Memory p2 Flashcards
Procedural memory
Responsible for our motor skills. Things we know how to do without trying, but it’s hard to describe (e.g riding a bike).
Episodic memory
Memory of places, events and people.
Semantic memory
Memory of facts, names, concepts and general knowledge.
Autobiographical memory
Memories we collect during our lifetime, of things we have done and places we have been.
Anterograde amnesia
Inability to create new memories after damage to the hippocampus. Due to the inability of information being able to pass from STM—>LTM (Dori from Nemo).
Retrograde amnesia
Inability to recall memories from their LTM due to damage to the frontal lobe (completely forgetting their past).
Global amnesia
Mixture of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia.
State cue
When your emotional state triggers information to be recalled (e. g if your tired when you thought of the idea and then forget it, you are most likely to remember it when your tired again)
= internal cue
Context cue
When your surroundings trigger information to be recalled ( e.g going back downstairs to where the information was thought of)
= external cue
Amnesia
A condition which can significantly affect a person’s ability to recall or form new memories.
Hippocampus for memory
Damage to the hippocampus can lead to anterograde amnesia ( inability to create new memories) as the information cannot pass from the STM -> LTM
The hippocampus is important for creating semantic memories and autobiographical memories.
Cerebellum for memory
If damaged it can affect our procedural memory (‘motor skills’) and stop us learning and improving skills. It is also involved in coordinating complex movements.
Frontal lobe for memory
If damage to the frontal lobe it can lead to retrograde amnesia (inability to recall info)
Frontal lobe is the ‘control centre’ responsible for functions such as planning, organisation and making judgements
Displacement
When new information pushes out the old due to ‘full capacity’ in the STM (NOT in LTM).
Storage
Creating a permanent record/ where information is kept within the brain
Encoding
Changing information types.
Input
What information enters the body through the senses
Decay
The fading of information that is not paid attention to until it is forgotten
Retrieval failure (lack of cues)
Inability to recall information because the cue needed to trigger the memory is not present.(e.g going upstairs to get something , forgetting, and then going back downstairs where you had the idea and remembering).
Cues
Something that can trigger a memory.
Recollection
To recall of a memory
Confabulation
Making up details to create a more complete memory. It is NOT done to deceive people. (not a lie)
Expectation
Our schemas are designed to help us deal quickly with huge amounts of sensory date. They influence what we expect to happen in certain situations.
e.g new teacher may look strict so act negatively towards them but actually really kind and supportive
Experience
The idea that our memory is influenced by our prior experiences, meaning our recall of an event may not be accurate.
(2 holidays, mixed into one event)
What is Reconstructive Memory?
A theory which suggests that our memory is influenced by our prior experiences and schemas, and is not an exact representation of what actually happened.
The three aspects of reconstructive memory?
confabulation
experiences + expectations
distortion and the effect of leading questions
Leading questions
Questions which suggest a certain answer or type of answer
= in police work effect of distortion on leading questions
Distortion
Refers to a memory that differs from the event which took place (by changing a verb)
“how fast were the cars going when they smashed”
“how fast were the cars going when they collided”
Bartlett’s Study + meaning
Participants read ‘The War of Ghosts’ and asked to recall it.
- Bartlett found the original words were culturally unfamiliar and so tended to be left out
(e. g “hunting seals”—-> “fishing”)
= because did not fit into existing schemas
Criticisms of the Multi-store Model of Memory?
- Reductionist (too simple) as it suggested STM was a single store, but other research showed that it can deal with multiple sensory info at once
- LTM is also more than one store as different types of memories are stored in different parts of the brain, e.ge hippocampus is responsible for autobiographical memories whereas, the cerebellum is procedural memory
- Too much emphasis of rehearsal vs meaning as it states that for something to be learnt you must rehearse it for it to pass into LTM but this is not true (e.g sensory info like smell and taste)
- Meaning vs Rehearsal -> by thinking of the meaning of what you are trying to remember is more important in transferring to LTM rather than simply repeating it
Aim of exp 1 - Braun et al ?
To investigate whether autobiographical focused advertising could affect how people remember a childhood experience.
Who made up the sample of both exp 1+2 Braun et al?
1- 107 students
2- 167 undergraduates
(all American)
Autobiographical Advertising (braun et al)
Adverts that are intended to bring back people’s memories of their past to influence how they feel about the product being advertised.
Which theory does Braun et al support?
