Memory

• What is the capacity, encoding and duration of the Sensory Store

  Capacity - Large

  Duration - 0.5-2 seconds

  Encoding - Iconic, Echoic, Haptic
• What is the capacity, encoding and the duration of the STM

  Capacity - 5-9 items (7)

  Duration - Up to 30 seconds without rehearsal

  Encoding - Acoustically
• What is the capacity, encoding and duration of the LTM

  Capacity - Potentially unlimited

  Duration - Potentially unlimited

  Encoding - Semantically
• What did Sperling find about the Sensory Store

  Although participants should remember more than average 4 items, it is thought that the image of each item fades during the 50 milliseconds and the time it takes to report back recalled items
• Explain Jacobs experiment into the capacity of the STM

  Participants are given a series of words or digits and are instructed to recall immediately and accurately in the correct order. As the test continues, the list gets longer. Jacobs found that the STM has a capacity of 7+or -2
• Explain Baddeley's experiment into the encoding of the STM

  Participants shown a sequence of words from one of four categories - acoustically similar/ dissimilar, semantically similar/ dissimilar and they were asked to write the lists down after 20 seconds. He found that the dissimilar words were recalled better and the STM encodes acoustically
• Explain Peterson and Peterson's research into the duration of the STM

  Asked participants to remember trigrams and then gave them a distracted by asking them to count backwards in 3's to stop them rehearsing the trigrams. They were then asked to recall after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 seconds. He found that when rehearsal is prevented, the STM has a duration of 18 seconds
• Explain Baddeley's research into the encoding of the LTM

  Participants shown a sequence of words from one of four categories - acoustically similar/ dissimilar, semantically similar/ dissimilar and they were asked to write the lists down after 20 minutes. He found that recall was better with the semantically similar words and this shows that the LTM is encoded semantically
• Explain Bahrick et al's research into the duration of LTM

  392 high school graduates were shown photographs from their high school year book and for each photo, the participants were given a list of names that they had to select from. Another group just had to name the people without a list. He found that duration is potentially unlimited but the accuracy can fade due to decay
• Strengths of MSM

  Supporting evidence

  Shows they have separate stores - Baddeley conducted an experiment and found that semantic words were more difficult to recall, suggests encoding in STM and LTM were different
• Limitations of MSM

  The model is over-simplified

  It assumes that each of the stores works as a unitary store

  There are several times that we rehearse a lot to remember material and it is not transferred to LTM

  Suggest that rehearsal is the only way to transfer into LTM

  All research to support uses artificial settings and stimuli so we can question the external validity and whether we can apply it to life situations

  WMM contradicts as it shows memory is not a unitary store
• What does the central executive do

  Receives incoming data and allocates these to certain systems

  It has a limited capacity

  It is modality free
• What does the phonological loop do

  Deals with auditory information

  Has 2 stores - phonological store (inner ear)

  - the articulatory process (inner voice)
• Explain Baddeley's research into the phonological loop

  Participants were given lists of five words to remember for a brief time. Participants were separated into 2 groups and 2 separate conditions, one with small simple words, the other with longer more complicated words. They were then asked to recall these lists. He found that recall of the short words were a lot better. This is evident for the word length effect.
• What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do

  Deals with visual and spatial information

  Has 2 stores - the visual cashe

  - the inner scribe
• Explain Shepard and Feng's research into the visuo-spatial sketchpad

  Participants were presented with cube nets and asked to either try and fold the cube in their head or actually had to fold it and then got asked the question "do the points meet". They found a strong correlation between time taken scores for mental and physical folding
• What does the episodic buffer do

  Added in 2000

  Extra store system with limited capacity

  Links working memory to LTM
• Strengths of WMM

  Supporting evidence

  Shows that memory is not a unitary store

  The model explains that memory is active rather than passive

  Research used to support the MSM further strengths the WMM which shows it has concurrent validity
• Limitations of WMM

  Nature of the central executive is unclear

  Supported by highly controlled studies which my undermine the validity of the model

  The link between WM and LTM isn't clear unlike the MSM

  Doesn't account for musical memory as participants can listen to instrumental music without impairing performance on other acoustic tasks
• What are the three types of LTM

