Memory L1-4

Question 1

What is memory?

Answer 1

the process of retaining learned information, and accessing this information when it is needed.

Can be short term or long term. Duration, capacity and encoding is what makes STM and LTM different.

Question 2

What is the short term memory?

Answer 2

• a temporary store for information.
• capacity = 7+-2 items
• duration= 18-20 seconds.

Question 3

What is the long term memory?

Answer 3

• stores and enables us to recall information from more distant past.
• capacity = unlimited.
• duration = lifetime.

Question 4

What is duration, capacity and coding?

Answer 4

Duration - a measure of how long information can be stores for/ how long it lasts.
Capacity- measure of how much information can be held/stored.
Coding- the form in which information is stored in memory.

Question 5

Explain research into the duration of the STM.

Answer 5

Peterson + Peterson (1959) used nonsense trigrams to test STM duration:

1. 24 undergraduates presented with a constant trigram.
2. Asked to count backwards in three’s from 100 to prevent them rehearsing.
3. After intervals of around 3,6,9,18 seconds they were asked to stop and repeat the trigram.
4. Repeated using different trigrams.

Results: after 3 seconds= 90% accurate recall.
9 seconds= 20%.
18seconds= less than 10%
Conclusion: information in STM lasts for around 18-20 seconds without rehearsal before it is lost due to decay.

Question 6

Evaluation of study into duration of the STM?

Answer 6

(Peterson x2)
+ lab experiment - high level of control over variables and can be easily replicated.
- low ecological validity; remembering trigram is an unrealistic task.
- pps were confused about the task and as a result may have forgotten the trigrams, therefore challenges reliability of results.

Question 7

Explain research into duration of the LTM.

Answer 7

Bahrick et al (1957) tested how well 400 American pps could remember former classmates.
- asked them to identify pictures, match names to pictures and recall names with no pics 48 years later.

Results: linking names and faces = 70% accuracy.
-free recall of names = 30% accuracy.
Conclusion: duration of LTM is potentially a lifetime, however, in free recall some individuals weren’t immediately able to access all info stored in the LTM showing that sometimes we have retrieval failure and need retrieval cues (eg. Pictures)

Question 8

Evaluation of research into the duration of the LTM?

Answer 8

(Bahrick)
+ natural experiment with meaningful material so has high ecological validity.
- due to being natural; less control of the IV thus it’s likely some names had been rehearsed since.

Question 9

Explain research into the capacity of the STM.

Answer 9

Jacobs (1887) used a digit span technique to determine the capacity of the STM.
1. Asked pps to repeat the sequence of 4 digits once he had read them out. A digit was added each time until pps couldn’t repeat back accurately.

Results: on average we can hold 9 digits and 7 letters. This capacity increased with age of childhood.

Question 10

Evaluation of research into capacity of STM?

Answer 10

• lacks ecological validity (unrealistic task).

+ study has been replicated and found the same results so has overall validity of results.

Question 11

What did Miller do? (& Cowans response)

Answer 11

Miller (1956) reviewed experiments into the capacity of the STM and concluded it has a capacity of 7+-2 items.
-he said memory capacity can be increased through chunking as he found that people could remember 5 letters as they could remember 5 words.

Cowan reviewed research and argued that Miller actually overestimated and the capacity was actually 4 chunks.

Question 12

What are the 3 types of coding?

Answer 12

• Acoustic coding- storing info in terms of how it sounds.
• Semantic coding- storing info in terms of its meaning.
• Visual coding- in terms of the way it looks.

Question 13

Explain research into coding of the STM.

Answer 13

Baddeley (1966) gave pps 4 lists of words to recall, and then immediately write them down in order.
List 1. Acoustically similar words.
2. Acoustically dissimilar words.
3. Semantically similar words.
4. Semantically dissimilar words.

Findings: pps did better with list B than list A. Therefore he said STM is coded acoustically, and as a result similar sounding words can become muddled.
No difference in the recall of C and D

Question 14

Explain research into the coding of the LTM.

Answer 14

Baddeley repeated his study but tested the pps recall after 20 minutes.
Findings: pps did better with list D than C. He concluded that LTM is coded semantically and as a result words with similar meaning become muddled.
There was no difference in recall of list A and B.

• low ecological validity as words are meaningless. Semantic coding may be used when information is more meaningful.

Question 15

What is the multi-store model?9

Answer 15

The multi-store model of memory (MSM) was developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).
Explains how information flows from one memory store to another.
There are three permanent unitary stores in the memory system: the sensory register (SR), STM and LTM
-information is detected by the sense organs and enters the sensory register. If attended to, the information enters the STM.
-information from the stm is only transferred to the ltm when it is rehearsed.

Question 16

What is the sensory register?

Answer 16

Stores sensory information from the environment for a short period of time.
It has a separate sensory store for each sensory input (5 stores):
-iconic store for visual information
-echoic store for auditory information. Etc.
capacity= unlimited
duration = 250 miliseconds.
The sensory store is constantly receiving info from your senses but most of this receives no attention and decays very quickly. If attention is payed the information moves to the STM.

Question 17

Strengths of the multi store model?

