Psychology 1 - Memory Flashcards
How are memories stored and retrieved?
Encoding (can be stored)
Storage (stored memory)
Retrieval (decoding memory so we can understand it)
How does data shift from the short-term to the long-term memory?
Rehearsal
What is the levels of processing theory?
Structural processing (way it looks) Phonetic processing (way it sounds) Semantic processing (understanding it) The higher the level of processing, the more likely it is that you will remember it
What is reconstructive memory theory?
Memory will change over time so that the person can understand aspects of the memory better
What is the difference between implications and applications?
Implications are what the theories suggest we could do
Applications are how theories are used in the real world
What is retroactive interference?
New memories interfere with old memories
What is proactive interference?
Old memories interfere with new memories
What happened to HM?
He had his hippocampus removed to get rid of his seizures but he got anterograde amnesia because he couldn’t encode memories from short-term into long-term
What is anterograde amnesia?
Memories cannot shift into the long-term store
What is a leading question?
A question that suggests an answer
What is a cognitive interview?
An interview that uses a recreation of the context where something happened to help them remember
What is multi-store theory?
Sensory memory (few seconds)
Short-term memory (few minutes)
Long-term memory (years)
What is the primacy effect?
Items at the start of a list are rehearsed the most so they shift to the long-term and are more likely to be remembered
What is the recency effect?
When items at the end of the list are remembered well because they are still in the short-term
What is retrograde amnesia?
When a portion of the long-term (cortex) is damaged meaning you lose some old memories
Give a study about multi-store theory
Murdock (1962)
To provide evidence to support multi-store theory
Participants had to learn a list of words, one displayed every 2 seconds one at a time and then recall them in any order
The words at the end were recalled first because they were still in the short-term store (recency effect) and words at the start were remembered next because they had shifted into the long-term store (primacy effect)
The primacy and recency effects provide evidence for seperate short-term and long-term stores
Evaluate the multi-store theory study
They could have concentrated at the beginning and got bored in the middle
This study assumes the multi-store theory is true
Give a study about reconstructive memory theory
Bartlett (1932)
To see if people, when given something unfamiliar to remember, would alter the information
They were asked to read a native American legend, later they were asked to retell the story, they did this several times in the next week
They didn’t understand parts of story with spirits so they unconciously changed the story over time so that it made sense
Memory reconstructs so that it makes sense to us and follows our beliefs
Evaluate the reconstruction study
They could have forgotten parts of the story and made it up
The evidence definitely shows people changing their memory of the story
Give a study about levels of processing
Craik & Lockhart (1972)
To see if the type of question asked about words will have an effect on the number of words recalled
Subjects were presented with a list of words one at a time and were asked questions about them, some required structural, phonetic and some semantic, they were then given a longer list of words and asked to identify the ones they had questions on
They identified 70% semantics, 35% phonetics and 15% structurals
The more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered
Evaluate the levels of processing study
The semantic questions could have been more complicated so they would have think for longer
The study assumes the levels of processing theory is true
Give a study about interference
Underwood & Postman (1960)
To see if new information interferes with old information
Subjects divided into 2 groups, group A had to had to learn a list of word pairs and then another list of word pairs, group B only had to remember the first list of word pairs
Group B’s recall of the first list was better than group A
New information will cause people to recall previously learned information less accurately
Evaluate the interference study
Lacks ecological validity because we don’t usually remember such similar lists
Simply having to remember more information could cause group A to forget everything, not just the first list
Give a study about context
Godden & Baddeley (1975)
To see if people who learn and are tested in the same context recall more information than those who learn and are tested in different contexts
Split into 4 groups, group A had to learn and recall underwater, group B learned underwater and recalled on the shore, group C had to learn and recall on the shore, group D learned on the shore and recalled underwater
Groups 1 and 3 remembered 40% more words than groups 2 and 4
Recall of information will be better if it happens in the context of where it was learned