Reconstructive Memory
Exp 1 - Braun et al results and conc
rated by two independent judges who did not know the alternative hypothesis so would not be biased, inter-rated reliability was 0.83 (similar results)
RESULTS:
- 65% experimental group have memories of visiting Disney
- 74% imagined themselves at Disney while watching the ad
- 63% would visit in the future
CONC:
-suggests autobiographical adverts are a success
-increased score on life events inventory of experimental group (90% :47% compared to control)
- experimental group were more confident that the event happened to them
-watching advert changed participants recall of their own life events
Exp 2 - Braun et al results
- greater confidence increase in shaking hand with character on second life events inventory however experimental group showed a greater increase
Percentage increase:
BB -> 76%
Ariel -> 78%
Factual -> 62%
Exp 2 -Braun et al procedure
independent measures - 3 groups
-167 undergraduate psychology students form USA uni
experimental group 1 = disney advert of child shaking hands with bugs bunny
experimental group 2 = disney advert of child shaking hands with ariel
control group 3 = factual advert about prices and logistics of disney
(importantly bb is not a disney character and ariel was too new)
What was the life event inventory (braun et al)
A questionnaire about things that had happened to them in their lives
What is the Wechsler Memory Scale?
A diagnostic tool used by psychologists to evaluate how much brain damage patients have after an injury or illness.
STM
A store that has limited capacity and duration and is where information goes from the sensory store if attention is paid to it .
-> hold avg of 7 items (30s)
LTM
A store with unlimited capacity and duration abs is potentially forever (where information goes from STM to be permanently stored)
Information Processing (5 stages) + example
1) Input: where information enters the body through the senses
=e.g perceiving sensory information from the environment, such as hearing a song on the radio
2) Encoding: changing information types
= e.g information is converted into nerve impulses, what is recognized by the brain (sound waves into music)
3) Storage: where information is kept within the brain
4) Retrieval: recalling information from where it is stored in memory
= e.g you search the memory store for the song you want to recall
5) Output using the information that you have retrieved
= e.g you sing a song you have recalled
Multi-store model of memory
1) Information from our environment is encoded which takes the info to sensory memory
2) If info in the sensory memory is paid attention to it will go to the STM if not it will decay
3) STM: can hold up to 7 items (plus or minus 2) for approx 30seconds, however research has shown that the capacity can be increased through chunking
- If info in the STM is rehearsed (maintenance rehearsal) to it will transfer to the LTM but if it is not then it will decay or be displaced
4) LTM: unlimited capacity and duration is potentially forever
- If info in the LTM is elaboratively rehearsed (given meaning to info) then it will stay in the LTM also retrieval occurs which is when you go back to the STM to recall the info, if not it will decay or retrieval failure may occur.
elaborative rehearsal
thinking about the meaning of the info rather than repeating it over and over (like maintenance rehearsal)
Criticisms of Reconstructive Theory
1) Reductionist = focuses on how we create schemers and reconstruct our memories but fails to explain how these processes actually happen in the brain
2) Concept of schemas too vague = schemas cannot be observed, scans can only show brain activity not what an individual is processing
3) Reconstructive model of memory is too complex = it makes it very hard to determine which aspects of memory will be recalled and which won’t, so difficult to predict how people will recall information
4) Research evidence to support theory was not conducted in a systematic way = many extraneous variables effecting results as the errors the particpants mae could have been down to demand chracteristics
Braun et al 1 procedure
- 107 undergrad students USA
- independent measures
- lab experiment
Week 1: - participants randomly assigned Disney adv (experimental) or non-Disney adv (control)
- given life events inventory questionnaire (what happened in their lives)
-experimental tasks to reduce risk of demand characterises
Week 2:
- different researcher same groups
- asked to visualise the advert and imagine themselves experiencing the situation described (given 5 mins to write how as made them feel)
- rated ad using the attitude scale and empathy measures
- given a 5 min distraction task then experimenter from week 1 came in looking ‘panicked’ explaining there had been a problem coding the life events inventory so they must re do it
- 15 min distraction task
- third experimenter gave a questionnaire on if they had been to Disney and to describe their memory of it
- finally asked what they thought the aim of experiment was (test for dc) and asked if they believed their memories of disney had been affected by ad
exp 2 Braun et al aim
to investigate whether false information in an advertisement could make participants think that those events had happened to them as a child
Exp 2 - Braun et al conc
1) autobiographical advertising can make consumers more likely to believe in event had happened to them as a child, even if not possible
criticisms of Braun et al 
1) age bias -> all students from USA so cannot be generalised to different ages and how they might respond to aa
2) unethical -> manipulated peoples memories to spend a considerable amount of money at disney which could have been avoided and affects how they recall their past
3) lacked ecological validity -> lab so may not have reflected real behaviour of aa in real life situations (do not get given instructions to imagine themselves experiencing the situation so would be less likely to have their past memories altered)
What was the experimental design and type of Braun et al?
design - independent measures
type - lab
