Psych Boost - Memory

• The multi-store model of memory by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 is a theoretical cognitive model that explains how the memory system processes information
• The model consists of three stores: sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory
• Sensory register:

  • Receives raw sense impressions
  • Attention passes in photos
  • Duration: very short, about 250 milliseconds
  • Capacity: very large, holds all sense impressions in each moment
• Short-term memory:

  • Receives information from the sensory register by paying attention or from long-term memory by retrieval
  • Keeps information through maintenance rehearsal or by passing it on to long-term memory
  • Coding: acoustic
  • Duration: approximately 18 seconds
  • Capacity: 7 plus or minus two items
• Long-term memory:

  • Very long duration, potentially limitless
  • Permanent memory storage
  • Theoretical unlimited capacity
  • Coded semantically
  • To use information from long-term memory, it must be passed back to short-term memory for retrieval
• Glanzer and Kunitz found that words at the start and end of word lists were more easily recalled, known as the primacy and recency effect
• Jacobs found that the average recall for letters in short-term memory is about seven items, suggesting a limited capacity of 7 plus or minus two
• Wagner's study on long-term memory showed that recall of events remained high even after several years, suggesting a very large capacity and potentially limitless duration
• Types of long-term memory:

  • Declarative (explicit): consciously recalled memories like facts and events
  • Non-declarative (implicit): not consciously recalled, like procedural memories of skills
• The working memory model by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974 is an active processor made of multiple stores, replacing the short-term memory store in the multi-store model
• Working memory model components:

  • Central executive: controls attention and filters information
  • Phonological loop: processes sound information
  • Visual spatial sketchpad: processes visual and spatial information
  • Episodic buffer: integrates information from other stores
• Interference works forward in time when old information already stored interferes with recalling something new
• Retroactive interference occurs when new information disrupts old information, working backward in time
• Similarity interference is more likely to occur when two pieces of information are similar due to response competition
• Time sensitivity interference is less likely to occur when there's a large gap between learning and retrieval
• Cue-dependent forgetting happens when information is in long-term memory but forgetting occurs due to the absence of appropriate cues or prompts
• The encoding specificity principle states that context-dependent cues from aspects of our external environment work as cues to memory, like sight, sound, and smells
• State-dependent cues from aspects of our internal environment, like emotions, drugs, and states of arousal, work as cues to memory
• Category or organizational cues provide cues that relate to the organization or category of memories
• Age recall suggests that the most effective cues have fewer things associated with them, and the lack of organizational cues inhibits memory
• Research into forgetting has practical applications, such as developing effective revision strategies and using context cues to improve recall, like in the cognitive interview technique used by the police