Short and Long term memory Flashcards
Freud and memory
- Two different types
- Surface vs Deep memory
William James and Memory
- Primary vs Secondary memory
- Primary, what we are currently aware of at the current time
- Secondary memory, longer term memory.
What are the three basic memory systems
- Sensory memory, initial sense i.e. just seeing a mark on the screen not actually knowing it’s a word
- Short term/working memory, once it has been encoded (reading a word)
- Long-term memory
What is sensory memory
- Initial experience such as smell, sight, hearing
- It is forgotten quickly
- Iconic memory (Visual), haven’t categorised information yet. Holds information for 1/4 of a second
- Echoic memory, holds information for a few seconds
Sperling’s (1960)
Iconic Memory Research
- letters and numbers quickly shown on screen, you then have to write down how may you can remember in it’s location
- Typically participants could record 4/12
- Sperling said, we were not able to get our attention to all the rows before the letters faded
- He then asked participants to report a row with arrows pointed to it. (to get attention to one place)
- Participants could get the 4 numbers/letters in the row
- They had information in their iconic memory but needed support to get their attention on it
What are the characteristics of short term memory
- Small capacity
- Limited duration
- When distracted, information can be lost
The free recall task
- Participants had a list of 10-15 words
- Participants had to then recall them in any order
- People are good at remembering the first few, forget the middle ones but then remember the last few.
What causes Primacy and Recency gradients
Primacy Gradient:
- We are able to practise memorising the first items a few times so we are more likely to hold them in our long term memory
Recency:
- The last items in the list are fresh in our memory (our short term memory)
- To prove this to be correct, if there is a delay between seeing the items and writing them down, it removes our short term memory of the last few items
The free recall task (with delay)
- The extra step which isn’t in the normal recall task is that there is a delay between last item and recall.
- This lead to recency affect no longer being present
(Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966)
Whats the capacity of short term memory
- Digit span, remember digits shown to you
- George Miller (1956), say you should remember around 7
- Some people say 7 is an over estimate
- Short term memory is focused on the verbal phonological code ( like an inner voice)
Evidence for phonological coding in short-term memory
(Baddeley, 1990)
- If presented with words that sound similar i.e. van man pan , we would be worse at recalling this than words which don’t sound similar
- Worse at recalling longer words than shorter words.
Classic Memory Model
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968)
3 Basic forms of memory:
- Sensory memory
- Short term memory (through rehearsal -> LTM)
- Long term memory - retrieval from long term back to short
Baddeley’s Working Memory model
- Basic components are the same
- Short term memory to long term etc.
Capacity of long term memory
Standing (1973): “Learning 10,000 Pictures”
- Participants could identify 133/160 pictures
- The amount of pictures we can recognise is almost limitless
- Easier to recognise pictures than words because they have a pictorial code and a verbal or semantic one
Paivio (1969): Dual coding hypothesis
- Images which have a pictorial code and a verbal or semantic one
- words that are imageable can be encoded in visual as well as non-visual forms (e.g., semantic)
- Imageability words such as grape are easier to remember than abstract
