Memory

• Episodic memory refers to memories of personal events or experiences you may have had in your life that are personal to you i.e. places you visited or events that happened.

  An example of episodic memory could be when you personal events or experiences or a holiday you had taken last year.
• Semantic memory is the ability to remember facts, concepts, meanings and general knowledge about the world around us
• Procedural memory is the type of long-term memory which stores information on how we do things (procedures) such as riding a bike or playing an instrument.
• The hippocampus is part of the brain responsible for forming new memories and storing them temporarily until they can be transferred into long term storage. It also plays a role in spatial navigation and learning.
• Acoustic encoding is the holding of information in your memory in the form of sound.

  One example of this is when we are given a mobile phone number to remember; we repeat the number to ourselves to maintain the memory acoustically until we are able to write it down on paper.
• Visual encoding is when we process information visually in the form of a picture in our mind

  One example of how information is encoded visually is if I asked you to think about how big your garden is? If you begin to picture your garden in your mind right now in an effort to answer this, this would be an example of visual encoding.
• Semantic encoding refers to encoding something through its meaning.
• Memories are believed to be retrieved in 3 different wayswhich are:

  • Recall
  • Recognition
  • Re-learning
• Recall is a type of retrieval that is associated with remembering information as we search our memory. For example, we may be asked a question such as “What is the capital of Thailand?” In order for us to be able to answer this, we need to recall the answer which is located in our memory
• Recognition involves us being presented with items and being asked if we remember any of them from a previous exposure.
• Re-learning involves us being exposed to something we may have learnt previously but have since forgotten
• The multi store memory model was created by Atkinson and Shiffrin
• The first part of the multi-store model of memory is the sensory store which stores this sensory information. This store is called the sensory information store (SIS) and it is not under cognitive control. Information deemed as important and given focused attention is selected and passed on to the next store which is the short-term memory store (STM). The sensory information store has a large capacity however the duration of storage is millisecondsunless this information is given focused attention.
• Research suggests encoding occurs in the way the information is received for the sensory store– so for example information received visually will be encoded visually.
• Information we pay attention to from the sensory store passes to the short-term memory store.

   Information that is not rehearsed is forgotten or displaced by new incoming information due to the short-term memory store having a limited duration of up to 18 seconds and a capacity of 7 +/- 2 items. Encoding is mainly acoustic and based on sound.

  Information that is rehearsed passes on to the long-term memory store (LTM).
• Long term memory (LTM) is where our memories are stored permanently, unless they are lost through brain damage or dementia. The LTM can hold an unlimited amount of information and there is no time limit on how long the information stays here. Information moves into the LTM when it is coded semantically – meaning it is meaningful and makes sense. This means that information must be processed deeply and elaborately.
• The reconstructive memory model makes predicting behaviour difficult and a good explanation for memory should make prediction possible for it to have credibility.
• Retroactive interference is when a new memory interferes with old memories.
• Bartlett’s war of the ghosts story demonstrated that memory was not an accurate recording of what was happening.
• The reconstructive model of memory does not predict how experiences or emotions can affect memories but simply gives principles of how reconstruction may work.
• Bartlett believed that memory was an active process that involved “effort after meaning” which means people try to make sense of something they are unfamiliar with after it has happened into things we already know and understand about how the world works.
• False memories can affect recollection.
• There are two types of interference that can occur which can affect memory: proactive interference and retroactive interference.
• The study and findings may lack validity as students may have consciously change the story or intentionally change it due to demand characteristics and wanting to make the story more entertaining.
• Research has shown that false memories can easily be planted into people.
• Due to this process, Bartlett believed we often change our memories into versions that are more sensible to us and this involves us making assumptions or guesses on what has or should have happened.
• Context is believed to be another factor that affects the accuracy of memory.
• Each encoded memory is then associated with different elements of context and when we are put back in that context, those associations are recreated and they stimulate different elements of the memory aiding in recall.
• Proactive interference is when an old memory interferes with something a person is trying to remember now.
• The students in Murdock's study were required to repeat the study over 80 times, which could have affected their genuine effort levels and their recollection or efforts could have been affected by low motivation.
• Murdock's study involved participants given lists of words to remember, which lacks ecological validity due to its artificial setup and potentially invalid findings.
• Key findings of Bartlett's War of the Ghosts 1932 study include that details such as ghosts were omitted, the story was recalled more logically and shaped to fit together better than the original, details were changed to more familiar concepts to the person, and the ordering of the story was also changed.
• The participants in Murdock's study were all of a similar age and studying a psychology course, which raises the question as to whether the results can be generalised across different age groups or people of different backgrounds.
• The model also explains everyday aspects of our memory and why we may have “failures” and why we do not accurately recall everything as they occur.
• The results of Bartlett's War of the Ghosts 1932 study appear to support the reconstructive explanations of memory which suggests memory is altered to fit in with individuals rather than a recording of events.
• Bartlett proposed the reconstructive explanation of memory and suggested memory was not simply a recording device as initially thought.
• The story in Bartlett's War of the Ghosts 1932 study was a Native American story which was culturally very different from what western students would be familiar to.
• Bartlett concluded that memory was not accurate recordings of events but constructed and reconstructed to fit in with the individual’s own experiences.
• Bartlett believed individuals needed to impose meaning on something they did not understand and based this on their own understanding, experiences, hopes and fears.
• Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts 1932 study tested the reconstructive explanation for memory through a game of “Chinese whispers” where students passed on a story they were told to the next student.