, it can be forgotten or decayed. The LTM has an unlimited capacity and duration as researched by Bahrick et al (1975). Information in the LTM is coded semantically, in the form of meanings. Through retrieval, this data can be sent to the STM, back into the maintenance rehearsal loop.

Question 10

Baddely 1966 A03

Answer 10

Generalisability :
- Large sample of 72 allowing any anomalies to be cancelled out e.g ppts with really good or bad memory
- Volunteer sampling- no experimenter bias, but volunteers may be people with good memory or who enjoy taking part of memory tests meaning it it unrepresentative

Reliability :
- Standardised procedures allows reliability and replicability, anybody can replicate as no advanced equipment was used and same word list can be used allowing comparisons of results
– Baddely removed the ‘read aloud’ lists and instead made all ppts read off a slide for 3 mins, reducing risk of confounding variables ,as some ppts had bad hearing. This improves reliability.

Application:
- This study was developed further by other cognitive psychologists, investigating LTM in greater depth, allowing the WMM to be formed by Baddely and Hitch.

Validity:
- Baddely improved internal validity by asking ppts to recall word order instead of free recall. This reduced the risk of word difficulty/unfamilarity in some lists, or some words easier to recall because ppts had an association with them
-Low ecological validity as recalling a word list is artificial and not generalisable to everyday real life situations. However Baddely done a 5th ‘forgetting’ trial which was a surprise that ppts weren’t expecting. This is similar to real life as we may be asked to recall information unexpectedly.

Ethics:
No significant ethical issues

Question 11

Bahrick et al 1975 A03

Answer 11

Generalisability:
- Study only tells us about the duration of LTM for high school memories, not the duration of LTM in general, reducing generalisability of findings to entire LTM duration
-Bahrick’s research used a sample of 392 American university graduates, lacking population validity. Psychologists are unable to generalise the results of Bahrick’s research to other populations, e.g students from the UK or Europe. As a result, we are unable to conclude whether other populations would demonstrate the same recall ability.

Reliability:
- Further research supports conclusion that LTM has a long duration. Shepard 1967 showed ppts 612 memorable pictures, one at a time. An hour later they were shown some of these pictures in a set of others and demonstrated almost perfect recognition. 4 months later they were still able to recognise 50% of the photographs. Study has high reliability
- Poor control over experiment thus low reliability . It was not recorded whether the participants were still in contact with anyone from school before they were tested. May have been a recent school reunion or some students may still be in contact, allowing ppts to have higher recall accuracy.

Application:
- Findings could influence eyewitness testimonies. As photo recognition was more accurate, it may be used more often instead of free recall which only had 60%-30% accurate recall. This could be crucial in forensic investigations
Validity:
- Low population validity^
- High ecological validity as it examines real world situations, recognition of names and faces
- Internal validity may have not been controlled, e.g emotional significance, ppts may have has an association with particular students leading to more accurate recall.

Ethics:
- No significant ethical issues, however could argue lack of protection from harm. Ppts may have has negative relationships with some students which may cause them psychological distress after photo recognition test, but no evidence to suggest this.
- Non invasive methods were used, ethical.

Question 12

Peterson & Peterson 1959 A03

Answer 12

Generalisability:
Only psychology students were used. May not be generalisable to all people as ppts may have had a familiarity or interest in the study, allowing them to perform better than the general population. Thus results can’t be applied to other educational backgrounds, age groups etc.
The sample size of 24 is small and not representative of the entire population.
Reliability:
Standardised procedures, good control. Researchers used fixed timings for ppts to count down from allowing all ppts to experience the same process and improves replicability.
As it was a lab study, noise and other factors which may have has an influence on memory were eliminated. Improving reliability

Application:
Study highlights the importance of rehearsal for information to be retained. This can be applied to teaching strategies, teachers may use repetition tasks, active recall etc to improve students memory of the information.
Can support students as more rehearsal incorporated in revision techniques can lead to higher accurate recall, and thus better exam performance.

Validity:
Experimental method lacks mundane realism as they used a very artifice stimuli. People are not asked to recall trigrams in real life. Meaning findings are not generalisable to everyday uses of STM
Lack of external validity- due to sample of ppts used

Ethics:
No significant ethical issues.

Question 13

Evidence for capacity of STM

Answer 13

Jacobs 1887
Conditions:
443 female students aged 8-19

Procedure:
Used a digital span test
Ppts asked to recall a list of numbers or letters in the same order
Number of items gradually increased until ppts could no longer recall the list

Findings:
Jacob’s found that ppts has an average span of 7.3 letters and 9.3 numbers, supporting the MSM theory and Millers theory of chunking.

