Memory Flashcards
What is STM?
Allows us to recall memory from up to 30s ago. Is very limited.
What is LTM?
Enables us to recall memory from distant past, has unlimited capacity and has potentially a lifetime of duration.
What are the 3 ways that STM and LTM differ?
- duration
- capacity
- encoding
What is duration?
How long information can be stored for/ how long it lasts.
What’s STM’s duration?
Doesn’t last long.
To keep info for longer than a few seconds it must be rehearsed to be kept active.
What’s the STM duration study?
Peterson and Peterson,
24 undergrad students given constant trigram.
Asked to count backwards in 3s (to stop them from rehearsing it)
Then asked to stop and repeat trigram.
Repeated using different trigrams
What were Peterson and Peterson’s results?
90% after 3s.
20% after 9s.
Less than 10% after 18s.
What was the conclusion of Peterson and Peterson’s study?
Information decays quick when you can’t rehearse it.
Maximum duration of STM is 18s
What are the positives of Peterson and Peterson experiment?
+ Lab experiment, tightly controlled variables can be replicated to see if results are reliable
What are the negatives of Peterson and Peterson study?
- Low ecological validity is unrealistic
- trigrams from earlier trials can cause confusion. Results gained can be due to participants forgetting or being confused
What is the overall conclusion of STM maximum duration?
18 to 30 seconds without rehearsal (due to further research)
What is LTM duration experiment?
-Bahrick et al (1975)
-400 Americans
-asked how well they could remember former classmates:
Matching names to pics or recalling names with no picture cue
What were the results from Bahrick’s study?
- 70% accuracy from after 48 years using the link/Cue
- 30% accuracy from after 48 years (free recall names)
What is the conclusion from the long-term memory duration study?
30 to 50 years on people are still able to recall, long-term memory can last a lifetime.
- Cannot immediately access info in LTM
- cues being presented help with retrieval
What are the positives and negatives of Bahrick’s study?
+High ecological validity is as it was a natural task
- less control of the independent variable as it’s likely some of the names could have been rehearsed
- only looked at a specific type of information, type of info is particularly meaningful and regularly rehearsed
What is capacity?
Measure of how much information can be held/stored.
LTM probably unlimited
STM very limited
What is the experiments for STM capacity?
Jacobs (1887)
Serial digit span technique, four digit number was read and asked to repeat
Digit added to participant couldn’t repeat accurately
What are the results of Jacobs study?
-9 digits and 7 letters correctly recalled.
-capacity increased with age during childhood:
-gradual increases in brain capacity
-ppl developed strategies to improve it (chunking)
Digits are easier to remember as theirs only 10.
What’s the STM capacity experiment evaluation?
- lacks ecological validity as it’s an unrealistic test.
- can’t be sure of extraneous variables were controlled as it was done so long ago.
What did miller say?
STM has capacity of 7+-2 items.
Capacity can be increased by chunking.
Size of chunk is important.
What did cowen argue with miller about?
He aid miller may have overestimated capacity of STM after reviewing research.
What is coding?
Form in which information is stored in memory
What are the different types of coding?
- acoustic-by the way it sounds
- semantic-by the terms of its meaning
- visual-by the way it looks
How is information encoded in stm?
Acoustic form
How is info stored in LTM?
Semantically (on basis of meaning)
What conclusion can we draw from how information is stored in the STM and the LTM?
Acoustically similar words are harder to remember, and we are more likely to make mistakes remembering semantically similar words.
What was baddelys experiment?
Five words under 1/4 conditions: -acoustically similar words -acoustically dissimilar words -semantically similar words -semantically dissimilar words. And then immediately had to write them down in order
What were the results of Baddeley experiment?
Participants were least accurate with acoustically similar words (they’ve got muddled)
20 minutes later participants well least accurate with semantically similar words.
what is the evaluation of Badeley’s experiment?
Low ecological validity is as it was meaningless tasks
Therefore limited application to real life.
Who came up with the multi store model?
Atkinson and shiffrin
Describe the multi store model.
Environmental input then it is detected by sense organs and so enters sensory memory.
Attention applied: goes to STM
Rehearsal applied: go to LTM
Retrieval applied: goes back to STM to be recalled
There is a rehearsal loop (Maintenance rehearsal)around STM
What happens if rehearsal doesn’t happen?
Information decays and is then forgotten
What Are the five stores in the sensory register?
It has five stores: iconic (visual), echoic (auditory), haptic (physical senses), gustatory (taste), olfactory (smell)
What is the duration of the Sensory register?
A quarter of a second
What Is the capacity of the sensory register?
Unlimited
What is the coding of the sensory register?
Depends on the sense
What are the strengths of the multi store model?
+ Explains primacy and recency effects
+ case study supports the idea that STM and LTM are separate stores(HM)
+Brain scanning techniques support the separate store ideas
What is the primacy effect?
Primacy is where you remember it because it is the first piece of information you had so you have had longer to rehearse it so it’s more likely to move to the LTM
What is the recency effect?
You remember last pieces of info as you’ve Heard them more recently so likely to still be in STM
Describe the case study of HM.
Moved hippocampus from both sides of the brain to reduce severe epilepsy.
STM was still intact
He couldn’t form LT memories
Therefore they must be separate
What is brain scanning technique prove that LTM and STM are separate stores?
