Memory Flashcards
What is coding?
-The format in which information is stored in memory stores/converting info.
What is capacity?
-The amount of information that can be held in memory stores.
What is duration?
-The length of time information can be held in memory.
Who did research on coding?
-Baddeley 1966.
What was the research on coding?
- Gave 4 groups of PP different words.
- Group 1; acoustically similar. -Group 2; acoustically dissimilar. -Group 3; semantically similar. -Group 4; semantically dissimilar. PP had to recall words.
What were the findings on coding?
- Recall immediately (STM); recalled acoustically similar words the worst.
- Recall after 20 mins (LTM); worse on semantically similar words, LTM is coded semantically.
What was the weakness of research on coding?
-Artificial stimuli=not meaningful material so words had no personal meaning to PP, so difficult to generalise findings.
What were the two studies on capacity?
- Digit span.
- Chunking.
What was the digit span research?
- Jacobs (1887), gave 4 digits to PP and asked to recall, if correct then gave 5 and so on.
- Mean digit span was 9.3 items, and letters was 7.3.
What was the chunking research?
- Miller (1956), noted things come in sevens, suggests capacity for STM is 7+/-2.
- Also found people can group sets of info together by chunking.
What was the weakness of the digit span study?
-Lacks validity=study was many years ago and may have lacked adequate control.
What was the weakness of the chunking study?
-Not so many chunks=Miller may have overestimated capacity of STM, e.g. Cowan (2001) found capacity of STM is 4 chunks.
What was the research on the duration of STM?
-Peterson and Peterson (1959) tested 24 PP. PP given a trigram and 3-digit number, flashed the trigram for a few seconds and then had to count backward from number to stop rehearsing. Stopped at different retention intervals, as time was longer the recall was worse.
What was the research on the duration of LTM?
-Bahrick (1975) tested 392 PP with yearbooks. Recall tested on 1) photo-recognition, 2) free recall (names). -PP tested 15 years were 90% accurate in face recognition and after 48 years 70%, after 15 years in free recall 60% and after 48 years it was 30%.
What was the weakness of the STM duration study?
-Meaningless stimuli=trigrams are not used often in real-life situation and so lacks external validity.
What was the strength of the LTM duration study?
-High external validity=real-life meaningful memories were studied.
What is the multi-store model of memory?
-Atkinson and Shiffrin MSM describes how info flows through the memory system and how it’s transferred from one store to another, how it’s remembered and forgotten.
What are the components of the MSM?
- Sensory register.
- STM.
- LTM.
- Attention.
- Retention.
- Retrieval.
- Rehearsal.
What is the sensory register?
- Stimulus from environment e.g. sound pass into SR.
- Several stores, two main are iconic and echoic memory.
- Duration is less than half a second but high capacity.
What is the short-term memory?
- If attention is paid then info goes from SR to STM.
- Capacity is 5-9 items, coded acoustically and 30 second duration.
- Keep info by maintenance rehearsal.
What is long-term memory?
- If prolonged rehearsal then info goes from STM to LTM, recall info by retrieval.
- Unlimited capacity, coded semantically, lifetime duration.
What are the main points of MSM?
- Linear model.
- 3 different stores in MSM, SR, STM and LTM.
- Created by Atkinson and Shiffrin.
- Unitary stores.
What are the strengths of MSM?
- RS=STM and LTM are qualitatively different.
- Support from amnesiacs=HM has LTM problems but STM stayed intact.
- Understanding of STM structure=researchers can expand.
What are the weaknesses of MSM?
- MSM is oversimplified=there are more types of LTM.
- WMW shows more types of STM.
- Not unitary stores=KF suffered brain damage, normal visual but verbal memory was a problem.
What is STM’s coding, duration and capacity?
- Coding; acoustic.
- Duration; 30 seconds.
- Capacity; 5-9 items.
What is LTM’s coding, duration and capacity?
- Coding; semantic.
- Duration; lifetime.
- Capacity; unlimited.
Who came up with the three different LTM’s?
-Tulving (1985) proposed three types of memory because MSM was too simplistic.
What is episodic memory?
- Ability to recall events like birthday party, explicit.
- Complex memories, time-stamped, have to make a conscious effort to recall, include several elements like people who were there and emotions.
What is semantic memory?
- Knowledge of the world and facts, e.g. taste of an orange, explicit memory.
- Not time-stamped, complex concepts like love, combination of dictionary and encyclopaedia.
What is procedural memory?
- Memory for actions and skills, implicit.
- Recall without conscious awareness, we can easily do actions but find it difficult to explain them e.g. driving a car.
What are the strengths of the different LTM’s?
- Clinical evidence=Clive Wearing had amnesia and damaged episodic memory but procedural was intact.
- Neuroimaging evidence=brain scans show different memory is stored in different places.
What are the weaknesses of the different LTM’s?
- Problems with clinical evidence=may be a lack of control of variable during CW study.
- May be 2 types not 3=Cohen (1980) stated episodic and semantic are stored as “declarative”.
What is the working memory model?
- Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed explanation of how STM is organised and functions.
- Concerned with the active part when we temporarily store info.
What are the 4 main components of the WMM?
- Central executive.
- Phonological loop.
- Visuo-spatial sketchpad.
- Episodic buffer.
What is the central executive?
- Monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks.
- Limited storage capacity.