Memory

• Coding


  The way information is changed so it can be stored in memory
• Capacity


  The measure of how much can be held in memory
• Duration


  The measure of how long memory lasts before it is no longer available
• Immediate recall is worse with acoustically dissimilar words
• Recall after 20 minutes worse with semantically dissimilar words
• Baddeley's study didn't use meaningful material
• Participants could repeat back 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters
• Span on STM is 7±2 but can be improved with chunking
• STM's capacity is 7±2
• LTM's capacity is unlimited
• Jacob's study is outdated
• Miller's research may have overestimated STM
• Students recalled about 80% of the syllables correctly. Average recall after 18 seconds fell to 3%
• Participants tested 48 years after graduation were 70% accurate in photo recognition
• Peterson and Peterson's study is artificial
• Bahrick's study had high external validity
• Sensory Register


  • Stimulus from the environment passes into SR along with other sights and sounds
  • This is 5 stores, one for each sense
  • Coding: depends on the sense (e.g. visual)
  • Capacity: High (over one hundred million cells in one eye alone)
  • Duration: Very brief (less that 1 second)
• Attention


  Attention needs to be paid to the sensory information for it to pass into STM
• Short Term Memory


  • STM is a limited capacity and duration store
  • Coding: Acoustic
  • Capacity: Between 5 and 9 items
  • Duration: 18-30 seconds
• Maintenance Rehearsal


  We repeat material to ourselves. If we rehearse it long enough it passes into Long Term Memory
• Long Term Memory


  • A permanent memory store
  • Coding: Semantic
  • Capacity: Potentially unlimited
  • Duration: Potentially up to a lifetime
• Retrieval


  In order to recall information we have to retrieve it from long term memory back to short term memory in order to say it
• Evidence has suggested short term memory is not just one store
• The Multi-Store Model oversimplifies short term memory
• Research uses artificial tasks
• Episodic Memory


  • Stores episodes from our life
  • They are time-stamped
  • You have to make a conscious effort to recall them
• Semantic Memory


  • Stores our knowledge of the world. These memories are less personal
• Procedural Memory


  • Stores memories for actions and skills. Recall occurs without awareness or effort
• Support from the case study of Clive Wearing who had difficulty recalling events that happened to him but his semantic memories were unaffected
• Brain scan studies have shown that there are different stores for LTM
• Identifying different LTM stores has real-life applications. Psychologists can target certain kinds of memory in order to improve their lives
• Problems with clinical evidence. Lack of control when dealing with people with brain damage
• Tulving has suggested that there may only be 2 types of LTM
• Central Executive


  • Monitors incoming data and allocates slave systems to tasks
  • Coding: Flexible
  • Capacity: Very Limited
• Phonological Loop


  • Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives
  • Phonological Store: stores the words you hear
  • Articulatory Process: allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds to keep them in WMM)
  • Coding: Acoustic
  • Capacity: 2 seconds
• Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad


  • Stores visual and spatial information when required
  • Visual Cache: Stores visual data
  • Inner Scribe: Records arrangement of objects in visual field
  • Coding: Visual and Spatial
  • Capacity: 3-4 objects
• Episodic Buffer


  • It's a temporary store for information. Integrates visual, spatial and verbal information from other stores. It maintains sense of time sequencing so records events that are happening
  • Coding: Flexible
  • Capacity: 4 'chunks'
• Dual task performance studies support the VSS
• Word length effect supports the PL
• Support from brain scanning studies