MSM Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968 Flashcards
Cognitive psychology is concerned with
internal mental processes, such as language, memory, problem-solving and thinking.
The brain is like a computer because
it is a storage system that receives information from our environment, process the information and gives an output.
Three stores:
Sensory store, STM and LTM
How long does sensory information stay in the sensory store?
It is held for a brief moment, 1-2 seconds, before it decays, if it is attended to, it will enter the STM.
How long is information held in the STM?
approx 7 items can be stored (+-2) for 15-30 seconds unless they are maintained via rehearsal where they will be transferred to LTM
LTM?
Unlimited capacity, unlimited duration
What type of encoding is used in the STM?
Acoustic
What type of encoding is used in LTM?
Semantic and temporal
Retrieval in Sensory register?
Scanning
Retrieval in stm?
Sequential Search
Retrieval in ltm?
Semantic or temporal search
How does info decay in stm?
through displacement
how does info decay in ltm?
through decay and interference
Studies to support duration of STM?
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
Peterson and Peterson 1959?
Participants given a trigram of 3 consonants for intervals of an increasing period, 3, 6,9 secs… and then had to do an interference task by counting backwards. Worse recall after 15-18 seconds.
Brady et al. (2008) showed participants 2500 objects over the course of 5.5 hours. Objects were paired with other objects that participants hadn’t seen, what was found?
When participants saw the original object paired with a very different object, identification of they actual object they had seen was 92%. Supports LTM
Bahrick et al. (1975) investigated Very LTM (VLTM) using memory tests on the names and faces of students in their high school yearbooks. What was found?
Out of 400 ex students used, identification was 90% accurate 15 years after leaving and 70%-80% accurate 48 years after leaving, supports duration of LTM
