psychology p1

• Types of encoding


  • Visual encoding
  • Acoustic encoding
  • Tactile encoding
  • Semantic encoding
  • Olfactory encoding
• Short term memory (STM)


  Can be stored for 18-30 seconds and can only be increased by rehearsal
• Long term memory (LTM)


  Can be stored for potentially forever
• Types of LTM


  • Semantic
  • Episodic
  • Procedural
• Retrieval


  The process of remembering information stored in the LTM
• Types of retrieval


  • Recognition
  • Cued Recall
  • Free Recall
• Multistore model


  • Research evidence shows STM and LTM are processed by separate stores that code differently
  • Fails to consider different types of memory within the stores
  • Limited as it doesn't explain how complex memory is
• Practical application of multistore model


  Used to help people remember names and improve revision as well as explain the importance of rehearsal
• Sensory store


  Coding depends on senses, capacity is unlimited, duration is less than 1/2 a second
• LTM


  Coding is mostly semantic, capacity is unlimited, duration is potentially forever
• Episodic memory


  Memory for events from your life, time & place
• Semantic memory


  Memory for factual knowledge, not time-stamped
• Procedural memory


  Muscle based memory of HOW to do things
• Evidence to support types of memory comes from the case study of HM who had his hippocampus removed
• The types of memory may not be the same in all people as HM was a unique case of brain damage
• Primacy effect


  The tendency for individuals to show enhanced memory for items presented at the beginning of a list
• Recency effect


  The tendency for individuals to show enhanced memory for items presented at the end of a list
• Displacement theory of forgetting


  Primacy words are well-rehearsed and encoded in LTM, recency words are still in the Rehearsal Loop; middle words are displaced by recency words because of the limited capacity of STM
• Reconstructive memory


  Our memories are not an exact copy of an event but an active process where we change our memories to fit in with our existing schemas
• Effort after meaning


  When we reconstruct our memories, we first focus on the meaning of the event and second make an effort to interpret the meaning in more familiar terms
• Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study found participants reconstructed the story to fit their existing schemas
• Bartlett's theory is useful for explaining why eyewitnesses may remember the same event differently
• Bartlett's theory fails to consider that not all memories are reconstructed
• Interference


  When the accuracy of memory is affected because two sets of information become confused and that is why forgetting occurs
• Retroactive interference


  New information prevents the recall of old information
• Context


  The environment you are in which can affect memory
• Godden and Baddeley's study found divers recalled more in the same context as encoding
• Research on context may not represent real life forgetting as it is often conducted with artificial material
• Loftus and Pickrell's 'Lost in the mall' study found 25% of participants developed a false memory
• Research on false memories raises ethical issues around deception