Memory

Question 1

Define processing and input

Answer 1

The operations we perform on sensory information in the brain

The sensory information we receive from our enviornment

Question 2

Define storage and encoding

Answer 2

Storage= The retention of information in our memory system

Encoding= turning sensory information into a from that can be used and stored into our brain

Question 3

Describe the three ways of encoding information in our memory system

Answer 3

Acoustic- holding sound info

visual- holding images

semantic- holding the meaning of info

Question 4

Define output and retrieval

Answer 4

Output- the info we recall

retrieval- the recall of stored memory

Question 5

Describe the short and long term memory stores

Answer 5

Short term- around 18 seconds, 7 items of info, acoustically through repetition

long term- up to minutes or lifetime, potentially unlimited, largely semantic but also visual or acoustic

Question 6

Why do we forget things?

Answer 6

Displacement- When short term memory exceeds its capacity and new info pushes out older info

Interference- When new information overwrites older information

Decay- Memory trace is not used

Question 7

Describe the 2 types of amnesia

Answer 7

Retrograde- when a patient who has suffered brain injury cant remember info from before the injury

anterograde- inability to store any new long term memories after brain injury. short term memory works tho

Question 8

Who’s Henry Molaison?

Answer 8

He has bro retro and anterograde amnesia. He had a damaged hippocampus from brain surgery to treat epilepsy

Question 9

Describe Barlett’s (1932) theory on reconstructive memory

Answer 9

memories are not formed in an exact form like a computer, instead they are brief notes on what we experience. They are not an exact copy of events but an interpretation (active reconstruction) influenced by schemas

Question 10

What does active construction mean?

Answer 10

That memory is not an exact copy of what we experience, but an interpretation or reconstrution of events that are influenced by our scheme what we recall them.

Question 11

Define schema

Answer 11

A packet of knowledge about something that influences how we pe

Question 12

What are the 4 ways that schemas influence memory?

Answer 12

Omissions- We leave out, unfamiliar, unpleasant, or irrelevant info

Familiarization- we change unfamiliar data to align our schema

Transformations- details are changed to make them more familiar and rational

rationalizations- we add details to our recall to give reason for things that may have not fitted our schema

Question 13

Evaluate Bartletts (1932) theory of reconstructive memory

Answer 13

+real world application– policies now use cognitive interviews when questioning eyewitnessess

+ecologically valid– he tested patients using folk stories, which is a realistic use of memory

• subjective– he reviewed and interpreted all of the data himself

-unsceientifcic– he was more interested in the participants unique memories than using standardized proceedure

Question 14

Describe the 3 registers according to atkinson and shiffrin

Answer 14

sensory= receives all sensory information around us and holds onto it very breifly, moves on to short term memory if paid attention to. iconic, echoic, gustatory (taste), tactile, olfactory (smell).

short term= 15-30 seconds, modality free. when it is rehersed it gets transferred to long term memory

long term= indefinite, potentially limitless. semantic

Question 15

Evaluate Atkin son and shiffrins multi store model of memory (1968)

Answer 15

+ cases of amnesia where long but not short term memory is damaged suggests separate memory stores

+Ben murdock (1962) found the serial position effect

-overstating role of rehearsal. sometimes we remember things just because they are important to us

-there may be more types of long term memory. Clive Wearings memory of personal events were damaged, but he still remembered how to play the piano

Question 16

Describe the serial position effect

Answer 16

primacy= words at a beginning of the list have been rehearsed and transferred into long term memory

recency= words at the end of a list are still in short term memory

words in the middle have no time to be rehearsed into long term memory, and are displaced out of short term memory

Question 17

define serial production and repeated production

Answer 17

serial production= a technique where participants retell something to another participant to form a chain; this is how folk stories are passed down through cultures.

repeated production= a technique where participants are asked to recall something again and again

Question 18

what did Barlett (1932) find?

