Paper 1: 2. Memory

Question 1

What three components are in the multi store model?

Answer 1

Sensory Register
Short Term Memory Store (STM)
Long Term Memory Store (LTM)

Question 2

What is the coding, capacity AND duration of the SENSORY REGISTER? (3 marks)

Answer 2

Coding: Through the five senses

Capacity: High (eg an eye has 100,000,000 data storage cells)

Duration: Half a second

Question 3

What is the coding, capacity and duration of the STM? (4 marks, hint capacity)

Answer 3

Coding: Encodes information acoustically.

Capacity: Limited capacity of 5-9 items (1 mark) because new information displaces / pushes out the original information (1 mark)

Duration: Limited duration of 30 seconds.

Question 4

4) What is the coding, capacity and duration of the LTM? (4 marks, hint duration)

Answer 4

Coding: Semantically

Capacity: Unlimited capacity

Duration: Indefinite duration but the LTM cannot always be accessed as there’s no appropriate cues.

Question 5

5) How does information reach the LTM?

Answer 5

Information from the STM is reherased over and over again and is transferred to the LTM

Question 6

6) Define maintenance rehearsal.

Answer 6

When material is rehearsed over and over again for a long period of time in order for information to be passed from the STM to the LTM.

Question 7

7) Define retrieval.

Answer 7

When information from our LTM is transferred back to our STM for instant use. You cannot recall information directly from the LTM.

Question 8

Define capacity (1 mark)

Answer 8

How much information the STM or LTM can hold at any given time.

Question 9

State JACOB’S study for the CAPACITY of STM? (method and findings)

Answer 9

METHOD - Jacob came up with the digit span technique.

• The researcher states a 4 digit number aloud.
• The participant must repeat the digits in the correct order.
• A new number is added each row until the participant messed up the order.

4736
47362
473625
4736251 etc…

FINDINGS - Jacob found most people can recall between 5-9 items correctly in their STM.

Question 10

What are the two studies of the CAPACITY of the STM?

Answer 10

Jacob’s Digit Span Study

Miller’s Chunking Study

Question 11

State MILLER’S study for the CAPACITY of STM? (JUST findings)

Answer 11

FINDINGS - Miller found that you can increase the number of digits recalled by grouping digits or letters. This is known as chunking.

An example is it’s easier to recall 271 893 482 than recalling 271893482 as the chunked set only takes up 3 spaces in the digit span.

Question 12

What is the study into the CAPACITY for the LTM?

Answer 12

TRICK QUESTION - The capacity of the LTM is unlimited so there’s NO STUDY

Question 13

1❌- Evaluate capacity research.

Answer 13

❌Confounding variables - Jacob carried out his digit span study in 1887. Researchers back then didn’t have much control and knowledge of confounding variables. This means that some of Jacob’s participants may have been distracted when taking part in this study which could have affected the results.

Question 14

Evaluate retrieval failure

Answer 14

✅Research support - Loads of studies support the importance of retrieval cues which increases the validity of the explanation. The research is usually field and natural experiments, which link to everyday memory experiences.

✅Retrieval failure explains interference effects -
Tulving said interference effects are due to the absence of cues.
There were 6 different word lists to learn consisting of 24 words split into 6 categories. Some participants learnt one list, others learnt two, others learnt three etc.
After each list was presented, participants were asked to write down all the words they could remember via free recall.
Once all 6 lists are presented, participants were given the category names and were asked to recall all the words from the list (cued recall)
When participants were given cues recall, more participants remembered 70% of the words regardless of how many lists they had been. This shows that the information is available but can’t be retrieved and shows that retrieval failure is a better explanation of forgetting than inference.
❌Context - Baddeley argues that it’s not reliable. It’s hard to find an environment as contrasting as land and underwater. Learning something in one room and recalling it in another is incomparable.

Question 15

Fully outline Lotus’ key study ONE. Remember the critical question and the four types of verbs used instead of _ _ _!

Answer 15

Procédure - Loftus got 45 students to watch 7 film clips of car accidents. After each clip, participants were given a questionnaire which asked questions about the accident.

There was one critical, leading question that the participants were asked - ‘About how fast were the cars going when they HIT each other?’ This is a leading question because the verb ‘HIT’ suggests the speed the car was going.

Four groups were given the verbs SMASHED, COLLIDED, BUMPED or CONTACTED instead of HIT.

Findings: The mean estimated speed was calculated for each participant group. The mean estimate for the verb SMASHED was 40.5 mph. However, the verb CONTACTED in a mean estimated speed of 31.8mph.

Question 16

Fully outline Lotus’ key study TWO. Remember the three groups and the critical question!

Answer 16

Procédure: Loftus had 3 groups of participants in 3 different conditions (hit, smash and contacted) and they were shown one film of a car accident and asked them about the speed of the car. The participants were asked to return one week later when they were asked 10 questions about the accident.

One of the criticical questions were leading ‘Did you see any broken glass?’ There was no broken glass in the film.

Findings: Lotus found that those in the smashed conditions were more likely to say they’ve seen broken glass, which suggests that the leading questions did change the actual memory of the event.

Question 17

State BADDLEY’S study for the CODING of STM? (method and findings)

Answer 17

METHOD: Baddeley gave different lists of words to four different groups. Their tasks was to remember the words.

Group 1 - Given ACOUSTICALLY SIMILAR words (ie cat, can, cab)

Group 2 - Given ACOUSTICALLY DISSIMILAR words (ie pit, cow, mid)

Group 3 - Given SEMANTICALLY SIMILAR words (ie small, tiny, petite)

Group 4 - Given semantically dissimilar words (ie good, fridge, dream)

Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall the words in the correct order.

RESULTS: GROUP 1 & GROUP 3 struggled as the information was SIMILAR!

Question 18

Additionally, what does Baddley’s study say about how the STM encodes and the LTM encodes from the research in his study?

Answer 18

STM - When the participants had to recall words immediately after hearing them, they tended to do better with acoustically similar words. This suggests that participants were encoding the word according to sound in their STM.

LTM - When participants were asked to recall the words after a 20 minute interval, they did worse with words that were semantically similar. This suggests that we code information according to meaning in our LTM

Question 19

(1X) Evaluate coding research

Answer 19

X Artificial stimuli - A limitation of Baddley’s study was that it used artifical stimuli. The word list had no personal meaning to participants, which is why we should be careful about generalising the finding to different kinds of memory tasks.

An example is when processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks. This suggests that the finding from this study has limited application.