Principles of memory

Question 1

Sensory memory

Answer 1

Remembering information even after the stimulus has disappeared.

• Sensation is still present [iconic or echoic stores]
• Subject to very rapid decay

Question 2

Evidence of sensory memory

Answer 2

Sperling’s experiment: Partial report paradigm

Individuals told to report as many letters after seeing the matrix for 1/20 secs

• most could only remember the first 5-6 letters
• It was not because there wasn’t enough time

Each row of letters assigned to a pitch

• Recall was almost perfect for each row
• Memory of image faded around 1/3secs.

Question 3

Working memory

Answer 3

‘Short-term’ memory
- Able to store a small amount of information for a short period of time, whilst still able to perform other tasks.

Indicates that there are different stores for storing different types of information.

Question 4

Evidence for working memory

Answer 4

Dual tast- Baddeley 1986

• Subjects were asked to remember a string of numbers.
• Questions were asked that required logical reasoning.

Results:

• Reasoning time increased with digit load, BUT not by a significant amount.
• Error rate stayed constant

Question 5

Modal model of memory

Answer 5

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model- 1968

1. Stimulus: form of information
   - Visual
   - Auditory
   - Sensation etc
2. Sensory memory: lasts for 1/3 sec roughly and fades unless attention is kept
   - Not keeping attention = forgetting
3. Working memory: Can hold a small storage of information, whilst performing tasks
   - Rehearsal prevents forgetting
   - Encoding prevents forgetting
4. Long term memory: Implicit and explicit.
   - Can be retrieved into STM
   - Can be forgotten

Question 6

Working memory model

Answer 6

Baddeley and Hitch- 1974

Indicates that there are different components:
- Phonological store which is kept refreshed by an articulatory loop

• Visuospatial sketchpad
• Central executive—> Drives the whole system and allocates data to the subsystems. Also deals with cognitive tasks.

Question 7

Phonological store in working memory + evidence

Answer 7

Holds information in speech form for around 2 seconds
- Can be refreshed through an articulatory loop [repeating the statement]

Evidence: Phonological similarity effect [Baddeley]

• Lists of words with the same number of letters were asked to remember
• Phonological similarity had poor recall whilst semantic similarity did not.

Evidence: Word length effect [Baddeley]

• List of words were increasing in length and asked to remember
• Shorter words had better recall [evidence for 2 seconds storage]
• Quicker words with the same syllables also had better recall.

Question 8

Lesion localisation for short term memory patients

Answer 8

LEFT, parietal and temporal lobes.

Question 9

Visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 9

Part of the working memory used for navigation.
- Stores information about spatial or visual form.

Can be dived into [Logie]:

• Visual cache—-> form and colour
• Inner scribe —-> Spatial and movement

Question 10

Evidence for visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 10

Double dissociation

• De Renzi and Nichelli
• Patients with brain damage showed impaired digital or spatial spans [shows they are different stores]

Abstract pictures and visual tasks [Della Sala et al.]

• Viewing abstract pictures interfered with visual tasks [Remembering a pattern].
• Spatial task [tracing pegs] interfered with spatial tasks [corsi block tapping]

Question 11

Encoding

Answer 11

Method by which short term information is stored into LTM.

Exposure and rehearsal is not enough for encoding
- American cent coin identification

Deep encoding = better stored info

Question 12

Long term memory

Answer 12

Transfer of STM information, through encoding.

- Can be retrieved or forgotten.

Question 13

Levels of processing

+ problems with the model

Answer 13

Craik and Lockhart theory
- Deeper processing = better retention [encoding] of information.

Orthographical [writing/language] —-> Phonological [speech] —> Semantic [logic]

Problems:

• Reasoning is circular
• Is information remembered because it is deeply encoded or are strong memories deeply encoded?
• Does not explain retrieval

Question 14

Evidence for levels of processing

Answer 14

Craik and Lockhart

• Participants were presented with a series of 60 words about which they had to answer one of three question:
  Structural / visual processing: ‘Is the word in capital letters or small letters?

Phonemic / auditory processing: ‘Does the word rhyme with . . .?’

Semantic processing: ‘Does the word go in this sentence . . . . ?

• Participants were then given a long list of 180 words into which the original words had been mixed. They were asked to pick out the original words
• Semantic words had the highest recall
• Orthographical had the worst recall.

Question 15

Encoding evidence

Answer 15

Roediger and Karpick: Study test vs studying alone

• Subjects were asked to read a passage then given a recall test
• Also asked to solve maths problems
• One group were allowed to re-read passage before doing the test again
• Another group did the test twice, without re-reading passage

Memory was tested 5 mins, 2 days, then 1 week

Results:

• Study-test group performed better
• Evidence shows that testing yourself allows better retention than re-reading information.

Question 16

Retrieval evidence

Answer 16

Morris et al.

Subjects were asked to acquire words semantically or phonologically [rhyme]
- Then tested on the words

Subjects were then given standard or rhyming tests

• Semantic encoding = performed better in standard test
• Phonological encoding = better in rhyming test

Evidence shows the processing is goal directed
- Type of processing affects effectiveness of retrieval [transfer appropriate processing]

Godden and Baddeley

• Learning list of words on land and sea
• Those learned on and tested in the same environment = better retrieval [state/ context dependant memory]
• Eich and Metclafe showed this with mood