Memory

• Tulving suggested that there are three separate LTM stores containing different types of information
• Three different LTM stores:

  • Episodic
  • Semantic
  • Procedural
• what is episodic long term memory?

  Memory for specific events or episodes in your life. who what where when. Have to be consciously retrieved with effort. Can be forgotten or affected by amnesia.
• What is semantic long term memory?

  Knowledge and facts about the world. consciously retrived with effort. Can’t pinpoint when we learned the information. Gets added to all the time via our schemas. Can be lost but less likely to be affected by amnesia
• What is procedural long term memory ?

  Our memory of motor skills in relation of knowing how to do things (ie muscle memory). We usually recall these memories with little effort. These skills are hard to learn but difficult to forget them and are unlikely to be affected by amnesia.
• What is coding?

  The way in which information is changed so it can be stored
• What is capacity?

  The amount of information that can be stored
• What is duration?

  The length of time information can be stored for
• Capacity of STM - Jacobs, digit span technique - 5-9 digits remembered
• Jacobs Evaluation:

  Strength - High reliability and validity as replicated many times

  Limitation - Lacks ecological validity
• Capacity of LTM has been accepted as limitless but there is no way to scientifically study a persons LTM.
• Although there is no research into the capacity of the LTM there is some cases of specific people with Superior autobiographical memory (10 cases). This supports the theory that LTM can technically be unlimited as they can remember anything from their lives.
• Duration of STM

  • Peterson and Peterson
  • 24 undergrads
  • Repeated measures design
  • Remember a trigram, then count backwards in threes from a random number to stop them rehearsing it.
  • Each time they were stopped after an increasing amount of seconds
  • Found after 18 seconds majority of info is lost
  • conc - duration of STM is 18-30 seconds
• Evaluation of duration of STM

  Strength 1 - Lab experiment so increased validity and reliability of results as less extraneous variables

  Strength 2 - High reliability of results as it has been repeated many times

  Limitation 1 - Study lacks ecological validity as it isn't and everyday task

  Limitation 2 - Limited sample so isn't very generalizable
• Duration of LTM:

  • Batrick et al
  • 392 American adults used
  • Used participants Yearbooks to test Photo recognition (PR) and Free recall (FR)
  • Photo recognition: Given a list of names and asked to match to faces
  • Free recall: Shown pictures and asked to give their name
  • Tested P's 14 years since graduation - 90% accurate for PR and 60% accurate for FR
  • Tested P's 47 years after graduation - were still 70% accurate for PR and 30% accurate for FR
  • Conc LTM duration is said to be 47 years to lifetime
• Coding of STM and LTM:

  • Badely was the researcher
  • 72 participants, male and female, 18 for each condition, were presented with one of 4 lists
  • L1 - Acoustically similar
  • L2 - Acoustically dissimilar
  • L3 - Semantically similar
  • L4 - Semantically dissimilar
  • P's then saw words in random order either asked to recall immediately after or shown and asked to recall 15 minutes after seeing original list depending on if testing LTM or STM.
  • conc - Coding in STM is mainly acoustic and Coding in LTM is mainly semantic
• Evaluation of coding in LTM and STM - Badeley

  Strength - Lab experiments so makes results more valid

  Limitation 1 - Limited sample so lacks generalizability

  Limitation 2 - Study lacks ecological validity
• Who is the case study for evaluation of multi store model and types of LTM?

  Henry Molaison
• Who is the case study for types of LTM?

  Clive wearing
• What condition did HM have?

  Epilepsy
• HM kept his procedural memory and most of his scemantic but not his episodic memory after the surgery which removed part of his hippocampus
• Clive wearing had a condition that damaged his hippocampus, he didn't have any episodic or semantic memory so greeted his wife like a newly wed every day yet he could walk and talk (procedural)
• What are the four parts of the working memory model?

  Phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive, episodic buffer
• • visuo-spatial sketchpad - visual information
  • Phonological loop - Auditory information
  • Central executive - Learning, reasoning, comprehension and problem solving
• Central executive

  • Controller of the model
  • focusing and switching attention
  • co ordinates the sub systems
  • limited capacity
  • Takes in all types of information
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad

  • Contains two parts
  • Visual cache - deals with and stores visual data (what stuff looks like)
  • Inner scribe - deals with spatial awareness i.e arrangement of objects
  • limited capacity: 3-4 objects
  • coding = visual
• The phonological loop

  • Processes sound information
  • split into two parts - the phonological store (inner ear) and the Articulatory controll system (inner voice)
• Phonological store:

  • Recives sound from the environment
  • Holds the words you hear for a couple seconds
• Articulatory control system (inner voice):

  • Used for words that are seen (voice in head whilst reading)or thoughts used when preparing a speech
  • Also used in maintenance rehearsal when repeating the words over and over
  • Has a limited capacity linked to how long it takes to say things rather that a specific number of items
• Episodic buffer:

  • Used as temporary storage whilst central executive works on other tasks
  • Brings together material from other subsystems
  • Provides the link from the working memory model to the LTM - Transfering info and taking info from the LTM
• Dual tasks experiment:

  • Badely found that p's would struggle performing two tasks at the same time that required the same WMM component.
  • However could do two simultaneous tasks that used different components.
• WMM Evaluation

  Strength 1 - Supporting research evidence from KF

  Strength 2 - Supporting Research evidence (dual task experiment)

  Limitation 1 - Parts of the model are too vague

  Limitation 2 - Cannot account for musical memory
• What is eyewitness testimony?

  The info provided by people who have witnessed the events like crimes or accidents
• What is the Cognitive interview?

  A method of interviewing eyewitnesses developed by psychologists and the police in order to retrieve more accurate memories from a witness about an event
• Four techniques part of the cognitive interview:

  • Report everything
  • Reinstate the context
  • Reverse the order
  • Change perspective
• Report everything:

  • Recall all details even inf they think they may be unimportant
  • Don't leave any details out
• Reinstate the context:

  • Asked to imagine themselves back at the scene and recall what environment and their emotions before, during and after the event
• Reverse the order:

  • Asked to recall the event in a different order ( eg from the end to the beginning or in the middle)
• Change perspective:

  • Witnesses asked to recall the events from the perspectives of other people at the scene at that time, could be the victim or the offender
• Who created the enhanced cognitive interview?

  Fisher