Memory Flashcards
What is short term memory? (STM)
Limited capacity memory store
Coding is mainly acoustic
Capacity between 7+-2 pieces of info
Duration is up to 30 seconds without rehearsal
What’s long term memory? (LTM)
Permanent memory store
Coding is mainly semantic
Unlimited capacity
Duration is thought to be a lifetime
What does coding stand for?
Format in which information is stored in the various memory stores
What does capacity stand for?
Amount of info that can be held in a memory store
What does duration stand for?
The length of time info can be held in memory
What research has been done on coding?
Alan baddely:
Have different lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember:
1. Acoustically similar words (sound similar)
2. Acoustically dissimilar words (sound different)
3. Semantically similar words (similar meaning)
4. Semantically dissimilar words (different meaning)
What did baddely find when he conducted these 4 conditions?
Particpants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in correct order.
When this was done immediately recalling from STM was worse with acoustically similar words.
When this was done 20 mins after recalling from LTM was worse with semantically similar words.
SUGGESTS INFO IS CODED ACOUSTICALLY IN STM AND SEMANTICALLY IN LTM
What research was done of capacity? (Jacobs)
He measured a digit span in 1887.
The researcher read out 4 digits and the participant recalls this out loud in correct order, if correct the researcher reads 5 digits and so on until participant gets them wrong.
What did jacobs find?
Mean spam for digits across all participants was 9.3 items. Mean spam for letters was 7.3
What did jacobs find?
Mean spam for digits across all participants was 9.3 items. Mean spam for letters was 7.3
What did George miller suggest?
Capacity of STM is 7+-2 bits of information
But we also can chunk pieces together to help us remember them better
What research was carried out on duration of STM? (Petersons)
Tested 24 students in 8 trials. One trial student was given a Consonant syllable (YCG) to remember as well as a 3 digit number
Student counted backwards from this number until told to stop then asked to recall the consonant syllable.
Each trial were told to stop after various times,
What did they find? After 3 and 18 seconds?
3= average recall was about 80%
18=average recall was about 3%
Unless mental rehearsal occurs ( this was prevented by the participants counting backwards in 3’s)
What are evaluation points of baddeleys study?
Strength: Identified clear difference between 2 memory stores
Limitation: used artificial stimuli- list of words had no personal meaning to participants so findings don’t tell us much about coding in different tasks (findings have limited application)
What are some evaluation points of jacobs study and milers study? (J= strength, M= limitation)
Strength: replicability- it has been replicated due to it being old and his findings were confirmed by better controlled studies (jacobs study is valid test of digit span in STM)
Limitation: he may have overestimated STM capacity, other research was concluded to suggests capacity of STM is only about 4+-2 bits of info (suggests 5 is more appropriate than 7)
What are some evaluation points of Petersons study?
Limitation: Stimulus material was artificial - study is not completely irrelevant because we do sometimes try to remember meaningless material even so recalling consonant syllables does not reflect everyday life situations (lacked external validity)
What is the multi store model of memory?
A representation of how memory works in terms of 3 stores and how info is transferred from 1 store to another, what makes memories last and disappear.
What are the 3 stores in the multi store model?
Sensory register
Short term memory
Long term memory
What’s the sensory register?
All stimuli from environment pass into sensory register.
This part comprises several registers (1 for each sense):
Coding : modality specific (coding for visual is iconic memory)
Store coding acoustically is echoic memory
Other stores for touch taste and smell
Duration material in SR is very brief but have high capacity
Information passes further in the system if you pay attention to it
What is the stm?
Coded acoustically
Lasts up to 30s without rehearsal
More of a temporary store
Limited capacity, only contain number of things before it’s forgotten
Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over and over again
We can keep info in stm as long as we rehearse it
If rehearsed for long enough it transfers to LTM
What’s ltm?
Permanent store for memory
Stores info that’s been rehearsed for a long time
Coded mostly semantically
Duration possibly up to a lifetime
Capacity is thought to be unlimited
According to MSM when we want to recall info from LTM it has to be transferred back into STM by retrival
What are some evaluation points of the MSM?
Strength: STM and LTM are different
Baddeley found we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using STM but mix up words with similar meanings using our LTM
Limitation: more than one STM store - shallice and Warrington studied a client they referred to as KF who had amnesia .
KF STM for digits was very poor when read to him but when he read the digits recall was better (MSM is wrong claiming that there’s just 1 store for STM)
What are the 3 types of LTM?
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural
What does episodic memory stand for?
A LTM memory store for personal events from our lives, memories from this store have to be retrieved constantly with conscious effort.
What does semantic memory stand for?
LTM memory store of our knowledge of the world, facts knowledge for what’s concepts mean. Memories need to be recalled deliberately
What’s procedural memory?
LTM memory store for our knowledge of how to do things. Includes memory of learned skills. Memories recalled without making conscious or deliberate effort.