Question 14

Jacobs 1887 A03

Answer 14

Generalisability:
Only used female students aged 8-19. Not generalisable to all ages or genders.
Large sample size of 442 allows greater generalisability to wider population

Reliability:
Study used standardised procedures and high control. Extraneous variable may have been pace at which the list was read, slower pace allows better recall, faster pace allows worse recall. This was controlled as Jacob’s used a metronome to ensure all lists were read at the same pace. Improving reliability of results.
Supported by other researchers, such as miller who wrote the article suggesting capacity of the STM is 7+/-2 items.

Application:
Can be applied to teaching strategies, use of 7+/-1 items of new information to avoid cognitive overload ensuring students obtain improved recall of information
Digital span test which was developed by Jacob’s study is used in cognitive assessments to diagnose conditions such as Alzheimer, attention deficit disorders or brain injuries as these impair the ability to retain information in the STM.

Validity:
Low in ecological validity due to its artificial nature. Experiment pal method is not representative of everyday tasks requiring STM. Limiting value in our knowledge of STM capacity.

Ethics:
No significant ethical issues

Question 15

Miller 1956 theory A03

Answer 15

• Supported by psychological research, Jabobs 1887 found that ppts recalled an average span of 7.3 and 9.3 items supporting Millers notion of 7+/-2.
  However this research it articfial and lacks ecological validity, thus may not have huge support to Millers theory.

-Provides clear, quantifiable framework for understanding STM capacity. This allows consistent measurements of STM memory across various studies, making it widely applicable to education, psychology and medical fields.

• Oversimplification of STM. Challenged by Cowan (2001) who proposed the idea that
  capacity is closer to 4 items than 7+/-2 and can vary depending on attention focus, nature of the information and rehearsal strategies, which Miller did not account for

-

Question 16

What is the serial position effect and who researched it?

Answer 16

The serial position effect is the tendency to remember the first and last items in a series more accurately than the middle.
This was researched by Glanzer and Cuntiz in 1966

Question 17

Primary effect meaning

Answer 17

Primary effect is the tendency to recall items at the beginning of a series

Question 18

Recency effect meaning

Answer 18

The tendency to recall items at the end of a series

Question 19

Evidence into the serial position effect: Evidence for MSM?

Answer 19

Glanzer and Cuntiz 1966
Conditions:
Army enlisted men
Asked to free recall 20-word list of common nouns e.g cat ball hat, in Exp 1 and 15-word list in Exp 2
Two types of experiments: 1) Immediate recall & 2) Delayed recall

Experiment 1: Immediate recall
Presentation rate and repetition of words were manipulated to examine effects on LTM and primary effect

After each list, ppts had 2 minutes to write down words in any order

Experiment 2:
The delay between the end of the list and recall was manipulated to examine effects on STM and the recency effect. During the delay ppts counted out loud

Ppts shown 15-word list. Each word shown for 1 second with 2 seconds between words. After the last word, a number from 0-9 was shown. If the number was 0, ppts immediately recalled words. If it was another number ppts had to count for either 10/30 seconds before recalling.

Results:
Primary effect exp 1:
Ppts were able to remember the first words of a list better than the middle. When words were shown for a longer time, recall was better. This is because the initial words were stored in their LTM.
Recency effect exp 2:
Ppts were able to remember the words at the end of the list compared to the middle. However, recall was worse when ppts had to count for 10/30 secs. Counting for 30 seconds eliminated the recency effect completely. Counting had little effect on the recall of first or middle words.

Conclusions:
Dual storage mechanisms: Study provides evidence for the involvement of both LTM and STM in free recall tasks and evidence that they are both separate stores.
Primary effect is attributed to LTM, supported by exp 1 which showed that increasing presentation rate, which affects LTM, improved recall of earlier words.
The recency effect is attributed to STM, supported by exp 2 which showed that introducing a delay with a distracting task, counting, diminished or eliminated the recency effect, suggesting it was kept in the STM.
Implications for memory strategies:
Findings suggest that to improve memory a person should repeat or spend more time on the first words to facilitate LTM. And if there is a delay between learning and recall, rehearse the items during the delay to prevent decay from STM.

Question 20

A03 Glanzer and Cuntiz 1966

Answer 20

Generalisability:
The study’s use of a homogeneous sample, army-listed men, makes the findings limits its generalisability to all demographics e.g young women
Study used common nouns which may not reflect memory tasks in real-life situations.

Reliability:
Lab conditions and standardised procedures were used such as consistent word list presentations and timings ensure findings were reliable and cause-and-effect relationships could be found.

Application:
Can be applied in both educational and professional settings. Teachers can structure lessons to emphasise key info at the start and end of lessons to improve memory retention. Lawyers can schedule appearances of witnesses at the end or beginning of court testimonies
However, due to the method of using word lists, applications to more complex real-life situations are limited.

Validity:
Internal validity is high due to the tightly controlled experimental design
Ecological validity is low as the use of words lists is an artificial task and does not reflect how memory works in everyday situations.

Ethics:
No significant ethical concerns.

