Memory Flashcards
What sort of information is stored in the Short Term Memory and how does it get logged there?
Short Term Memory stores memories that we recall straight away (or within a minute- 18 seconds usually). We process it through rehearsal (repeating the thought over and over).
What is acoustic coding?
when, during rehearsal, inputs are associated with each other through repeated sounds, rhythms and sounds i.e. we associate the memories with sound sequences and repetition/similar sizes, but the associations don’t tend to have meanings. For instance, if you remember a sequence of words (CAD,CAM,MAC,MAM) because they look the same or are the same size.
Name a study that makes the link between Acoustic Coding and Short Term Memory.
Baddeley’s Study
Describe the method of B_______y’s experiment
Baddeley used memorising word lists to test how different codings are used in short and long term memory. The word lists either had the word associated via acoustic coding or semantic coding (i.e. just sounding the same or having similar meanings).
Describe the findings of B_____y’s study
Baddeley– That STM is largely coded acoustically, while LTM is largely coded semantically.
How does long term memory relate to short term memory?
Information is only stored in long term memory after it is stored in short term memory. The memory is rehearsed through elaborative rehearsal, so it can be semantically coded and retained permanently.
What sort of Coding is used in long term memory?
The coding in long term memory must be semantic, meaning it has to be converted from the acoustic coding in short term memory through specific types of rehearsal.
What was M____r’s 1956 theory linking memory and numbers?
Miller wrote the theory of the magic number. This could be formulated as 7+/- 2. He concluded that immediate memory could remember only 5 to 9 items (7+ or 7- 2). This theory is now used a lot, for instance in the days of the week and the number of notes in musical scales.
What is one other approach/theory of M____rs?
Miller— the theory of chunking. Tis suggests that we can remember more if we break information down into 5-9. This relates to Miller’s 1956 number theory. In this way, we can remember 5-9 words just as easily as remembering 5-9 letters.
Describe the method of one study related to the Capacity of Short term memory
Jacob’s Digit Span Test (1887)- The researcher recited a number of digits and participants had to recall the digits in the same order. The researcher would then increase the sequence by one digit and the participant had to recall the numbers again. The participant kept doing this until until the participant recalled the digits incorrectly.
What were the findings of Jacob’s study and how does this relate to the capacity of Short term memory?
- Eight year old children could recall on average 6.6 digits
- 19 year olds could recall on average 8.6 digits
The mean in all participants for recalling items is 9.3, whereas the mean for recalling numbers is 7.3. Not only did this support Miller’s number theory, but it showed that short term memory is very limited, and that it’s capacity can increase with age.
Describe the method of one study related to the Duration of Short term memory
Peterson and Peterson (1959) measured the duration of 24 student’s short term memory. Each participant was tested over eight trials. In each trial, the the participant was given a consonant syllable and a 3 digit number to remember Participants were then asked to recall the figure either after 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds.
What were the findings of Jacob’s study and how does this relate to the capacity of Short term memory?
- Eight year old children could recall on average 6.6 digits
- 19 year olds could recall on average 8.6 digits
The mean in all participants for recalling items is 9.3, whereas the mean for recalling numbers is 7.3. Not only did this support Miller’s number theory, but it showed that short term memory is very limited, and that it’s capacity can increase with age.
Describe the method of one study related to the Duration of Short term memory
Peterson and Peterson (1959) measured the duration of 24 student’s short term memory. Each participant was tested over eight trials. In each trial, the the participant was given a consonant syllable and a 3 digit number to remember Participants were then asked to recall the figure either after 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds.
What were the findings of P______n and P______n’s 1959 study?
Peterson and Peterson On average: After 3 seconds: 90% were correct After 9 seconds: 20% were correct After 18 seconds: 2% were correct this suggests that Short Term memory has a very short duration (18 seconds), especially if verbal rehearsal is prevented.
What is the method of one study related to the Duration of Long term memory
Barhick’s 1975 study tested 400 people ages 17-74 on their memories of their university classmates. He used two tests: A photo recognition test of 50 photos and a free recall test. In the photo test, participants were shown 50 photos of their classmates and asked to identify the people in the photos. In the free recall test, participants were asked to remember and recite any names they could remember from their graduating class
What were the findings of B_____k’s 1959 study and what did they show about the duration of Long Term Memory?
Bahrick– Participants tested within 15 years of graduating identified 90% of the people in the photos accurately, whereas people who graduated up to 48 years ago, only identified 70% of the photos accurately.
