psychology- memory

• encoding


  changing the information so it can be stored in the brain
• visual encoding


  Images and visuals seen by our eyes are stored through visual encoding
• acoustic encoding


  Anything that is heard is encoded acoustically
• semantic encoding

  Semantic refers to meaning. It is our memory of words and concepts – things that have meaning to us
• retrieval


  recovering info from a memory store
• recognition


  When you see/hear/smell/touch/taste something that is familiar, you recognise it
• cued recall


  When you need a bit of help from a cue (hint) to remember information
• free recall

  Retrieving information without any prompts, cues, or clues.
• sensory register


  External stimuli coming from our environment enters the sensory register. To enter our sensory register, this information is picked upby one of our 5 senses
• sensory register- features

  • coding- dependent on the stimuli
  • capacity- very high
  • duration- less than 0.5 secs
• short term memory

  Once attention has been paid to the information in our sensory memory, it passes into our STM. Maintenance rehearsal keeps information fresh in the STM – it maintains it.
• short term memory- features

  • coding- mainly acoustic
  • capacity- 7 +/- 2 (5 to 9) items, or chunks of items
  • duration- everything is forgotten after 18-30 seconds
• long term memory

  Elaborative (also called prolonged) rehearsal makes the information in STM important enough to be transferred into LTM. To remember information, we must retrieve it from LTM to recall from our STM.
• long term memory- features

  • coding- mainly semantic
  • capacity- potentially unlimited
  • duration- potentially unlimited
• strengh of MSM

  • S- there is research evidence for the existence of the separate stores
  • C- Murdock found that words at the start (primacy) and end (recency) of a word list were remembered more accurately than words in the middle. This is because the words at the start have been rehearsed enough to transfer to LTM, and words at the end are still fresh in STM, whilst the words in the middle have decayed
  • W- good because research has shown that different pieces of information can be stored in two separate stores, supporting the model
• weakness of MSM

  • W- it is too simple
  • C- The model states that STM and LTM are unitary, single stores. However, research has found that STM can be divided into separate visual and acoustic stores, and LTM can be divided into episodic, semantic, and procedural memories
  • W- bad because the model can be seen as an over-simplification of our complex memory processes
• weakness of MSM

  • W- evidence that supports the MSM’s existence uses artificial materials
  • C- Supporting studies often involved artificial word lists (such as Murdock).
  • W- bad because the model only represents memory in an artificial laboratory setting, not real life, it lacks external validity
• murdock- aim

  To see if memory of words was affected by where they were presented in a list
• murdock- method

  In a repeated measures design, 103 participants listened to 20 lists of words. Each word list contained between 10 and 40 words – created through randomisation from the 4,000 most common English words. Participants recalled the words in any order immediately after they heard each list
• murdock- results

  • Recall of words was higher depending on where the words were presented.
  • Primacy effect – high recall for words presented at the start of the list.
  • Recency effect – highest recall was for words at the end of the list.
  • Words in the middle were most commonly forgotten.
• murdock- conclusion

  These findings present the serial position effect – the likelihood that something is to be remembered depends on its position in the series. The serial position effect supports the MSM because primacy words (learnt at the start) have been transferred to LTM, whilst recency words (at the end) are still fresh in STM. Words in the middle have been pushed out of STM by the newer words, but haven’t had long enough to be transferred to LTM, so they are lost and forgotten (decay
• murdock- strength

  • S- Lab experiment
  • C- Murdock could standardise the words that were used and standardise the speed of presentation
  • W- Good, High internal validity & reliability
• murdock- strength

  • S- Quantitative data
  • C- It is easy to count the number of words that were recalled from each section of the list and compare the number from each section to each other
  • W- Good, Increases the internal validity
• murdock weakness

  • W- Artificial task
  • C- We aren’t often asked to recall a random word list
  • W- Bad, low in external validity
• episodic ltm

  Memories of events (episodes) from your life. Personal memories from experiences you have had
• semantic ltm

  The memory of meaning. The shared knowledge about the facts of life and the world that everyone knows
• procedural ltm


  The memory of motor skills.
• strength of diff types of ltm

  • S- it is supported by brain scan studies
  • C- Brain scanning studies have found that episodic, semantic, and procedural memories activate different areas of the brain when being recalled
  • W- good, as it gives objective and scientific evidence to support the explanation.
• strength of ltm

  • S- evidence from brain damaged patients with amnesia
  • C- Clive Wearing lost his semantic and episodic memories, yet he can still remember how to play the piano, showing that he still has procedural memories
  • W- good as it shows that LTM is separated into different components
• weakness of ltm

  • W- the 3 different types are not as easily divided as it may first seem
  • C- semantic and episodic encoding are often interlinked – your semantic memory of a sporting event is often fused with your episodic memory of watching the event
  • W- bad, as reducing long-term memory into 3 separate types is an oversimplification
• bartlett- aim

  How cultural influences affect the reconstruction of a story over weeks and months
• bartlett- method

  • British students read a Native American story, ‘The War of the Ghosts’. After about 15-30minutes, they were asked to retell the story. This took place several times, with the participants returning to Bartlett’s lab days, weeks, or months later to reread someone else’s recollection of the story, and recall the story again (this was called serial reproduction), with Bartlett keeping a record of the version of the story that each person told. culturally similar, or culturally different elements of the War of the Ghosts story
• bartlett- method

  • The intention was to see how much the story changed from the original, and whether the British students had a higher recollection of the story
• bartlett- results

  •                There were considerable differences between the original story and the final story. Participants altered the Native American story to fit the British cultural expectations of the scenario, with Bartlett identifying 3 key findings:
  • (1) The story was shortened through removing irrelevant information and keeping just the key themes.
  • (2) Phrases were changed to fit cultural knowledge, e.g. ‘canoe’ became ‘boat’ & ‘hunting’ became ‘fishing’.
  • (3) Eventually, the story became fixed, once it became culturally relevant to the British students.
• bartlett- conclusion

  All of the transformations made it easier for the British participants to remember the story. We don’t remember the details of memories, we tend to reconstruct them with assumptions that we hold
• strength of bartlett

  • S- External validity
  • C- The task was a real-world task, storytelling, and used a real story for the materials.
  • W- Can explain how people make these mistakes in the real world
• weakness of bartlett

  • W- Didn’t use the Scientific Method
  • C- Participants weren’t given standardised instructions – no standardised time after which participants had to recall the story and they were not told to be as accurate as possible
  • W- Lacks internal validity
• weakness of bartlett

  • W- Experimenter bias
  • C- Bartlett was the only one to analyse the responses – he was looking for changes based on culture
  • W- May have led to inaccurate findings
• memory is inaccurate

  Your memory of an event can be a lot different to your friends. This is because your memories are stored in easier to store fragments. Despite this, you still think that your memory is 100% accurate, even thought it is not.
• reconstruction

  When we need to recall an event, we take the small fragments of information stored and actively reconstruct and rebuild the memory to form what we think happened. Each time you tell the story, you reconstruct the small fragments differently.