Memory Flashcards
explain Baddeley (1966) coding in STM and LTM
procedure;
acoustically similar words (e.g. cat, and cab ) or dissimilar (e.g. pit, few)
semantically similar words (e.g. large, big) or dissimilar (e.g. good, hot)
findings:
immediate recall worse with acoustically similar words, STM is acoustic.
recall after 20 minuets worse with semantically similar words, LTM is semantic
explain Jacobs study of coding in STM
procedure; digit span: researcher reads four digits and increased until the ppt cannot recall the order correctly
findings:
on average, ppts could repeat back 9.3 numners and 7.3 letters in the correct order immediately
explain Millers study into the capacity of STM
procedure:
Miller made observations that everything comes in sevens; 7 notes on the musical scale, 7 days of the week, 7 deadly sins etc
findings; the span of the STM is about 7 - + 2 items but can be improved by chunking - grouping sets of digits/letters into meaningful units
explain Peterson and Petersons study into the duration of STM
procedure;
24 students were given a consonant syllable (e.g YCG) to remember, and a 3-digit number to count backwards for 3, 6, 9, 12,15 or 18 seconds
findings;
students recalled on average about 80% of the syllables correctly with a 3-second interval. average recall after 18 seconds fell to about 3% . suggesting that duration of STM without rehearsal is about 18-30 seconds
explain Bahrick et als study into the duration of LTM
procedure;
ppts were 392 Americans ages between 17-74.
1. recognition test :50 photos from ppts’ high school year book.
- free recall test: participants listed names of their graduating class.
findings: ppts tested 48 years after graduation were about 70% accurate in photo recognition.
free recall was less accurate but still high enough to suggest duration of LTM is a long time.
state a limitation of Baddeley’s study
- it didnt use meaningful material
the words used in the study had no personal meaning to the ppts. when processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for the STM tasks. this means the results of this study have limited application. we should be cautious about generalising the findings to different kinds of memory task.
state a limitation of Jacob’s study
-it was conducted a long time ago
early research in psychology often lacked adequate control of extraneous variables. e.g some ppts’ might have been distracted while they were being tested so they didn’t perform as well as they might. this would mean that the results may not be valid because there were confounding variables that were not controlled. however, the results were confirmed in other research which supports its validity.
state a limitation of Millers research
-May have overestimated capacity of STM
Cowan (2001) reviewed other research. he concluded that the capacity of STM was only about 4 chunks. this suggests that the lower end of Miller’s estimate is more appropriate than 7 items
state a limitation of peterson and petersons study
-they used an artifical stimulus;
trying to memorise consonant syllables does not reflect most real life memory activities where hwat we try to remember is meaningful. so it could be argued that this study lacked external validity - however, we do try memorise meaningless things such as phone numbers so not completely irrelevant
state a strength of Bahrick et al’s study
-high external validity
real life meaningful memories were studied. when lab studies were done with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower.
the down side of such real-life research is that confounding variables are not controlled -ppts might have looked at their yearbook photos and rehearsed their memories over the years.
State Atkinson and Shiffrins role in psychology
came up with the Multi store memory model
- describes how infomation flows through the memory system. memory is made of three stores linked by processing
role of sensory register
stimulus from enviroment passes into SR.
duration; very brief- less than half a second
capacity; high we take in lots of data
coding; depends on the sense-visual, auditory etc
transfer from SR to STM
we need to pay attention to the infomation
STM; DURATION, CODING AND CAPACITY
duration : 18-30 seconds
coding; acoustic
capacity; 5-9 items ( 7+ - 2)
transfer from stm to ltm
maintenance rehearsal occurs. we keep info in the stm as long as we rehearse it and if we rehearse it long enough it passes through to LTM
LTM; DURATION, CODING AND CAPACITY
duration; potentially up to a lifetime
capacity; potentially unlimited
coding; tends to be in terms of meaning i.e semantic
state a strength of MSM
it is supported by research that shows that STM & LTM are different;
Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STM. but we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTM. this clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and in LTM it is semantic. this supports the MSM’s view that these two memory stores are separate and independent.
state limitations of MSM
x evidence suggest there is more than one type of STM
Shallice and Warrington studied KF, a patient with amnesia. his STM for digits was poor when they read them out loud to him. but his recall was much better when he read the digits himself. The MSM states that there is only one type of STM but KF study suggests there must be one short -term store to process visual information and another to process auditory information
- working memory model is a better explanation for its finding because it includes separate stores
x it only explains one type of rehearsal.
Craik and Watkins argued there are two types of rehearsal; maintenance and elaborative
- maintenance is the one described in the msm, but elaborative is needed for LTM. - serious limitation becuase it is another research finding that cannot be explained by the model
x supporting studies have used artifical materials. this suggests that the MSM lacks external validity. research findings may reflect how memory works with meaningless material in lab testing, but does not reflect how memory mainly works in everyday life.
x oversimplifies the LTM - limtied because it does not reflect the different types of LTM
name 3 types of long-term memory
EPISODIC
SEMANTIC
PROCEDURAL
what is episodic memory
- events (episodes) for our lives.
- links to a diary of daily happenings.
- e.g. breakfast you ate this morning
- episodic memories are more complex, they are time stamped (you remember when they happened).
- you have to make a conscious effort to recall them
what is semantic memory
- stores our knowledge of the world; e.g. knowledge of such things as applying to uni, taste of an orange.
- semantic memories are not time stamped e.g we don’t usually remember when we learned about justin bieber
semantic knowledge is less personal and more about the knowledge that we all share
what is procedural memory
stores memories for actions and skills- memories on how we do things e.g riding a bike
- recalls without awareness or conscious effort.
