Memory

Question 1

Outline research into coding.

Answer 1

• Baddeley gave different lists of words for four groups to remember.
• Acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar.
• Immediate recall, ppts. did worse with acoustically similar words. Suggests acoustic coding in STM.
• Recall list of words after 20 minutes, ppts. did worse with semantically similar words. Suggests semantic coding in LTM.

Question 2

Evaluate research into coding.

Answer 2

• Lacks mundane realism as study was quite artificial as material had no meaning (i.e. the list of words) rather than meaningful, should be cautious about generalising, so has limited application.

Question 3

Outline research into capacity.

Answer 3

• George Miller observed everyday practice, noted that many things come in sevens, e.g. 7 piano notes, 7 deadly sins, 7 days of the week. Concluded STM has capacity of 7+/-2. Noted that people can recall 5 words as much as they can recall 5 letters, do this by chunking.
• Jacobs devised technique to measure digit span of the STM. Gives 4 numbers for ppt to call out in order, if this is called in the correct order, ppt is given 5 digits then so on until order is incorrect. Found mean digit span was 9.3 and for letters 7.3.

Question 4

Evaluate research into capacity.

Answer 4

• Jacobs research conducted a long time ago, early research in psychology often lacked adequate control. Ppts. may have been distracted so wouldn’t have performed as well as they could have, thus invalid results due to confounding variables.
• However, results of this research have been reproduced in subsequent research, supporting its validity.
• Miller’s research may have overestimated the capacity of the STM. Cowan reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of the STM was only about 4 chunks, lower end of Miller’s estimate may have been more appropriate.

Question 5

Outline research into duration by Peterson and Peterson.

Answer 5

• Undergraduate students, each student taking part in eight trials. Given consonant syllable/trigram to remember and a 3-digit number to count back from. Told to stop counting after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds (retention interval) for different trials, counting back to stop mental rehearsal of trigram. % of correct answers greatly decreased as time spent counting back increased - shows STM duration is short.

Question 6

Outline research into duration by Bahrick et al.

Answer 6

• Studied 392 ppts. from the American state of Ohio aged between 17-74. High school yearbooks obtained.
• Recall tested either by photo-recognition or free recall. Ppts. tested within 15 yrs of graduation recalled 90% correctly. After 48 years, recall declined to 70%.
• Free recall was less accurate, after 15 years of graduation it was about 60% accurate, after 48 years, recall declined to 30%.
• Shows LTM duration is really long.

Question 7

Evaluate research into duration of memory carried out by Peterson and Peterson.

Answer 7

• Meaningless stimuli used in Peterson and Peterson’s study, trying to memorise consonant syllables does not reflect most real-life memory activities where what we try to remember is meaningful. Lacks external validity. But we do try to memorise meaningless things sometimes, such as phone numbers, so study is not totally irrelevant.
• One explanation of why we forget things is because our memory trace disappears if not rehearsed (spontaneous decay). Alternative explanation is displacement, where info in STM is displaced with new info due to limited capacity. Peterson and Peterson’s study may have been measuring capacity rather than duration.

Question 8

Evaluate Bahrick et al’s research into the duration of memory.

Answer 8

• Has higher external validity as real-life meaningful memories. When memory studies have been done involving meaningless pics, recall rates have been lower.
• However, confounding variables cannot be controlled in real-life research, such as that some of his ppts. may have looked over the yearbooks and rehearsed their memory over the few years.

Question 9

Outline the multi-store memory model.

Answer 9

• Incoming info (stimuli) from environment enters the sensory registers. The two main stores in the sensory register includes iconic memory (visual info coded visually) and echoic memory (auditory info coded acoustically). This info passes further on if attention is paid to it.
• STM has limited capacity (7+/-2) and limited duration (3-18secs) and codes acoustically. Maintenance rehearsal is needed to keep information in the STM.
• LTM has unlimited capacity and duration, codes semantically and prolonged rehearsal is what transfers the information from the STM into the LTM.
• Recall occurs from STM and info in LTM has to be retrieved back into STM before recall/response.

Question 10

Evaluate the multi-store memory model.

Answer 10

• Supporting research to show that STM and LTM are qualitatively different, e.g. Baddeley’s study.
• There is more than one type of STM - walking memory model splits STM into more stores and case study of KF who had amnesia, had poor recall when digits were read out loud to him but much better recall when the information was shown visually to him.
• There is more than one type of LTM - the case study of HM and Clive Wearing who both had memory damage. They could both recall the meanings of words or how to tie their shoe laces but had trouble remembering events that had just occurred.
• There is more than one type of rehearsal - elaborative rehearsal is needed for LTM and not prolonged rehearsal as stated in the MSM.
• A lot of the research that provides support for the MSM uses artificial materials.

Question 11

What are the types of LTM?

Answer 11

Episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory.

Question 12

Outline episodic memory.

Answer 12

This is where events are stored and what happened in them, time-stamped, memory of a single episode involves several elements and recall requires conscious effort.

Question 13

Outline semantic memory.

Answer 13

This is general knowledge of the world e.g. meaning of the world, this requires conscious effort to recall but are not time-stamped, so usually do not remember when we first learnt the information. Usually less personal information.

Question 14

Outline procedural memory.

Answer 14

Memory of how to carry out certain actions - motor skills. Can recall this without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort. May even find it hard to explain to someone else.

Question 15

Evaluate the types of LTM theory.

Answer 15

• Neuroimaging evidence: Tulving et al used brain scan studies and gave tasks to ppts, found that semantic memory is recalled from left prefrontal cortex and episodic memory is recalled from right prefrontal cortex.
• Case studies of HM and Clive Wearing who had troubles with episodic memory but not with semantic and procedural memory.
• Real life applications: Belleville et al. found that training episodic memory in older people with a mild cognitive impairment meant they performed better than control group.
• Problems with clinical evidence, case studies often lack adequate control and small case studies and clinical studies often involve people who have had serious accidents, so cannot establish how good their memory was before.
• Two types instead of three as argued by Cohen and Squire, declarative (semantic and episodic should be grouped as one) and non-declarative (procedural).