memory lessons 1-4

Question 1

what are the three categories of STM and LTM

Answer 1

duration
capacity
coding

Question 2

short term memory duration experiment

Answer 2

peterson and peterson gave 24 undergrad pps consonant trigrams and asked to count backwards in threes to stop rehearsal after intervals of three seconds starting from 3 pps had to repeat trigram.
results: remember 90% of trigrams after 3s 20% after 9s and less than 10% after 18s. MAX STM duration is abt 18s

Question 3

peterson and Peterson experiment evaluation

Answer 3

strengths: lab experiment so variables are controlled. has high replicability

weaknesses: has low ecological validity as remembering trigrams doesn’t apply to real life. don’t know whether the results are due to forgetting or interference.

Question 4

long term memory duration experiment

Answer 4

Bahrick et al tested 400 american pps aged between 17-74 yrs to see if they could remember their former classmates.
after 48yrs when asked to link names to faces accuracy was 70%. when asked to recall wo images accuracy was 30%
ltm last a lifetime and recall is higher with cues

Question 5

bahrick evaluation

Answer 5

strengths: high external validity as they use meaningful material and higher ecological validity
weaknesses: natural experiment so less control of variables such as people keeping in touch which may make results invalid

Question 6

capacity of stm experiment

Answer 6

jacobs read out 4 digits to pps and asked to recall and added digits to string until unable to recall.
results: on average 9 digits and 7 letters were correctly recalled. capacity increases with age

Question 7

evaluation of jacobs experiment

Answer 7

strengths: study has been repeated and results found same
weaknesses: lacks ecological validity and temporal validity

Question 8

miller review of experiments

Answer 8

he found stm capacity is 7+-2 items and can be increased using chunking

Question 9

3 ways of coding

Answer 9

acoustically - sound
semantically - meaning
visual - looks

Question 10

baddeley experiment

Answer 10

pps shown sequence of 5 words under four conditions immediately had to write in order:
acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, semantically dissimilar
when tested immediately pps were least accurate with acoustically similar words
when tested after 20 mins pps were least accurate with semantically similar words
information is encoded acoustically in stm and semantically in ltm

Question 11

evaluation of baddeley experiment

Answer 11

strengths: does identify clear difference in the coding of the two memory stores
weaknesses: low ecological validity and doesn’t tell us abt coding memories in everyday life

Question 12

what are the three stores of memory

Answer 12

STM
LTM
sensory register

Question 13

multistore model

Answer 13

attention rehearsal
environmental input ———> sensory register ——> STM ——>LTM
l l < ——
l l retrieval
recall l rehearsal
— l loop

Question 14

what is the duration of the sensory register

Answer 14

250 milliseconds

Question 15

what are the 5 sensory register stores

Answer 15

iconic store: visual
echoic store: auditory
haptic store: touch
gustatory store: taste
olfactory store: smell

Question 16

evidence for sensory register

Answer 16

study by sperling where pps were shown three rows of four letters for 0.05s and had to recall either the whole grid or an indicated row or column.
when asked to recall a row pps could recall on average 3 over 4 items
this shows the capacity is very large while the duration is small

Question 17

evaluation of sperlings study

Answer 17

highly scientific so the variables are very controlled. low ecological validity

Question 18

what are the stores capacity duration and coding

Answer 18

SR — unlimited — 0.25s — modality specific
STM — 5-9 items — 30s — acoustic
LTM — unlimited — lifetime — semantic

Question 19

strengths of MSM

Answer 19

strengths: remembering the first and last few items as the first few are stored in the LTM and the last few in the STM (primary and recency effect)
H.M was a patient study who had brain damage as a result from an operation to remove hippocampus. his personality and intellect remains intact but he is unable to form new LTM so memories are separately stored

Question 20

weaknesses of MSM

Answer 20

doesn’t explain lightbulb memories, highly emotional or traumatic memories are stored in LTM wo rehearsal
A patient K.F got brain dmg from accident and was left w severely damaged STM for verbal info only which proves it is not a unitary store

Question 21

what are the types of LTM

Answer 21

episodic memory: events or groups of events. prefrontal cortex. hippocampus
semantic memory: knowledge about things. frontal and temporal lobes. hippocampus
procedural memory: skills and abilities to do things. neocortex

Question 22

differences between types of LTM

Answer 22

episodic and semantic are conscious but procedural are unconscious
episodic and semantic are stored in hippocampus but procedural are stored in cerebellum and motor cortex

Question 23

evaluation of types of LTM

Answer 23

strengths: case studies of H.M and clive wearing - both had impaired episodic memories but could learn new skills so procedural were intact. this proves that LTM has different stores and are stored in different parts of the brain. pet scans found when a task required semantic memory there was more brain activation in the frontal and temporal lobe comparative to when the task required episodic memory the prefrontal cortex was activated.
weaknesses: gender differences in LTMs so research can’t be generalised to all the population. herlitz analysed LTM abilities in 1000 swedish pps and found females performed better when required episodic memories

Question 24

what did baddeley and hitch argue

Answer 24

that the STM is not a unitary store unlike the MSM does

Question 25

what is the working memory model

Answer 25

attention
input ——> sensory register ——> working memory <——> LTM

Question 26

what is the central executive

Answer 26

has overall control and directs attention to important tasks. controls the three slave systems

Question 27

what is the phonological loop

Answer 27

converts written words into an articulatory code. has the arculatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal

Question 28

what is the visio spatial sketch pad

Answer 28

stores and manipulates amount of visual and spatial info. has limited capacity and duration.
The VSS is divided into
visual cache: stores visual data
inner scribe: remembers the arrangement of objects

Question 29

what is the episodic buffer

Answer 29

recognised as the WMM doesn’t allow for communication between slave systems. backup store which communicates with LTM and integrates visual and spatial info

Question 30

coding and capacity of each store

Answer 30

central executive phonological loop VSS episodic buffer

capacity limited. two secs 3-4 objects. 4 chunks

coding. modality free. acoustic. visual. visual, spatial & verbal

Question 31

baddeley and Hitch experiment

Answer 31

pps were asked to perform two tasks at the same time. a digital span task to repeat numbers and verbal reasoning task to answer true and false qs
as the number of digits increased pps took longer to answer by fractions of seconds and they didn’t make any more errors in verbal reasoning.
the verbal reasoning task makes use of central executive and digital span task uses phonological loop.

Question 32

strengths of WMM

Answer 32

strengths: accounts for dual tasking because we can use phonological loop and VSS for verbal and visual task as supported by baddeley and hitch experiment. brain scanning evidence to support different components of the WMM. dispositio used fmri scans to test this and found prefrontal cortex was activated when verbal and spatial tasks were performed together but not when performed separately suggesting it is involved in the central executive.

Question 33

weaknesses of WMM

Answer 33

exact role of central executive is unclear and contains sub parts. eslinger studied EVR who had cerebral tumor removed and performed well on tests suggesting his central executive was intact and had poor decision making so the CE is not wholly intact. only focusses on STM and the link between the WMM and LTM is not fully explained therefore the WMM is an incomplete model of memory.