  Episodic memory

  Semantic memory

  Procedural memory
• Explain episodic memory

  Refers to a group of events

  Strengthened by emotions

  Explicit memory

  Conscious recall

  Declarative

  Episodic memory occurs in the right side of pre-frontal cortex
• Explain semantic memory

  General knowledge ( e.g. facts and meanings)

  Explicit memory

  Conscious recall

  Declarative

  Occurs on the left side of the pre-frontal cortex
• Explain procedural memory

  Skills required through practice (e.g. how to tie shoe laces)

  Automatic memories

  Implicit memory

  Unconscious recall

  Non-declarative
• Strengths of types of LTM

  Clinical evidence - Patient HM and Clive Wearing (episodic memory was impaired but semantic and procedural memory were unaffected)

  
  

  Neuroimaging evidence - Tulving found that types of LTM work in different parts of the pre-frontal cortex which supports that there are different types of
• Weaknesses of types of LTM

  Case studies - used people with brain damage (e.g. Patient HM). This means we can't generalize it to those who don't have brain damage
• What are the explanations for forgetting

  Interference

  Retrieval failure due to the absence of cues
• What is the interference theory

  When two pieces of information conflict with each other resulting in forgetting one or both pieces of information

  This is an explanation for forgetting in LTM
• What is proactive interference

  Old memories interfere with the new memories your trying to store

  Forget new because of old
• What is retroactive interference

  New information/memories interfere with old memories

  Forget old because of new
• Explain Underwood's and Postman's research into interference

  AIM - to see if new learning interferes with previous learning

  PROCEDURE - participants were divided into two groups, A were asked to learn a list of word pairs and then asked to learn a second list where the second paired word is different, B were asked to learn the first list only, both groups were then asked to recall the first list

  RESULTS - group B's recall was better and more accurate
• Strengths of interference theory

  Tasks are fully controlled so experiments can be replicated

  Supporting Evidence - Underwood and Postman

  Real life studies - Baddeley and Hitch, rugby players recalling games they played 3 weeks ago, those who didn't play recently found it easier to
• Limitations of interference theory

  Most of the experiments use artificial tasks so it lacks mundane realism

  Interference does not answer the question of whether accessibility or availability in the issue

  Effects of interference may be overcome by giving people cues
• Explain the two types of cues

  External cues - encoding the context of the environment. Forgetting occurs when the environment during recall is different from the environment you learnt in

  Internal cues - we learn the mental state we are in. Forgetting occurs when your mood is different from the mood you were in when you were learning
• Explain Tulving's 'encoding specificity principle'

  'The greater similarity between the encoding event and the retrieval event, the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory'

  This is when we can't access the memory until the correct retrieval cue is used
• Explain Godden and Baddeley's research into cue dependent forgetting

  AIM - To investigate the effects of the environment on recall

  PROCEDURE - 18 divers were asked to learn and recall a list of 36 words in one of four conditions: Learn on beach + recall on beach, learn underwater + recall on beach, learn underwater + recall on beach, learn underwater + recall underwater

  RESULTS - 13.5 learn on beach + recall on beach, 8.6 learn on beach + recall underwater, 8.5 learn underwater + recall on beach, 11.4 learn underwater + recall underwater

  CONCLUSION - The context as a cue to recall as the participants recalled more words when in the same environment then in the different environment
• Strengths of Cue dependent forgetting

  Research to support from Godden and Baddeley

  Real life application - Abernathy suggests you should revise in the same room you take a test in
• Weaknesses of Cue dependent forgetting

  Context is not strong enough in real life

  They may be differences in performances due to the task or item that they are trying to recall; this may also impact the context dependent learning
• What are the factors affecting eye-witness testimony

  Leading questions

  Post event discussion

  Anxiety
• What are leading questions

  A question or parts of a question that can influence a way a person answers it
• Explain Loftus and Palmer's research into leading questions

  PROCEDURE - 45 students shown 7 short video clips of a car accident. After they were asked to answer a questionnaire and they were all asked to answer the same question "how fast were the cars going when they ___" with a different verb: collided, smashed, hit, bumped or contacted

  RESULTS - Smashed led to participants estimating 40.8bpm and contacted led to participants estimating 31.8mph