cognitive processing

• Memory


  The process by which information is encoded, stored and retrieved
• Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store memory model (1966)


  • Suggests memory is stored in three locations: sensory memory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM)
• Sensory memory


  A temporary store holding information from the environment very briefly in the form in which it is received (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory)
• Information needs to receive attention if it is going to begin the process of being transferred to long-term memory
• Short-term memory (STM)


  A store with limited capacity and duration; information enters STM from the sensory buffer if attention is paid to the stimuli; if information in STM is rehearsed, it moves to long-term memory; if new information is not rehearsed or disrupts rehearsal, the information may be displaced and lost
• Long-term memory (LTM)


  Where memory is stored after it has been rehearsed while in STM; of unlimited capacity and duration
• Serial position effect


  The psychological tendency to remember the first (primacy effect) and last items (recency effect) in a list better than those in the middle
• Initial items presented are most effectively stored in long-term memory because of the greater amount of processing devoted to them
• The serial position effect has been used to support the idea that there are separate stores for STM and LTM, as proposed by Atkinson & Schiffrin
• Baddeley & Hitch's working memory model (1974)


  • Suggests short-term memory has different parts: central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer
• Central executive


  Manages and directs attention, allocates information to sub-systems based on modality, deals with problem solving, limited capacity
• Phonological loop


  Temporarily retains language-based information, deals with auditory information and language (written and spoken)
• Visuospatial sketchpad


  Temporarily retains visual and spatial information (visual: iconic memory, spatial: relationships between things, location in space), limited capacity
• Episodic buffer


  A temporary store that integrates information from the other components and maintains a sense of time, so that events occur in a continuing sequence