Memory

• What was Baddeley's procedure? - coding

  Acoustically similar words or dissimilar. Semantically similar or dissimilar
• What were Baddeley's findings?- coding

  Immediate recall worse with acoustically similar words, STM is acoustic. Recall after 20 minutes worse with semantically similar words, LTM is semantic
• What was Jacob's procedure? - capacity

  Researcher reads four digits and increases until the participant cannot recall the order correctly. Final number = digit span.
• What were Jacob's findings? - capacity

  On average, participants could repeat back 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters in the correct order immediately after they were presented.
• What was Miller's procedure? - capacity

  Miller observed everyday practice, noted that things come in sevens - notes of musical scale, days of the week, deadly sins, etc
• What were Miller's findings? - capacity


  The span of STM is about 7 items (plus or minus 2) but is increased by z chunking — grouping sets of digits/letters into meaningful units.
• What was Peterson and Peterson's procedure? - duration

  24 students were given a consonant syllable (e.g. YCG) to recall and a 0 3-digit number to count backwards from. The retention interval was o varied: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds.
• What were Peterson and Peterson's findings? - duration

  After 3 seconds — average recall was about 80%. After 18 seconds it was about 3%. STM duration without rehearsal is up to 18 seconds.
• What was Bahrick's procedure? - duration

  Participants were 392 Americans aged between 17 and 74.

  1. Recognition test— 50 photos from high school yearbooks.

  2. Free recall test— Participants listed names of their graduating class.
• What were Bahrick's findings? - duration


  Recognition test —90% accurate after 15 years, 70% after 48 years.

  Free recall test — 60% recall after 15 years, 30% after 48 years.
• What is a strength of Baddeley's study?

  P - One strength of Baddeley's study is that it identified two memory stores.

  E - Later research showed that there are exceptions to Baddeley's findings.

  E - But STM is mostly acoustic and LTM is mostly semantic.

  L - This led to the development of the multi-store model (next spread).
• What is a limitation of Baddeley's study?

  P - One limitation of Baddeley's study is that it used artificial stimuli

  E - The words used had no personal meaning to the participants so tells us little about coding for everyday memory tasks

  E - When processing more meaningful information, people use semantic coding even for STM.

  L - This means the findings of this study have limited application
• What is a strength of Jacob's study?

  P - One strength of Jacobs' study is that it has been replicated.

  E - This is an old study and may have lacked adequate controls (confounding variables e.g. participants being distracted).

  E - Despite this, Jacobs' findings have been confirmed in later controlled studies (e.g. Bopp and Verhaeghen 2005).

  L - This shows that Jacobs' study is a valid measure of STM digit span
• What is a limitation of Miller's study?

  P - One limitation of Miller's research is it may overestimate STM capacity.

  E - For example, Cowan (2001) reviewed other research.

  E - He concluded that the capacity of STM was only about 4 (plus or minus 1) chunks

  L - He concluded that the capacity of STM was only about 4 (plus or minus 1) chunks
• What is a limitation of Peterson and Peterson's study?

  P - One limitation of Peterson and Peterson's study is the meaningless stimuli.

  E - We sometimes try to recall meaningless things so the study is not completely irrelevant.

  E - But recall of consonant syllables does not reflect meaningful everyday memory tasks.

  L - Therefore the study lacked external validity
• What is a strength of Bahrick's study?

  P - One strength of Bahrick et al.'s study is it had high external validity.

  E - Everyday meaningful memories (e.g. of people's faces and names) were studied.

  E - When lab studies were done with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower (e.g. Shepard 1967).

  L - This means that Bahrick et al.'s findings reflect a more 'real' estimate of the duration of LTM.
• What does the MSM describe?

  The MSM describes how information flows through the memory system
• What is the multi-store model?

  
• What is the sensory register?

  All stimuli from the environment (e.g. the sound of someone talking) pass into the SR. This part of memory is not one store but five, one for each sense.

  • Coding— modality-specific, depends on the sense (visual in iconic, acoustic in echoic, etc.).

  • Duration —very brief, less than half a second (see research on facing page).

  • Capacity—very high, e.g. over one hundred million cells in one eye, each storing data.
• How do they transfer from SR to STM?

  Information passes further into memory only if attention is paid to it (attention is the key process).
• What is short term memory?

  A limited capacity store of temporary duration.
• What is the coding of STM?

  Coding—acoustic (based on sound).
• What is the duration of STM?

  Duration — about 18 seconds unless the information is rehearsed.
• What is the capacity of STM?

  Capacity— between 5 and 9 (7 ± 2) items before some forgetting occurs (Cowan argues for around 5).
• How do they transfer from STM to LTM?

  Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat (rehearse) material to ourselves. We can keep information in STM as long as we rehearse it. If we rehearse it long enough, it passes into LTM.
• What is long term memory?

  A permanent memory store.
• What is the coding of LTM?

  • Coding— mostly semantic (i.e. in terms of meaning).
• What is the duration of LTM?

  Duration— potentially up to a lifetime.
• What is the capacity of LTM?

  • Capacity— potentially unlimited.
• How do we retrieve from LTM?

  A permanent memory store. • Coding— mostly semantic (i.e. in terms of meaning). • Duration— potentially up to a lifetime. • Capacity— potentially unlimited.
• What is a strength of the multi-store model of memory? (stm and ltm are different)

  P - One strength is research support showing STM and LTM are different.

  E - Baddeley (1966) found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STMs (so STM coding is acoustic)

  E - But we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs (which shows LTM coding is semantic).

  L - This supports the MSM's view that these two memory stores are separate and independent.

  C - Despite such apparent support, the studies tend not to use everyday information (e.g. faces, names). They use digits/letters (Jacobs) or meaningless consonant syllables (Peterson and Peterson). Therefore the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in everyday life where memory tends to involve meaningful information.
• What is a limitation of the multi-store model of memory? (more than one stm store)

  P - One limitation is evidence suggesting there is more than one STM store.

  E - KF had amnesia (Shallice and Warrington 1970), STM recall for digits was poor when he heard them, but much better when he read them.

  E - Other studies confirm there may also be a separate STM store for non-verbal sounds (e.g. noises).

  L - Therefore the MSM is wrong to claim there is just one STM store processing different types of information.
• What is a limitation of the multi-store model of memory? (prolonged rehearsal)


  P - Another limitation is prolonged rehearsal is not needed for STM—LTM transfer.

  E - Craik and Watkins (1973) argued there are two types of rehearsal called maintenance and elaborative. Maintenance (amount of rehearsal) is the one described in the MSM.

  E - But elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage. This occurs e.g. when you link information to your existing knowledge, or think about its meaning.

  L - This suggests that the MSM does not fully explain how long-term storage is achieved.
• What is episodic memory?

  Stores events (episodes) from our lives.Episodic memories are complex.They are time-stamped — you remember when they happened and how they relate in time. They involve several elements — people, places, objects and behaviours are woven into one memory. You have to make a conscious effort to recall them.
• What is semantic memory?


  Stores our knowledge of the worldSemantic memory is like a combination of an encyclopaedia and a dictionary.Semantic memories are not timestampedThey are not time-stamped, e.g. we don't remember when we first heard about Frozen. They are less personal than episodic memories and more about facts/knowledge we all share.
• What is procedural memory?

  Stores memories for actions and skills.These are memories of how we do things. For example, driving a car or playing table tennis.Recall occurs without awareness or effort.These skills/actions become automatic with practice. Explaining the step-by-step procedure (e.g. changing gear) is hard because you do it without conscious recall.
• What is a strength of different types of LTM? (case study evidence)

  P - One strength is case study evidence of different types of LTM.

  E - Clinical studies of amnesia (HM and Clive Wearing) showed both had diffculty recalling events that had happened to them in their pasts (episodic memory).

  E - But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected (e.g. HM did not need the concept of 'dog' explained to him). Procedural memories were also intact (e.g. Clive Wearing still played the piano)

  L - This supports the view that there are different memory stores in LTM because one store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected.

  C - Researchers lack control in clinical case studies — they do not know anything about the person's memory before brain damage. Therefore clinical studies are limited in what they can tell us about different types of LTM.
• What is a limitation of different types of LTM? (conflicting findings)

  P - One limitation is conflicting findings about types of LTM and brain areas.

  E - Buckner and Petersen (1996) reviewed research findings and concluded that semantic memory is located in the left prefrontal cortex and episodic with the right prefrontal cortex.

  E - But other studies (e.g. Tulving et al. 1994) have found that semantic memory was associated with the right prefrontal cortex and the reverse for episodic memory

  L - This challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located
• What is a strength of different types of LTM? (helping people with memory problems)

  P - Another strength is helping people with memory problems.

  E - Memory loss in old age is specific to episodic memory — it is harder to recall memories of recent experiences although past episodic memories are intact

  E - Belleville et al. (2006) devised an intervention for older people targeting episodic memory, which improved their memory compared to a control group.

  L - This shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.
• What is the WMM concerned with?

  The WMM is concerned with the 'mental space' that STM. is active when, for example, working on an arithmetic problem or playing chess or comprehending language, etc.