Unit 2 - Memory Flashcards
Who created the multi-store model?
Atkinson and Shiffrin
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin suggest?
That the memory had 3 stores ; sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory
What is sensory memory?
is information you get from your senses
Describes the steps in the multi-store memory
1 - information gained from senses enters the sensory register
2 - if info is paid attention to its converted into the short-term memory
3 - if the info is not important it either decays or disappears.
4 - once in STM the information is rehearsed
5 - and then passed in LTM
What is the definition for encoding?
is the way information is changed so that it can be stored in the memory. There are three ways ;
- visual (picture)
- acoustic (sound)
- semantic (meaning).
What is the definition for capacity?
concerns how much information can be stored
What is the definition for duration?
refers to the period of time information can last in the memory stores
What is the capacity, duration and encoding type for the sensory register?
capacity ; all sensory experience
duration ; 1/4 to 1/2 second
encoding ; sense specific
What is the capacity, duration and encoding type for the short-term memory?
capacity ; 7 + / - 2 items
duration ; 18 - 30 seconds
encoding ; acoustic
What is the capacity, duration and encoding type for the
capacity ; unlimited
duration ; unlimited
encoding : semantic
What did Glanzer and Cunitz show?
that when participants are presented with a list of words, they remember the first few and last few and are more likely to forget the ones in the middle.
What is the key term for the Glanzer and Cunitz to show what they found?
serial position effect
Why is it that people remember the first and last few words?
Words early on in the list were put into long term memory (primacy effect) because the person has time to rehearse the word, and words from the end went into short term memory (recency effect).
What are the 3 types of long term memory?
episodic
semantic
procedural
What is procedural long term memory?
is part of the LTM which is responsible for knowing how to do things.
- its unconscious
What is sematic long term memory?
is part of the LTM responsible for storing information about the world. This includes the knowledge about the meaning of words, as well as general knowledge
What is episodic long term memory?
is the part of the LTM responsible for storing information about events that we have experienced in life
Who created the working memory model?
Baddeley and Hitch
What are the features in the working memory model?
central executive phonological loop episodic buffer visuospatial sketch pad long-term knowledge system
What is the central executive?
filters information
determines which information is attended to
What is the phonological loop?
temporary storage system for holding auditory information
split into 2 parts ;
1 - phonological store (inner ear), which stores words you hear
2 - the articulatory process (inner voice) allows maintenance rehearsal
What is the visuospatial sketchpad?
temporary memory system for holding visual and spatial information.
split into 2 parts ;
1 - the visual cache (stores visual data about colour and form)
2 - the inner scribe (records arrangement of objects in visual field, and rehearses and transfers information in visual cache to central executive
What is the episodic buffer?
acts as ‘backup’ (temporary) store for information which communicates with both long term and short term memory
What are the 2 types of interference
retroactive
proactive
What is interference?
is an explanation of forgetting things from long term memory
What is proactive interference?
pro = forward
is where old learning prevents recall of more recent information
What is retroactive interference?
retro = backward
is where new learning prevents recall of previously learned information
What was the study which investigated the duration of the STM?
peterson and peterson using nonsense trigrams
What was the method of the Peterson and Peterson study?
- participants were shown nonsense trigrams
- asked to recall them after either 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds
- during the pause they had to count backwards in threes from a given number.
- this was an interference task which prevented rehearsal
What were the results of the Peterson and Peterson study?
after 3 seconds, participants could recall 80% of trigrams correctly
after 18 seconds, only 10% was recalled correctly
What is the conclusion for the Peterson and Peterson study?
when rehearsal is prevented very little can stay in the STM for longer than 18 seconds
What are the strengths of the Peterson and Peterson study?
lab study - reliable results, because the variables can be tightly controlled
What are the weaknesses of the Peterson and Peterson study?
- lack of ecological validity - trigrams are artificial.
- Meaningful memories are more likely to stay in STM for longer.
- only one stimulus was used - duration of STM may depend on type of stimulus
- participants saw many types of trigrams - caused confusion. The first trigram was the only realistic trial
What was the study which investigated LTM?
Bahrick et al
What was the method of Bahrick’s study?
- 392 people were asked to list names of their ex-classmates (free-recall test)
- they were shown pictures and asked to recall names (photo-recognition test)
- or given the names and asked to match them to a photo (name-recognition test)
What were the results of Bahrick’s study?
- within 15 years of leaving school, participants could recognise 90% of names and faces.
- 60% accurate on free-recall test
- after 30 years free recall declined to 30%
- after 48 years name-recognition was about 80% accurate and photo-recognition about 40%
What was the conclusion of Bahrick’s study?
gives evidence of very long-term memories in a real-life setting. Recognition is better than recall, not easy to access all information, just need help to get to it
What are the strengths of the Bahrick’s study?
high ecological validity - field experiment
What are the weaknesses of the Bahrick’s study?
field experiment - hard to control all the variables, making findings less reliable
cant be generalised - can be rehearsed by still being in touch with classmates, which increases the rate of recall.
What is the study that investigated capacity of STM?
Jacobs
What was the method of the Jacobs study?
- participants were presented with a string of letters or digits.
- asked to repeat them back in the same sequence
- the number of digits and letters increased until the participant failed to recall the sequence correctly
What were the results of the Jacobs study?
majority of the time participants recalled about 9 digits and 7 letters
What was the conclusion of the Jacobs study?
- STM had a limited storage capacity of 5-9 items
- individual differences changed it, like STM increasing with age, possibly due to memory techniques such as chunking.
What were the weaknesses of the Jacobs study?
lacks ecological validity - not something you do in real life.Meaningful information may be recalled better, perhaps showing STM to have a larger capacity
What did Milner do?
reviewed research into capacity of STM
What did Milner find?
- people can recall up to seven items, seven +/- 2
- people use chunking to make individual letters and digits more meaningful
What did Baddeley investigate?
coding in STM and LTM
What was the method of the Baddeley study?
- participants were given four sets of words which were all acoustically similar, acoustic dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar
- experiments used independent groups design
- participants were asked to recall the words immediately or following a 20-minute task