Answer 17

Can explain primary and recency effects:
Murdock (1962):
-presented participants with a long list of words to be recalled in any order.
-found that probability of recalling any word depended on its position in the list.
-Words at the beginning and the end of the lists were recalled better than those in the middle. This is called the serial position effect.
Words at the beginning of the list are recalled because they have been constantly rehearsed and transferred to LTM (the primacy effect), while words at the end of the list are recalled because they are still in STM (the recency effect). This supports the idea of separate and distinct STM and LTM.

Brain scanning techniques have supported idea that long term and short term memories are separate stores.

Question 18

What are the three types of long term memory?

Answer 18

1. Episodic LTM
2. Semantic LTM
3. Procedural LTM

Question 19

What is Episodic LTM?

Answer 19

your memory for events.
Episodic memories have three elements:
-specific details of the event
-the context of the event
-the emotions you were feeling at the time of the event. Episodic memories are stored in the hippocampus.

Question 20

What is semantic LTM?

Answer 20

Contains all knowledge (facts, concepts, and meanings) an individual has learnt.

• the strength of semantic memories is dependent on the degree of processing occurring during coding.
• There is a gradual transition from episodic to semantic memory when memory slowly loses its association to particular events and is generalised.

Question 21

What is procedural LTM?

Answer 21

Is concerned with motor skills and actions.

• Procedural memories are typically acquired through practise and repetition and seem to be more resistant to forgetting than other types of LTM.
• Often, if you think too much about procedural memories it prevents you from carrying them out.
• It is important that procedural memories are automatic so that we can focus our attention on other tasks while performing these everyday skills.
• Procedural memories are stored in the cerebellum.

Question 22

Evaluation of types of LTM.

Answer 22

+ case studies:
Clive Wearing is a man who suffered from a viral infection which damaged his hippocampus. He has no episodic memory and cannot form new semantic memories. However, his procedural memory is intact as he is still able to play the piano. Proves LTM has different stores.
+ Scientific evidence captured from brain scans.
For example, when asking participants to recall different types of information, different areas of the brain are shown to be active on a PET scan.
- there is evidence of gender differences in LTMs. Women may have stronger episodic memories due to their higher verbal and activities. Therefore cannot be generalised to all.

Question 23

Weaknesses of multi store model?

Answer 23

• The MSM is over simplified in assuming that there is only one type of STM and one type of LTM. Research studies indicate that there are several types of STM and LTM.
• most supporting studies lack ecological validity as pps were asked to complete simple and unrealistic tasks. Therefore the MSM lacks external validity.

Question 24

What is the working memory model and its components?

Answer 24

Baddeley and Hitch argue that the STM is not a unitary store. That it has sub stores which are each responsible for processing different types of information.

It has 4 components:

• central executive.
• phonological loop.
• visuo-spatial sketchpad.
• episodic buffer.

Question 25

What is the central executive?

Answer 25

First part of the WMM.

• has overall control.
• processes information in all sensory forms and directs attention to important tasks.
• deals with cognitive tasks.
• monitors information and decides which slave systems are needed to complete them.
• involved in problem solving and decision making.
• has a limited capacity.

Question 26

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 26

• component of working memory that deals with spoken and written material.
• It has two sub-components:
  1. Phonological Store- The phonological store (inner ear). It is linked to speech perception and holds information in speech-based form (i.e. spoken words) for 1-2 seconds.

2.Articulary Loop- The articulatory loop (inner voice).
It is linked to speech production and is used to rehearse and store verbal information from the phonological store. This allows for maintenance rehearsal.

Question 27

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 27

The visuo-spatial sketchpad stores and processes information in a visual or spatial form.
It is used for navigation.
-referred to as the inner eye.
It has two sub-components:
1. Visual Cache- stores visual data about form and colour.
2. Inner Scribe- handles arrangement of objects in space

Question 28

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 28

Baddeley (2000) added another component called the episodic buffer because he realised that the model needed a general storage component to operate properly.
-This is because the slave systems only deal with processing and temporary storage of specific types of information, and central executive has no storage capacity.
The episodic buffer is a limited capacity store, integrating information from the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad, as well as from LTM.

Question 29

Strengths of the WMM?

Answer 29

1. Baddeley and Hitch (1974) gave participants a dual task.
   They were asked to complete a reasoning task, which uses the central executive, at the same time as a reading aloud task, which uses the phonological loop.
   Participants could do both tasks simultaneously very well, supporting the idea of separate components in STM.
2. Shallice and Warrington researched the case study of KF who, because of a motorbike accident, had poor STM for words that were presented verbally but not for words that were presented visually. This suggests that there is more than one type of STM, as the WMM suggests. In particular, it shows that we have a type of STM for verbal tasks (phonological loop) and another for visual (visuo-spatial sketchpad).
3. Has greater face validity than the MSM as we can apply it to how we carry out our everyday tasks.

Question 30

Weaknesses of the WMM?

Answer 30

• cause and effect is unclear. therefore lacks necessary detail
• evidence from brain damage case studies is not necessarily reliable as it concerns single individuals who have had traumatic experiences and therefore cannot be generalised to the entire population.
• restricted to STM and mentions nothing about the LTM.