Memory p2

Question 1

Procedural memory

Answer 1

Responsible for our motor skills. Things we know how to do without trying, but it’s hard to describe (e.g riding a bike).

Question 2

Episodic memory

Answer 2

Memory of places, events and people.

Question 3

Semantic memory

Answer 3

Memory of facts, names, concepts and general knowledge.

Question 4

Autobiographical memory

Answer 4

Memories we collect during our lifetime, of things we have done and places we have been.

Question 5

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 5

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).

Question 6

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 6

Inability to recall memories from their LTM due to damage to the frontal lobe (completely forgetting their past).

Question 7

Global amnesia

Answer 7

Mixture of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

Question 8

State cue

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Context cue

Answer 9

When your surroundings trigger information to be recalled ( e.g going back downstairs to where the information was thought of)

= external cue

Question 10

Amnesia

Answer 10

A condition which can significantly affect a person’s ability to recall or form new memories.

Question 11

Hippocampus for memory

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Cerebellum for memory

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Frontal lobe for memory

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Displacement

Answer 14

When new information pushes out the old due to ‘full capacity’ in the STM (NOT in LTM).

Question 15

Storage

Answer 15

Creating a permanent record/ where information is kept within the brain

Question 16

Encoding

Answer 16

Changing information types.

Question 17

Input

Answer 17

What information enters the body through the senses

Question 18

Decay

Answer 18

The fading of information that is not paid attention to until it is forgotten

Question 19

Retrieval failure (lack of cues)

Answer 19

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).

Question 20

Cues

Answer 20

Something that can trigger a memory.

Question 21

Recollection

Answer 21

To recall of a memory

Question 22

Confabulation

Answer 22

Making up details to create a more complete memory. It is NOT done to deceive people. (not a lie)

Question 23

Expectation

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Experience

Answer 24

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)

Question 25

What is Reconstructive Memory?

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

The three aspects of reconstructive memory?

Answer 26

confabulation
experiences + expectations
distortion and the effect of leading questions

Question 27

Leading questions

Answer 27

Questions which suggest a certain answer or type of answer

= in police work effect of distortion on leading questions

Question 28

Distortion

Answer 28

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”

Question 29

Bartlett’s Study + meaning

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Criticisms of the Multi-store Model of Memory?

Answer 30

• 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

Question 31

Aim of exp 1 - Braun et al ?

Answer 31

To investigate whether autobiographical focused advertising could affect how people remember a childhood experience.

Question 32

Who made up the sample of both exp 1+2 Braun et al?

Answer 32

1- 107 students
2- 167 undergraduates
(all American)

Question 33

Autobiographical Advertising (braun et al)

Answer 33

Adverts that are intended to bring back people’s memories of their past to influence how they feel about the product being advertised.

Question 34

Which theory does Braun et al support?

Answer 34

Reconstructive Memory

Question 35

Exp 1 - Braun et al results and conc

Answer 35

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

Question 36

Exp 2 - Braun et al results

Answer 36

• 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%

Question 37

Exp 2 -Braun et al procedure

Answer 37

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)

Question 38

What was the life event inventory (braun et al)

Answer 38

A questionnaire about things that had happened to them in their lives

Question 39

What is the Wechsler Memory Scale?

Answer 39

A diagnostic tool used by psychologists to evaluate how much brain damage patients have after an injury or illness.

Question 40

STM

Answer 40

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)

Question 41

LTM

Answer 41

A store with unlimited capacity and duration abs is potentially forever (where information goes from STM to be permanently stored)

Question 42

Information Processing (5 stages) + example

Answer 42

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

Question 43

Multi-store model of memory

Answer 43

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.

Question 44

elaborative rehearsal

Answer 44

thinking about the meaning of the info rather than repeating it over and over (like maintenance rehearsal)

Question 45

Criticisms of Reconstructive Theory

Answer 45

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

Question 46

Braun et al 1 procedure

Answer 46

• 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

Question 47

exp 2 Braun et al aim

Answer 47

to investigate whether false information in an advertisement could make participants think that those events had happened to them as a child

Question 48

Exp 2 - Braun et al conc

Answer 48

1) autobiographical advertising can make consumers more likely to believe in event had happened to them as a child, even if not possible

Question 49

criticisms of Braun et al 

Answer 49

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)

Question 50

What was the experimental design and type of Braun et al?

Answer 50

design - independent measures

type - lab