PSYCHOLOGY1 memory

• Define deindividuation

  state of losing our sence of individuality and becoming less aware of our own responsibilities for our actions.
• Define androcentric bias

  male focussed
• define gynocentric bias

  female focussed
• Define ethnocentric bias

  1 country/culture focussed
• Define capacity

  The amount of information that can be held in a memory store
• Define duration

  The length of time information can be held in memory store
• Define episodic memory

  memory for specific events and experiences
• Define procedural memory

  memory of how to do something
• Define semantic memory

  facts and general knowledge of the world
• define declaritive memory

  needs conscious effort, semantic and episodic
• define non-declaritive

  doesnt need conscious effort, procedural
• Define primacy effect

  the tendency to recall information that came first in a list better than information at the middle/end
• Define recency effect

  tendency to remember recent information that came last better than information that came first
• Define serial position effect

  our tendency to recall the last and first items in a list better than the middle
• define laboratory experiments

  experiments conducted in controlled conditions
• Define standardized procedure

  process in which procedures are kept the same during researches
• The aim of Murdock's serial position curve study


  to see if the position of the word in a list affected the probability of recalling it
• Method of Murdock's study


  Used 103 psychology students, each listened to 20 word lists between 10-40 words, asked them to recall words after. words were randomly selected
• Results of Murdock's study


  participants showed a high primacy effect as well as a recency effect but struggled the remember words placed in the middle of the word lists
• Conclusion of Murdock's study


  results showed a serial position effect, meaning that the position of the word does determine the likelihood to recall. Murdock found that recency effect was strongest because they was still being stored in the short term memory.
• A strength of Murdocks study


  conducted in a controlled laboratory setting meaning any extraneous variables were eliminated. experiment could efficiently be replicated to find similar results
• A weakness of Murdocks study

  1. cannot be generalised because all participants were same age and all studied psychology

  2. had low mundane realism because the task of learning word lists were artificial
• Define reconstructive memory


  fragments of stored information are reassembled/ put back together during recall. gaps are filled by our expectations and beliefs to form a story that makes sense
• Define effect after meaning

  making sense of something unfamiliar after it happens. we try to fit what we remember with what we already know and understand about the world
• Aim of Bartlett's War of The Ghosts study

  to investigate how memory is reconstructed when people are asked to recall something over time
• The method of Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study

  Participants were undergrads at Cambridge uni. Each participant read the 'War of The Ghosts' story, which is a Native American folk tale. They were told to read it twice then, after 15 minutes, tell the story to someone else, like Chinese whispers.
• Results of Bartlett war of the ghosts study

  Bartlett found pieces of the story was lost, leaving it significantly shorter. also, parts which were not common in our culture was altered to make simpler for us, such as a canoe being changed to a boat
• conclusion of Bartlett war of the ghosts study

  Bartlett concluded that memory is reconstructive and that people alter information in order to make it fit in with their own personal schemas and beliefs
• strength of Bartlett war of the ghosts study

  has high reliability because it was conducted in a laboratory setting, meaning when similar studies were carried out they found the same results
• Weakness of Bartlett's war of ghosts study

  cannot be generalised since all participants were the same age and studied psychology at Cambridge. Also, study was ethnocentric because he only took into account British interpretations of the story, and not other cultures
• Define omission

  action of excluding something or leaving it out
• Define interference


  one memory disturbs/ blocks ability to recall another. results in forgetting or distorting one or even both memories. more likely to occur if memories are similar
• Define proactive interference

  when an older memory interferes with a new one
• Define retroactive interference

  when a newer memory interferes with an old one
• Define context

  Setting in which something takes place. can act as a cue and improve accuracy of memory
• Define a false memory

  A memory that did not happen but feels like a true memory
• Define schema

  package of information in brain. is a mental representation of something that develops through experience
• Define encoding


  the processing of information into the memory system