Answer 18

Repeated reproductions tended to follow a similar form.

participants tried to make sense of the odd story by adding details. eg. ‘something black came out of his mouth’ turned into ‘he foamed at the mouth’.

participants tended to leave out unfamiliar parts. eg, canoe became boat

Question 19

evaluate Barlett (1932) war of ghosts

Answer 19

+ ecological validity= remembering stories is a naturalistic everyday use of memory

+ reliable= he used the same proceedure, participants tended to omit or transform
the same details

-unscientific= qualitative, bartlett could have interpreted data in light of his own theory

-unscientic= he allowed participants to read the story at any pace, so lack of controll

Question 20

describe the procedure and results of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Answer 20

24 students were asked to repeat trigrams and immediately afterwards ask to backwards from a number in threes. they had to then recall the trigram in delays of increasing time repeated 48 times. then participants did the same but were given time to repeat the trigram before counting.

the longer each student had to count backwards, the less they were able to recall trigrams. the extra time given to repeat trigrams increased the frequency as they were able to consolidate the info a bit more.

info contained in short term memory fades rapidly and can only 10% be recalled after 18 seconds

Question 21

evaluate Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Answer 21

+ good controll= eliminated noise and other extraneous variables. used standardized proceedure to make sure patients had the same experience

+ practical applications= it shows us that verbal distractions should be avoided when trying to remember

+ controlled extraneous variables= using nonsense trigrams avoids personal relevance for some participants

-lacks mundane realism= dawg ain’t no one tryna remember trigrams in real life

Question 22

State one finding of Peterson and Peterson (1959).

Answer 22

Participants could recall less than 10% of the trigrams after a
15 second interval

Question 23

Describe the difference between the terms ‘reductionism’ and ‘holism

Answer 23

Reductionism is a way of explaining complex phenomenon in
terms of smaller units which make it up whereas holism is not
(1) because holism considers that the smaller units never add
up to the whole due to the relationship between the units (1)

Question 24

Bamboo saw a man dressed in blue enter a shop and commit a robbery.
When asked by the police later, Bamboo said the man was dressed in black.
Explain why Bamboo’s memory of the event could have changed.
You should refer to the Theory of Reconstructive Memory in your answer

Answer 24

• Reconstructive Memory Theory assumes recall is influenced by
  schemas and memory is malleable (1), so Bamboo may have
  people being dressed in black and not blue clothes as being
  robbers as part of his schema which is why his recall was
  altered (1).

Question 25

8 William was talking to his friend during class when the teacher was reading out a list of words for a Spanish test, so he did not write them down. William has just taken the test to recall the list of Spanish words and has performed poorly in the test. Explain, using the Multi-store Model of Memory, why William performed poorly in the Spanish test.

Answer 25

Multi-store model suggests that attention is required for an individual to move the information to the short-term store (1), but William did not pay attention to the words when the teacher was communicating them to the class so could not keep them, even temporarily (1).

Question 26

Identify the number of participants who took part in Bartlett’s (1932) repeated reproduction of a Native American story called ‘The War of the Ghosts’

Answer 26

20

Question 27

State two findings of Bartlett’s (1932) study using a repeated reproduction of a Native American story called ‘The War of the Ghosts’.

Answer 27

* Participants made transformations with the original text, such as changing ‘canoes’ to ‘boats’ (1). * The participants kept the order of events and main themes of the story the same in their reproduction as it was in the original story (1).

Question 28

Define what is meant by ‘retrieval’ as part of the process of memory.

Answer 28

* The process of recalling information that had previously been stored in the memory (1).

Question 29

Lara wanted to investigate different forms of revision with her Geography classes. Class 1 and class 2 were given a list of 12 capital cities to learn for a Geography test. Class 1 were given grouped capital cities with the same first letter. Class 2 were given ungrouped capital cities. Explain one reason for the higher performance of class 1 compared to class 2. You should refer to the Multi-store Model of Memory in your answer.