Prefrontal cortex was active during STM not LTM
What are the weaknesses in the multi store model?
- Rehearsal idea doesn’t explain flashbulb memories
- it suggests that LTM and STM are not single stores STM can be divided into visual and auditory information (case study KF)
- Most studies supporting multi store model lack ecological validity is (unrealistic) (lack external validity as evidence may not reflect how memory works in real life)
Describe the case study of KF
Brain damage from motorbike accident
Severely impaired STM for verbal information but visual information was fine therefore argued it’s not a unitary store
What is one of the criticisms of the multi store model?
It suggests that STM and LTM are unitary stores when research suggests that they are made up of sub stores
The difference between explicit and implicit memory?
Explicit is where the memories can be easily describedAnd they can only be recalled with conscious thoughts
Implicit is where the memories cannot be easily described and they don’t need conscious thought to be recalled
What are the different types of long-term memory?
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural
What is episodic LTM?
Autobiographical record of personal experiences and are influenced by:
-emotions present at time memory is coded
-degree of processing of information during coding with highly processed episodic events record more easily
Helps individuals to distinguish difference between real and imaginative events
What is semantic LTM?
Contains all knowledge (facts and concepts)
What is procedural LTM?
Skills such as driving a car
Speak in a language
What are the differences between these three types of LTMs?
Episodic and semantic are conscious (Explicit)
Procedural is unconscious (implicit)
Where is semantic memory located?
Left prefrontal cortex
Where is episodic memory located?
Right prefrontal cortex
What are the strengths of LTM types?
+Supported by case studies
+ evidence from brain scans shows different types of LTM are stored in different parts
+ can be used in real life applications.
Describe three case studies that support LTM types
- HM and Clive wearing-had impaired episodic memories but could still learn new skills, showing they are in different stores as you can damage one and leave the others on affected
- vicari-CL8-year-old girl who suffered brain damage due to the tumour removal, difficulties forming episodic memories but was still able to create semantic memory is
- PM 68-year-old cellist suffered brain damage leading to severe episodic and semantic memory difficulties but could still read play music and learn new complex pieces (procedural memory was unaffected
What is the weakness of LTM types?
Gender differences suggest research on types of LTM is cannot be generalised to all our needs to be treated with caution, 1000 Swedish participants: females consistently performed better on tasks requiring episodic
What is the working memory model?
STM is not a unitary store it has sub stores .
Each responsible for processing different types of information.
Describe the working memory model.
It has four components:
- central executive
- phonological loop
- visuospatial sketch pad (inner eye)
- Episodic buffer
What is the central executive?
Has overall control and processes information in all sensory forms.
Chooses which of its slave systems are needed
Problem-solving/decision-making
Limited capacity therefore cannot make many decisions at the same time
What is the phonological loop?
Temporary stores wordbased information.
-Phonological store (inner ear) speech based form spoken words into the store directly written words must be converted into articulatory code before entering
-articulatory Process (inner voice) rehearsing information from phonological store as long as we keep repeating it we can retain information in working memory.
Phonological loop has limited capacity and duration
What is the visuospatial sketch pad?
Limited amount of visual and spatial information for brief periods of time:
- visual cache : Stores visual data
- inner scribe :Remembers the arrangement of objects in space
What is the episodic buffer?
Backup storage communicates with both LTM and integrates visual, special, verbal information.
Despite being on the control of central executive it has its own storages and processes.
Was added in 2000 after WMM Didn’t allow communication between slave systems or explain how LTM communicates with different slave systems
What is the capacity and coding of the central executive?
Capacity: Ltd
Coding: modality Free. (Store information in any sense form)
What is the coding and capacity of the phonological loop?
Capacity: two seconds
Coding: acoustic
What is the capacity and coding of the visuospatial sketch pad?
Capacity: 3 to 4 objects
Coding: visual
What is the coding and capacity of the episodic buffer?
Capacity: four chunks
Coding: visual spatial and verbal information
Describe Baddeley and Hitch’s study in wmm.
Asked participants to perform two tasks at same time (dual task technique)
Digit span Task (repeat a list of numbers
Verbal reasoning task (answer true or false questions)
What were the results of the Baddeley and Hitch’s experiment?
As number of digits increased participants took longer to answer the questions. (Only fractions of a second)
Didn’t make any more errors in verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased
What is the conclusion of the WMM study?
Verbal reasoning task use the central executive and the digit span task use the phonological loop
What are the strengths of the working memory model?
+Can account for jewel tasking (two tasks at once if one is words based and one is visual as you use two different slave systems)
+ accounts for case studies like KF where his word-based information was worse than visual)
+ explains how we carry out everyday tasks. We can therefore say it has greater face validity (make sense)
What are the weaknesses of the working memory model?
- Role of central executive is unclear-the fact that it directs attention and chooses which slave system is still vague. It has been suggested that it may have sub components. Capacity has never been measured. Therefore WMM lacks necessary detail
- evidence from brain damage participants is not reliable as they have suffered from traumatic experiences so you can’t generalise to normal memory function
- It’s restricted to STM and doesn’t say anything about LTM or sensory memory. Therefore we cannot say that the model is a comprehensive model of memory
