Memory models Flashcards
What is memory?
Memory is the process by which we retain and recall information about events that have happened in the past.
What is STM?
Your memory for immediate events, which disappears if not rehearsed.
What is LTM?
Your memory for events that have happened in the past from anywhere between 2 minutes and 100 years ago. It is the permanent memory store.
What is the sensory register?
A part of memory that stores a huge amount information from our senses for a very brief amount of time (about half a second).
What is duration?
The length of time information can be held in the memory store.
What is capacity?
The amount of information that can be stored.
What is coding?
The format in which information is stored in the memory stores. It’s the process of converting information from one format to another.
What is the capacity of STM?
Limited - between 5 and 9 items.
What is the duration of STM?
(18 to 20s) Roughly up to 30 seconds.
How is STM coded?
Acoustically
What is the capacity of LTM?
Potentially unlimited.
What is the duration of LTM?
potentially up to a lifetime.
How is LTM coded?
Semantically
What is a model of memory?
A model of memory is a representation of memory. It is based on available evidence. A model provides us with an analogy of how memory works.
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) suggest about memory?
That memory is made up of three unitary (separate/different) stores:
- The sensory register
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
What was the multi-store model of memory?
The first complex model of human memory that suggested that each store is different/separate (unitary) and information is transferred from one store to another in a fixed, linear sequence.
What are the 5 stores of the sensory register?
Iconic store for visual information, echoic store for sound information, haptic store for tactile information, olfactory for smell information, and gustatory for taste information.
What is the capacity of the sensory register?
High (e.g. Over 1 hundred million cells in one eye.
What is the duration of the sensory register?
Less than 0.5 seconds.
How much information is lost from the sensory register?
95-99% lost as we do not pay attention to it.
How is the sensory register coded?
Each store of the sensory register are coded differently
How does information transfer from the sensory register to the STM?
Attention
How is information transferred from the LTM to STM (MSM)?
It is retrieved from LTM to STM then used as a response in your STM.
How is information transferred from STM to LTM (MSM)?
Prolonged rehearsal.
How does information stay in STM (MSM)?
Maintenance rehearsal.
What is an episodic memory?
3 details
Our ability to recall personal life events (episodes). These are time-stamped (you remember when they happened). They are complex as a memory of a single episode will include several elements e.g. people, places, objects and behaviours that are interwoven to produce a single memory. You have to make a conscious effort to recall episodic memories (you are aware that you’re searching for a memory).
What is a semantic memory?
Our knowledge of the world such as facts and what words and concepts mean. It has been likened to a combination of an encyclopaedia and dictionary. These memories are not time-stamped (we don’t usually remember when we first learned them). You have to make a conscious effort to recall semantic memories (you are aware that you’re searching for a memory).
What is procedural memory?
It is our memory for learned actions or motor skills. We can recall them without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort e.g. driving a car. We find it hard to explain these to someone else. They are not time stamped.
3 key features of episodic memory?
- Can be expressed verbally (recalled with conscious effort) – available for conscious inspection (explicit)
- Time-stamped – with reference to time and place
- May be less resistant to amnesia/forgetting
3 key features of procedural memory?
- Difficult to explain verbally (recall without conscious awareness) – unavailable for conscious inspection (implicit)
- Not time-stamped
- May be more resistant to amnesia/forgetting
3 key features of semantic memory?
- Can be expressed verbally (recalled with conscious effort) – available for conscious inspection (explicit)
- Not time-stamped
- May be less resistant to amnesia/forgetting
What is the working memory model?
A representation of how short-term memory is organised and how it functions. It suggests that STM is an active processor of different types of information using sub-units that are coordinated by a central decision-making system.
Who proposed the WMM?
It was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974 as an updated version of STM.
What are the 4 main components of the WMM?
Phonological loop, Central executive, episodic buffer, Visuo-spatial sketchpad.
What is the function of the Central executive?
Coordinates activity of the three slave systems. Takes in info from senses and LTM, makes decisions and allocates tasks to slave systems.
What is the capacity of the Central executive?
Storage - 0, processing - limited
What is the coding of the Central executive?
All of the senses and LTM
What is the function of the phonological loop?
Processes and temporarily stores information in terms of sound, preserving order in which the information arrives, including both written and spoken material.
What are the subcomponents of the phonological loop?
The phonological store and the articulatory process
