Memory

Question 1

What is encoding?

Answer 1

The process of translating information in a way it can be remembered

Question 2

What is storage?

Answer 2

The process of keeping information in your memory

Question 3

What is retrieval?

Answer 3

Bringing back that information to remember it

Question 4

What’s most commonly encoded into STM?

Answer 4

Acoustic

Question 5

What’s most commonly encoded in LTM?

Answer 5

Semantic

Question 6

3 types of long term memory?

Answer 6

Episodic, procedural, semantic

Question 7

What is semantic memory?

Answer 7

Like your own encyclopaedia of what words mean, like Paris is the Capital of France

Question 8

What is episodic memory?

Answer 8

Memory of events like your 12th birthday party

Question 9

What’s procedural memory?

Answer 9

Memory of how to do things, eg. Driving a car

Question 10

Which long term memory types are declarative? (Need conscious effort)

Answer 10

Semantic and episodic

Question 11

Which LTM type is non-declarative

Answer 11

Procedural

Question 12

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 12

Remembering things better that were at the beginning because it’s now gone to LTM

Question 13

What’s the recency effect?

Answer 13

Remembering things that were the most recent because they’re still in STM

Question 14

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 14

New information disturbing the recall of older information

Question 15

What is proactive interference?

Answer 15

The memory of old information disturbing the recall of new information

Question 16

Which study finds recency and primacy effect?

Answer 16

Murdock’s serial position curve study

Question 17

Murdock’s aim?

Answer 17

Murdock set to see if memory of words was affected by the number of words they had to remember

Question 18

Murdock’s method?

Answer 18

He randomly selected words from the 4000 most common words in English language to make the word lists. 103 psychology students went to a number of different sessions. They each listened to 20 word lists that ranged from 10-40 words and were asked to recall them.

Question 19

Murdock’s results?

Answer 19

Murdock found the likelihood of recall depended on the position of the word in the list. Words at the beginning were likely to be recalled (primacy affect) and words at the end were likely to be recalled (recency affect)

Question 20

Murdock’s conclusion?

Answer 20

They found a serial position affect. Recency affects were strongest. The results support the multi store model.

Question 21

Murdock’s evaluations?

Answer 21

Strength- research support through amnesiacs having recency but nit primacy effect
Weakness- artificial task, may not show how our memories actually work in everyday life
Strength- laboratory experiment , he controlled familiarity of words and speed they were read at, etc.

Question 22

Bartlett’s aim?

Answer 22

To investigate effects of culture on memory and how it changed when recalling repeatedly over time

Question 23

Bartlett’s method?

Answer 23

Participants were asked to read through a story unfamiliar to English culture. He used serial reproductions. They reproduced the story shortly then after a day , month, year. Bartlett’s analysed changes in recall

Question 24

Bartlett’s results?

Answer 24

He found people recalled differently according to their own cultures. People changed words like ‘canoe’ to ‘boat’ to suit their social norms. They shortened it through omissions

Question 25

Bartlett’s conclusions?

Answer 25

These altercations were made to make the information easier to remember. We don’t remember details, we remember fragments of the memory and try to make sense of it using your own framework of ‘normality’

Question 26

Bartlett’s evaluations?

Answer 26

Weakness- lacks control, other research suggests if they were told memory was important they would recall better
Weakness- story is unusual so may not reflect usual memory processes
Weakness- results were interpreted by only him so may have been biased

Question 27

What is a false memory ?

Answer 27

A memory someone has but isn’t real but they believe it is. Loftus and Pickrell found they could implant a false memory in 1/4 of people

Question 28

Does context have an affect on memory?

Answer 28

Yes. Recalling things in the place you’ve learned them can be easier as your context acts as a cue. Godden and Baddeley’s wet/dry recall proves this.

Question 29

MSM model?

Answer 29

Sensory register- holds lots of information in less that a second. You pay attention to this to get to STM
STM- temporary memory store, encoded acoustically, capacity between 5-9 items, duration 30 seconds. Prolonged rehearsal means thus can get to LTM
LTM- permanent memory store, encoded semantically, unlimited capacity and can have a duration of a lifetime

Question 30

Theory of reconstructive memory?

Answer 30

Memory is an active process. We remember accurately small fragments, then you change the information to fit social and cultural norms/expectations. After, you decide on the meaning of this information, you then out in effort to make sense of it.

Question 31

Evaluate theory of reconstructive memory

Answer 31

S-his activity was realistic in comparison to memorising word lists, we can apply this to real life
W-memory can be very accurate when it’s distinctive information or personal to you
S-explains problems with eye witness testimony being false and unreliable. It’s nit fair to convict straight off of memory which isn’t accurate

Question 32

Interference effect on memory?

Answer 32

McGeoch found word lists which were synonyms were hardest to remember and interference affects memory. Similar information has the strongest interference.