Answer 29

Multi-store model states capacity of the STM is limited so chunking the information would help remember it better (1) which is why class 1 have performed better since they have grouped the information about capital cities into manageable chunks (1).

Question 30

Lara wanted to investigate different forms of revision with her Geography classes. Class 1 and class 2 were given a list of 12 capital cities to learn for a Geography test. Class 1 were given grouped capital cities with the same first letter. Class 2 were given ungrouped capital cities. Explain one improvement that Lara could make to her investigation

Answer 30

Lara could have used more than just a single test with a single skill to increase generalisability of the findings (1) because using the revision techniques with numerical data as well as the words would mean she can make conclusions that are more applicable to different types of content (1).

Question 31

Define what is meant by ‘retrograde amnesia’

Answer 31

Retrograde amnesia is where a patient has difficulty recalling events prior to the onset of their condition (1).

Question 32

Ellis is told a new story by his grandfather about an elephant who decided to go walking one day. Ellis is told that the elephant played volleyball with a coconut with villagers, sang a song with lemurs who played guitars, and went on a treasure hunt for mangos with a giraffe. The elephant story went on for some time and there were lots of details in the story. Ellis wants to tell his father the story the next day. He is trying to remember all the parts to the story and the order of the events. Explain what is likely to happen with Ellis’s memory of the story. You should refer to Bartlett (1932) War of the Ghosts study in your answer

Answer 32

* Bartlett (1932) found that participants transformed elements of the War of the Ghosts story such as ‘canoes’ to ‘boats’ (1). This means Ellis may transform elements of the elephant story to make them more relevant to him such as the elephant having a treasure hunt for gold rather than mangos (1).

Question 33

Robin is at school and his class are doing ‘outdoor learning’ with some local rangers. Throughout the lesson one of the rangers points to the different types of trees and tells Robin the names of them. Robin is told to try and remember the names of the trees for a test. (a) Explain one way Robin could try and remember the names of the trees. You should refer to the Multi-store Model of Memory in your answer

Answer 33

Multi-store Model of Memory states that rehearsal of information is required to transfer it from the short-term memory to the long-term memory (1) so Robin could write down the names of the trees and say them out loud on regular occasions before his test (1).

Question 34

Explain two weaknesses of using the Multi-store Model of Memory to help Robin remember the names of the trees.

Answer 34

Weakness one * The theory states there is one STM store but the case study of K.F. showed there is more than one type of STM so may not help Robin remember of the names of the trees effectively (1) because K.F. had an impairment for verbal information but not for visual information so may mean Robin struggles as the names of the trees would need verbal memory which the theory cannot account for (1). Weakness two * The theory states there is one LTM store but case studies such as H.M. show more than one type of LTM so may not help Robin name the trees in the test (1) because H.M. could improve on procedural tasks but had no episodic memory of the task so Robin may struggle as the names of the trees would be declarative memory and not procedural which the theory cannot account for (1).

Question 35

Niamh wanted to see how music lyrics could most accurately be remembered. She asked one group of participants to watch the first music video that came on television and a second group of participants to listen to the first song that came on the radio. Niamh later asked participants to write down all the lyrics they could remember from the song they heard. She then calculated the average percentage of lyrics recalled accurately for each group. Explain two improvements that Niamh could have made to her study.

Answer 35

* Niamh could have pre-tested their memory ability before the study (1) so she could mean match them on their memory ability so she knows the mode of presentation is affecting what they can remember and not their prior memory ability (1). * Niamh could have made sure they all listened to the same song (1) so each participant would have had the same number and speed of lyrics to remember so she knows it is the mode of presentation affecting their performance and not the song choice (1).

Question 36

Identify the recall intervals in Peterson and Peterson (1959).

Answer 36

3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds

Question 37

Describe the difference between ‘attention’ and ‘rehearsal’ as part of the memory process.

Answer 37

Attention is when a person notices and is interested in a particular stimulus whereas rehearsal is not (1) because rehearsal is when a person repeats information again and again in an effort to remember it (1).