Processes of Memory

Question 1

What is storage?

Answer 1

Storage is when information is kept in your brain for a period of time, even up to a lifetime.

Question 2

What is encoding?

Answer 2

Encoding is when information is translated into a form that can be understood by the brain.

Question 3

What is retrieval?

Answer 3

Retrieval is when information is located in the brain and brought back.

Question 4

What are the three ways to retrieve memory?

Answer 4

Recognition
Cued recall
Free recall

Question 5

Explain recognition.

Answer 5

Recognition is remembering an item based on the fact that you have seen it before.

Question 6

Explain cued recall.

Answer 6

Cued recall is when you are struggling to remember information and you are given a clue/cue which can help you retrieve the information.

Question 7

What are the three ways information is encoded into our memory?

Answer 7

Visual encoding
Acoustic encoding
Semantic encoding

Question 8

Explain visual encoding.

Answer 8

When information tends to be coded in terms of how it looks.

Question 9

Explain acoustic encoding.

Answer 9

When information tends to be coded in terms of how it sounds.

Question 10

Explain semantic encoding.

Answer 10

When information tends to be coded in terms of meaning.

Question 11

Who conducted research for encoding?

Answer 11

Alan Baddeley or just Baddeley.

Question 12

What was Baddeley’s aim for the research?

Answer 12

It was to investigate the difference between the type of encoding for STM and LTM.

Question 13

What was his method to conduct the research?

Answer 13

He used 4 groups of participants. Each group was given a list of words.
They all were read 12 sets of 5 words and had one second for each word. After every set, the participants were asked to recall the words.

Question 14

What is meant by a ‘laboratory’ in psychology?

Answer 14

A highly controlled environment.

Question 15

State the groups and the type of list they were given. Give percentage of how accurately the words on the list were recalled.

Answer 15

Immediate recall:
Group A: were asked to recalled acoustically similar words. 10% were correctly recalled.
Group B: were to recall acoustically dissimilar words. 82% were correctly recalled.

Delayed recall: after 20 minutes
Group C: to recall semantically similar words 57% were correctly recalled.
Group D: to recall semantically dissimilar words. 85% were correctly recalled.

Question 16

What were Baddeley’s results?

Answer 16

He found that participants recalled acoustically similar words worst compared to acoustically dissimilar words.
Also that participants had low recall of semantically similar compared to semantically dissimilar.

Question 17

What was his conclusion?

Answer 17

That we encode acoustically in our STM and semantically in our LTM.

Question 18

Strengths of Baddeley’s research.

Answer 18

Extraneous variables were controlled well.
This increases overall internal validity.

Question 19

Weaknesses of Baddeley’s research.

Answer 19

STM does not always involve sound. It can also visually encode. This suggests that information does not just go into our STM in an acoustic form.
LTM may not have been tested in the study. Participants had waited 20 minutes before recall. This does not mean the words are in the LTM. therefore the conclusion that LTM encodes semantically may not be accurate.