In the free recall test, those who had graduated within 15 years were 60% accurate, whereas those who had graduated within 48 years were 30% accurate.
Describe the Multi Store Model in a flow chart
Environmental stimuli →→→→Sensory Memory/Immediate Memory →→→→attention must then be focused on the specific memory in order for it to be put into the… →→→→
Short Term Memory →→→→ processed using Maintenance Rehearsal →→→→ processed using elaborative rehearsal →→→→Long Term Memory.
How can memories retrieved from our long term memory be distorted over time?
They can then be retrieved and brought to the short term memory/given attention , but every time the memory is retrieved and then sent back to the LTM using elaborative rehearsal, it brings new information with it based on the context when recalling the event and distorts/changes the memory.
How can Decay occur during Sensory Memory?
We experience a ton of environmental stimuli everyday, but if you pay attention to a stimuli/ memory in the sensory memory it can then be processed into the Short Term Memory and retained. If it is not focused on, or given attention, it can decay and not be registered (like how you probably don’t remember what colour the first car you saw today was)
How can someone forget something due to the Short term Memory?
In the short term memory, a memory needs to be rehearsed in order to be stored. If the memory is not rehearsed or repeated, it will be forgotten.
How can a memory be displaced?
if too much information is given, to the point that you forget older memories to make space for new ones, this is called displacement.
Describe the findings of S_____g’s 1960 study
Sperling–Sensory Memory can not hold information for very long as information decays rapidly in the energy store without attention.
What is the Serial Position Effect comprised of?
The primary effect and the recency effect
What is the primary effect?
The tendency for people to remember something at the beginning of a list or experience.This could be because of these items being rehearsed more.
What is the Recency effect?
The tendency for people to remember the last five items in a list or experience. This is because these items and memories have been inputted too recently for them to have decayed yet.
How does Serial Position effect explain displacement?
Items in the middle of a list/experience are more likely to be displaced than at the start or the end of the list/experience.
What is one study that showed Serial Position effect? (briefly outline the method)
Glanzer and Canitz (1966)
Participants were shown 20 words, one word at a time, and were then asked to recall any words they remembered after the short duration while shown the words. The most commonly remembered words were at the start and the end of the list.
Why was Scoville an idiot?
He did not realise that the hippocampus controlled memory and not epilepsy.
What are the three types of long term memory that people inferred from Henry Molaison’s case?
Episodic, Semantic and Procedural.
What are Episodic memories?
It stores narrative consciousness, i.e. the memory can be told in a story/narrative. These memories are controlled by the hippocampus.
What are Semantic memories?
These are factual memories, e.g. memories that memories that everyone experiences similarly, for example place names.
What are Procedural memories?
These are unconscious physical memories (i.e. writing or cycling). They are controlled by the cerebellum.
Who was Henry Molaison (HM)?
He was a famous case study. He was in a car accident and later discovered that he had contracted epilepsy. He was neglected by his family because of this, so tried to get an experimental surgery to remove his hippocampus in an attempt to help the epilepsy. However, he seemed to lose his short term memory, but not his long term memory, and could still recall things we assume we would not be able to remember without our short term memory. Therefore, he helped to debunk the Multi-Store Model.
What was the aim of the B______y and H___h study (1974)?
Baddeley and Hitch— To prove that memory is formed not just in one store, but in a number of different stores.
What were the findings of B______y and H___h’s 1974 study?
Baddeley and Hitch— the researchers found that if you do two similar memory tasks (i.e. two visual tasks) at the same time, you do not perform as well as if you do them separately. However, if you do the visual memory task whilst doing a verbal task, there is no interference, and the results are just as good as if you did them separately. This proves that short term memory is made up of more than one component.
How does the Working Memory model differ to the multi-store model?
The main components (sensory memory traveling to the STM through attention, being rehearsed and then being stored in the Long term memory), The Short Term memory is stored in 4 different sections.
What are the four different subdivisions of the Short Term memory in the working memory model?
The central executive, the phonological loop, the episodic buffer, the visuospatial sketchpad.
What is the function of the Central Executive?
The CE reviews data from the senses, but it can’t hold it for long, as it has a limited capacity. It processes resources/information from the slave systems (all the other subdivisions). It coordinates all of these elements into your memories, like an executive producer of a film.
What is the function of the Phonological Loop?
What are it’s two subsections job?
It deals with auditory information and remembers word order- it is often called the inner ear. It can be divided into the phonological store and the auditory process. The phonological store holds the words and sounds we hear whereas the articulatory process helps us remember word order, separate specific noises from background noise and other functions
