Section 2 : Memory - Types of Memory

Question 1

What is memory

Answer 1

A process in which information is retained about the past

Question 2

What are the three types of memory

Answer 2

• sensory register
• short-term memory
• long-term memory

Each differ in duration (how long it lasts), capacity (how much can be held), coding (how it is stored)

Question 3

What is the sensory register

Answer 3

• stores information from our senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell)
• unless we pay attention to it, it disappears quickly through spontaneous decay
• has a limited capacity and very limited duration
• information is coded depending on the sense that it has picked up (visual, auditory, tactile etc.)

Question 4

What is the short term memory

Answer 4

• limited capacity and limited duration
• coding is usually acoustic (sound)

Question 5

What is long term memory

Answer 5

• pretty much unlimited capacity
• theoretically permanent
• coding is usually semantic

Question 6

What are the three types of long term memory

Answer 6

• Episodic memory
• semantic memory
• procedural memory

Question 7

What is episodic memory

Answer 7

• Stores information about events that you’ve actually experienced, e.g. concert
• stores facts and knowledge that we have learnt and can consciously recall
• does not contain details of time or place where you learnt the information

Question 8

What is procedural memory

Answer 8

• stores knowledge of how to do things e.g. walking
• this information can’t be consciously recalled

Question 9

What did sterling investigate

Answer 9

Investigated the sensory register using brief displays

Question 10

What was the method of Sperling 1960

Answer 10

• Lab experiment
• shown a grid with three rows of four letters for 50 milliseconds (0.05s)
• then they had to immediately recall either the whole grid or a randomly chosen row

Question 11

What was the results of Sperling 1960

Answer 11

• when recalling the whole grid they only managed to recall 4 or 5 letters on average
• when a recalling a row, participants could recall 3 items average no matter which row

Question 12

what was the conclusion of sperling 1960

Answer 12

• the participants didn’t know which row was going to be selected , so in theory they would have been able to recall items from any row meaning almost the whole grid was held in their sensory register
• they couldn’t report the whole because the trace faded before they could finish recall

Question 13

what are the evaluations of Sperling 1960

Answer 13

• lab experiment, variables could be controlled and easily replicated
• lacks ecological validity, people don’t normally have to recall letters in response to a sound so results might not represent what would happen in the real world

Question 14

what did peterson and peterson investigate

Answer 14

short term memory using trigrams

Question 15

what was the method of peterson and peterson

Answer 15

• participants were shown nonsense trigrams (3 random consonants e.g. CVH) and asked to recall them after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds
• during the pause they were asked to count backwards in threes from a given number
• this interfered with the participants so they wouldn’t repeated the

Question 16

what were the results of peterson and peterson

Answer 16

• after 3 seconds participants could recall about 80% of trigrams correctly
• after 18 seconds only about 10% were recalled correctly

Question 17

what was the conclusion of peterson and peterson

Answer 17

when rehearsal is prevented very little can be held in the STM for longer than 18 seconds

Question 18

what was the evaluations of peterson and peterson

Answer 18

+ lab experiment, variables were tightly controlled
- nonsense trigrams we’re artificial so lacks ecological validity
- meaningful or real life memories may last longer in the STM
- only one type of stimulus was used; the duration of STM may depend on the type of stimulus
- each participant saw many different trigrams, could have led to confusion meaning that the first trigram was the only realistic trial

Question 19

What was the method of Bahrick et al 1975

Answer 19

• 392 ppts asked to list names of ex classmates (free recall)
• they were shown photos and asked to recall names of the people shown (photo-recognition test)
• or given names and asked to match them to a photo of the classmate (name-recognition test)

Question 20

What was the results of Bahrick et al

Answer 20

• within 15 years of leaving school, participants could recognise about 90% of faces and names and they were about 60% accurate on free recall
• after 30 years, free recall had declined to about 30% accuracy
• after 48 years name-recognition was about 80% accurate and photo recognition about 40% accurate

Question 21

What was the conclusion of Bahrick et al 1975

Answer 21

• The study is evidence of Very Long term memories in a real life setting.
• recognition is better than recall, so there may be a huge store of information but not always easy to access all of it; you just need help to get to it

Question 22

What was the evaluations of Bahrick et al 1975

Answer 22

+ field experiment, high ecological validity
+ showed better recall than other LTM studies
- hard to control all variable in field experiments, makes findings less reliable
- info recalled may be because it was meaningful and therefore stored better
- this type of info could be rehearsed (still in touch with classmates etc.) increases the rate of recall
- results can’t be generalisable to other types of info held in the LTM

Question 23

What is the methods of Jacobs 1887

Answer 23

• ppts were presented with a string of letters and digits
• had to repeat them back in the same order
• the number of digits or letter increased until the ppts had failed to recall the sequence correctly

Question 24

What was the result of Jacobs 1887

Answer 24

• the majority of the time, ppts recalled about 9 times and about 7 letters
• this capacity increased with age during childhood

Question 25

What was the conclusion of Jacobs 1887

Answer 25

• That STM has a limited storage capacity of 5-9 items.
• Individual difference were found as STM increases with age, possibly due to memory techniques e.g. chunking
• digits may have been easier to recall as there were only 10 different digits to remember compared to 26 letters

Question 26

What are the evaluations of Jacobs 1887

Answer 26

• research is artificial and lack ecological validity
• meaningful info may be recalled better, perhaps showing STM to have an even greater capacity
• Also the previous sequences recalled by the participants might have confused them on future trials

Question 27

What is Miller’s Magic number

Answer 27

Seven plus or minus 2

Question 28

What did miller suggest to make sequences more meaningful

Answer 28

We use chunking, e.g. if the sequence is 20031987 we chunk it to become 2003 1987 so it becomes more easier to remember

Question 29

How do we try to keep information in the STM

Answer 29

By actively repeating it to ourselves, generally involving acoustic coding (about how the info sounds)

Question 30

How do we try to keep information in our long term memory

Answer 30

Generally semantic coding (about the meaning of the information), it’s more useful to code words in terms of their meaning, rather than what they sound or look like however can also be coded thru visual and acoustic

Question 31

What was the method of Baddeley 1966

Answer 31

• ppts were given four sets of words that were either acoustically similar (e.g. man mad mat), acoustically dissimilar (e.g. pit, cow, bar), semantically similar (big, large, huge) or semantically dissimilar words (e.g. good, hot, pig).
• the experiment used an independent groups design
• ppts were as,ed to recall the words either immediately or following a 20 min task

Question 32

What are the results of Baddeley 1966

Answer 32

• ppts had problems recalling acoustically similar words when recalling the word list immediately (from the STM)
• if recalling after an interval (from LTM) they had problems with semantically similar words

Question 33

What are the conclusions of Baddeley 1996

Answer 33

The patterns of confusion between similar words suggest that LTM is more likely to rely on semantic coding and STM on acoustic coding

Question 34

What are the evaluations of Baddeley 1966

Answer 34

• lacks ecological validly
• other types of LTM (procedural, episodic memory) which this study doesn’t consider
• other methods of coding (visual) which this study doesn’t consider
• independent groups design means no control over participant variables