Types and features of memory

Question 1

Define coding.

Answer 1

The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

Question 2

What is the coding for STM?

Answer 2

Acoustic (sound of words).

Question 3

What is the coding for LTM?

Answer 3

Semantic (meaning of words).

Question 4

Who conducted research into the coding of STM and LTM?

When?

Answer 4

Baddeley 1966.

Question 5

Explain Baddeley’s experiment.

Answer 5

4 groups given a list of words to remember:

1. acoustically similar (cat, can, cab)
2. acoustically dissimilar (pit, few, cow)
3. semantically similar (great, large, big)
4. semantically dissimilar (good, huge, hot)

STM - asked to recall immediately
LTM - asked to recall after an interval of 20 minutes.

Question 6

What were the findings of Baddeleys research?

Answer 6

STM - tended to worse with acoustically similar words.

LTM - tended to do worse on semantically similar words.

Question 7

State a criticism of Baddeley’s research into the coding of STM and LTM.

Answer 7

Artificial stimuli - rather than meaningful material so limited application to real life scenarios so we should be cautious when generalising.

Question 8

Define capacity.

Answer 8

The amount of information that can be held in the various memory stores.

Question 9

What 2 psychologists conducted research into the capacity of the STM?
When?

Answer 9

Jacobs - 1887

Miller - 1956

Question 10

Describe Jacob’s research.

Answer 10

Digit span

• Participants given 4 digits to remember and continued to increase the number until the participant couldn’t recall the order correctly.
• Mean span for digits 9.3
• Mean span for letters 7.3

Question 11

Describe Miller’s research.

Answer 11

• Made observations of everyday practice and noted that things came in 7’s - 7 days of the week.
• Suggests capacity of the STM is 7+-2
• Noted that people could recall 5 words as well as 5 letters - chunking

Question 12

State 2 criticisms of the research into the capacity of the STM.

Answer 12

Lacks validity - conducted a long time ago when experiments lacked adequate control and could’ve been affected by confounding varies (participants could’ve become distracted).
Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM - 5 items more appropriate than 7.

Question 13

What is the capacity of the STM?

Answer 13

7+-2

Question 14

What is the capacity of the LTM?

Answer 14

Infinite/limitless

Question 15

Define duration.

Answer 15

The length of time information can be stored in a memory store.

Question 16

Who conducted research into the duration of the STM?

When?

Answer 16

Peterson and Peterson - 1959

Question 17

Describe Peterson and Peterson’s research.

Answer 17

• Tested 24 undergraduate students.
• Each took part in 8 trials.
• On each trial the student was given a consonant syllable with no meaning (e.g. YCG) - a trigram, and a 3 digit number.
• The student was then asked to count backwards from that digit number until told to stop in order to prevent mental rehearsal.
• On each trial they were told to stop after a different amount of time - 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 ad 18 seconds (retention interval).

Question 18

What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson’s study?

Answer 18

That the STM has a duration of 18 seconds.

Question 19

Who conducted research into the duration of the LTM?

When?

Answer 19

Bahrick et al. - 1975

Question 20

Describe Bahrick’s research.

Answer 20

• Studied 392 participants aged 17-74.
• High school year books obtained - recall tested:
  1. photo recognition test
  2. free recall

Question 21

What were the findings in Bahrick’s research?

Answer 21

• Participants tested within 15 years had 90% accurate photo recognition.
• Participants tested after 48 years, recall had declined to 70%.
• Free recall for within 15 years = 60%.
• Free recall for after 48 years = 30%.

Question 22

State a criticism of Peterson and Peterson’s research.

Answer 22

Artificial/meaningless stimuli - doesn’t reflect most real-life memory activities and therefore lacks external validity.

Question 23

State a positive of Bahrick’s research.

Answer 23

High external validity - real life meaningful memories however there may be confounding variables that can’t be controlled.

Question 24

Name 3 types of LTM.

Answer 24

Episodic
Semantic
Procedural

Question 25

What is episodic LTM?

Answer 25

• For personal events, e.g. when you last went to the dentist.
• ‘Time-stamped’ - remember when they happened.
• Several elements all interwoven to create a single memory.
• Have to consciously retrieve them.

Question 26

What is semantic LTM?

Answer 26

• Knowledge of the world.
• Knowledge of words and concepts, e.g. what an orange tastes like or applying to university.
• Constantly being added to.
• Not ‘time-stamped’.

Question 27

What is procedural LTM?

Answer 27

• Knowledge of how to do things (actions/skills).
• Memory of learned skills, e.g. riding a bike.
• Trying to explain them makes the task more difficult.
• No conscious effort required to recall.

Question 28

State 3 positives that support the existence of types of LTM.

Answer 28

• Clinical evidence - HM and Clive Wearing - epidsodic memory severely impaired due to amnesia but semantic memory relatively unaffected (e.g. still understood the meaning of words) - procedural memory also intact as they knew how to walk and speak.
• Neuroimaging evidence - brainscan studies - Tulving got participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned - episodic (recalled from right prefrontal cortex) and semantic (recalled from left prefrontal cortex).
• Real life application - training programmes for adults with mild cognitive impairments improved episodic memory recall.

Question 29

State a criticism of the existence of types of LTM.

Answer 29

Clinical evidence - lack control as they’re case studies so are unique and lack generalisability.