psychology

• Sensory information


  Information in the environment that is registered briefly
• Encoding


  Turning sensory information into a form that can be stored
• Types of encoding


  • Acoustic encoding
  • Visual encoding
  • Semantic encoding
• Output


  Recalling information e.g. behavioural response
• Multi Store Model of Memory (MSM)


  Model developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in 1968 that identifies 3 different stores in our memory system: sensory register, short term memory, and long term memory
• Sensory register/memory


  • Registers a lot of sensory information briefly
  • We do not pay attention to all of the information around us
• Short term memory (STM)

  • Information that we pay attention to gets transferred here
  • Can be stored for 18-30 seconds
  • Capacity is 7+/-2
  • Older information is pushed out (displaced) if too much information
  • Can be stored longer if rehearsed
• Long term memory (LTM)

  • Can hold information for up to a lifetime
  • Has a limitless capacity
  • Mainly semantic memories with meanings
  • Information can be retrieved but can also be lost through decay
• Attention


  Taking notice of an event or information
• Rehearsal


  Repeating information to increase the duration of a memory
• Retrieval


  Recalling a memory
• Decay


  Forgetting information in the long term memory as it has broken down
• Displacement


  Forgetting information in the short term memory due to incoming information
• Capacity


  The amount of information stored
• Duration


  The length of time information is stored
• Strengths of the MSM

  • Has support from case studies of patients with brain damage
  • Gives a good structure of the short term memory for researchers to expand on
  • Case studies have shown we can have no STM but a LTM
• Weaknesses of the MSM

  • Not all information is rehearsed and transferred into LTM, it can decay and displace
• Reconstructive memory


  Our memories are not exact copies but are influenced by our prior knowledge and expectations (schemas)
• Schemas


  Packets of knowledge about an event, person or place that influence how we perceive and remember
• How schemas are formed

  • Personal experience
  • Stereotypes
  • Culture
• How schemas influence memory

  • Omissions: leaving out unfamiliar, unpleasant or irrelevant details
  • Transformations: changing details to make them more rational
  • Familiarisation: changing unfamiliar details to align with our own schema
  • Rationalisation: adding details to give a reason for something that may not have originally fitted with a schema
• Strengths of reconstructive memory theory

  • Real world application: helped police understand eyewitness testimony is unreliable
  • Useful: Bartlett's methods tested memory in realistic ways
• Weaknesses of reconstructive memory theory

  • Not useful: Bartlett's data could be subjective
  • Not useful: Bartlett's procedures were not very scientific
• Amnesia


  A special type of forgetting affecting the long term memory, characterised by forgetting or memory loss, particularly after a brain injury
• Retrograde amnesia


  Being unable to recall information from before a brain injury
• Anterograde amnesia


  Being unable to recall information from after a brain injury
• By rehearsing, we can store information in our short term memory
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) experiment 1

  1. Repeat out loud trigram (three consonants)

  2. Count backwards in 3s from 400

  3. Recall trigram when signalled
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) experiment 2

  Same tasks but participants given time to repeat the trigram before counting
• Strengths of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

  • Reliability: fixed timings when counting backwards
  • Real world application: suggests revising in small chunks
  • Validity: used nonsense trigrams to control for personal meaning
• Weaknesses of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

  • Validity: laboratory experiment in unnatural environment
  • Validity: used nonsense trigrams, not realistic
  • Generalisability: only used student participants
  • Validity: only recorded number of trigrams recalled, no other interpretations
• Bartlett's 'War of the Ghosts' (1932)

  1. Participants read the story twice

  2. They then had to recall the story using serial reproduction and repeated reproduction
• Schema theory


  Also known as the 'War of Ghosts'
• Procedure


  1. Participants read the story of the WOG twice

  2. They then had to recall the story using serial reproduction and repeated reproduction
• Serial Reproduction


  A technique where participants retell stories to each other to form a chain
• Repeated Reproduction


  Where participants retell a story over and over again
• Serial reproduction


  Retell it 15-30 mins later
• Repeated reproduction


  Write out the story 15 mins later, recall it after minutes, days, hours, months and years
• Strengths of the War of the Ghosts study


  • Remembering a story is an everyday test of memory, giving the procedure ecological validity
  • The study was replicated and the same results were found using various studies, giving it reliability
  • Results were gathered using qualitative analysis, allowing the real nature of reconstructive memory to be understood through its meaning
• Weaknesses of the War of the Ghosts study

  • The story was not familiar, illogical and contained strange words, which could be a reason why participants were unable to remember it, so it may not have been an accurate test of memory
  • Results were gathered using qualitative analysis, which is considered unscientific as Bartlett may have been biased towards his theory
  • Participants read the story at their own pace and recalled their version after different timed intervals, lacking controls and being unscientific, so those who took longer may have performed better