Question 21

What is implicit/ non-declarative memory?

Answer 21

Implicit/ non-declarative memories are usually unconsciously retrieved and not verbally articulated e.g procedural memory

Question 22

What is explicit/ declarative memory?

Answer 22

Explicit/ declarative memories are usually consciously retrieved and can be verbally articulated e.g episodic and semantic

Question 23

What are the three types of LTM?

Answer 23

Episodic memory- memories that are personal experiences and events e.g. your breakfast or birthday. These are declarative and time-stamped.

Semantic memory- memories of the world and general knowledge, such as facts and definitions. These are declarative and not time-stamped.

Procedural memory- memories of learned skills and habits e.g. riding a bike or playing the piano. These are non-declarative and not time-stamped

Question 24

Tulving 1972

Answer 24

Theory:
Proposed the theory that LTM consists of three distinct stores thus challenging the MSM model which suggests LTM is a single store.
Introduced the idea of semantic and episodic in 1972 then later work in 1974 refined these ideas
Distinguished between episodic and semantic.
Suggested that episodic is found in the hippocampus and semantic is found in the left temporal lobe.

A03:
Strengths:
Case study support. HM and Clive Wearing studies also suggest the idea that episodic and semantic memories are stored in different types of the brain
Weakness:
Lack of clarity regarding the interaction between each memory store. For instance, how procedural can be influenced by semantics. This limits the theory’s ability to fully capture the complexity of memory processing.

Question 25

Clive Wearing Case Study

Answer 25

Clive Wearing was a musician who suffered extensive brain damage due to a viral infection leading to anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories, and retrograde amnesia, the loss of previous memories.
Episodic memory- severely impaired, Clive could not recall personal events or form new memories, such as his wife.
Semantic memory- Remained largely intact, he could remember his knowledge of music and language.
Procedural memory- Preserved, Clive retained the ability to play the piano demonstrating that motor skills learned before brain damage remained unaffected.

A03:
Strengths:
Supports Tulving’s theory of three types of LTM by showing the disassociation of Clive’s episodic memory to his semantic and procedural. Despite his episodic being impaired, he maintained the ability to play the piano and retain semantic knowledge.

Weakness:
Unique case. Findings were based solely on Clive who has very severe and specific brain damage. Not representative of all memory disorders, limiting generalisability to broader population.

Question 26

Henry Molaison (HM) Case Study

Answer 26

HM underwent bilateral mesial temporal lobe resection to treat severe epilepsy, which involved removing parts of his hippocampus.
This surgery resulted in anterograde amnesia and partial retrograde amnesia
Episodic memory- severely impaired, unable to form new episodic memories
Semantic memory- Largely intact, he was able to recall facts
Procedural memory- Unaffected, he was able to learn new motor skills such as learning to draw in a mirror, even though he couldn’t remember learning the task
HM.

A03:
Strengths:
Provides evidence that the hippocampus is crucial in forming episodic memories while semantic and procedural are stored elsewhere
Supports Tulving’s idea of separate LTM stores.

Weakness:
Findings based on a single individual, not generalisable to general population due to his specific brain damage.

Question 27

Cohen and Squire 1980

Answer 27

Proposed a simplified model of LTM with only declarative and non-declarative memory.
Distinguished both suggesting declarative are recalled consciously, episodic and semantic. Whilst non-declarative is recalled unconsciously, procedural.

A03:
Strength:
Evidence for two types of declarative memory. Supports Tulving’s theory by suggesting a distinction between declarative memory and procedural memory. Found that procedural relies on basal ganglia while the hippocampus plays a crucial role in episodic and semantic.

Weakness:
Oversimplification of complex memory processing. Suggest declarative and procedural stores are completely separate however there is some overlap. E.g. Playing a piano may also require some semantic memories such as the rules of a piano or how the piano works.

Question 28

A03 types of memory stores:

Answer 28

Generalisability:
Case studies provided detailed insights but are not generalisable to the general population due to their unique nature.

Reliability:
Case studies can not always be replicated or controlled in the same way as lab studies, meaning the reliability of findings cannot necessarily be tested by comparison of results. However, HM and Clive’s study found similar results of regions of the brain being responsible for different memories.

Application:
Understanding different types of LTM can be applied in clinical psychology, in the treatment and diagnosis of memory disorders. E.g Alzheimer’s disease often has a loss of episodic memory while semantics remain intact. Allows more targeted interventions and therapies, which can help improve quality of life for patients with mental disorders.

Validity:
Case studies have high internal validity due to detailed nature of research.
External validity is limited as findings do not apply to general population, such as memory processing in healthy individuals.

Ethics:
Psychological harm. Process of repeatedly testing and studying Clive and HM’s brains may have led to distress or emotional harm, especially if research exacerbated their confusion about their condition. Psychological well-being must be prioritised throughout the study to remain ethical.