Memory

• capacity is the amount of information the memory store can hold
• capacity research

  jacobs digit span 1887

  presented with one number at a time increasing until there were 11, after presented p's wrote down in same order - 7+-2

  miller suggested people chunk similar items as one item

  :-) highly controlled

  :-( low ecological validity
• encoding is the way in which information can be transferred into a storable form
• encoding research

  baddeley presented list of acoustically similar/dissimilar words. dissimilar remembered better - stm is acoustic

  :-) helped seperate memory stores

  :-( lab
• duration is the length of time information is held within the memory store
• duration research


  peterson and peterson showed p's 3 letter trigrams and a 3 digit number to count back from in 2's for a length of time ranging from 3s to 21s

  :-) replicable

  :-( low ecov
• the multi store model was proposed by atkinson and shiffrin
• the multi store model

  sensory register -> stm -> ltm
• sensory register- sensory info from senses, very large capacity and limited duration
• stm - acoustic, 7+-2, 18-30s duration
• ltm - semantic, potentially unlimited capacity and duration
• info enters memory from environment into sr - if attended to passed to stm - stm capacity is small so if not rehearsed it's lost through displacement/decay - elaborative rehearsal makes info pass into ltm - ltm info can be retrieved into stm if needed
• elaborative rehearsal is linking to prior memories
• msm evaluation

  :-) murdocks serial position curve -> supports distinct stores w primacy and recency effect

  :-( not unitary, shallice and warrington's KF case study shows deficit in verbal information but not visual or acoustic - possible to damage one part
• the working memory model was proposed by baddeley and hitch
• the working memory model

  central executive

  visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop

  long term memory
• central executive

  supervisory component

  processes sense info

  co-ordinates stm

  limited capacity

  delegates info into slave systems
• phonological loop

  two parts, inner ear which is phonological loop that deals with auditory info, inner voice which is articulatory loop that rehearses voices

  limited capacity
• visuo spatial sketchpad

  inner eye

  visual and spatial information

  temporary store

  limited capacity
• episodic buffer

  added in 2000

  integrates info from other systems

  retrieves info from ltm
• dual task technique - two tasks cannot be completed simultaneously if using the same part of the wmm as it becomes overloaded
• the wmm views the stm as an active store
• wmm evaluation

  :-) physiological evidence from PET scans that show different areas of the brain when doing visual or verbal tasks

  :-) KF case study as his deficit was just verbal information

  :-( berz music study opposes dtt
• types of ltm

  explicit = semantic and episodic

  implicit = procedural
• types of ltm evaluation

  :-) brain scans support, episodic in hippocampus, semantic in temp lobe and procedural in cerebellum

  :-) CW case study - viral infection damaged his ltm and couldnt remember semantic or episodic but could remember how to play piano which is procedural

  :-( clinical studies lack controls - no knowledge of prior brain functions, how much worse is the brain?
• encoding specificity principle - general principle that matching te encoding contexts and states of information at recall assists in retrieval of memories
• forgetting - retrieval failure

  people may forget information that is there as they have insufficient cues to recall

  context or state dependent
• context dependent forgetting (external)

  godden and baddeley

  divers learned list of words in four conditions:

  encode beach recalled underwater, encode beach recalled beach, encode underwater recall beach, encode underwater recall underwater

  bb 13.5, bu 8.5

  ub 8.6 uu 11.4
• state dependent forgetting (internal)

  carter and cassidy

  gave antihistamines to participants to create state of drowsiness

  mismatch in state = worse recall
• retrieval failure evaluation

  :-) real world application, useful to improve our memory in everyday life

  :-( affected by types of memory being tested - recognition isnt effected

  :-( cause and effect. might just not be adequately rehearsed
• forgetting - interference theory

  one memory disrupts recall of another

  more likely to happen with similar information and info stored at different times
• proactive interference - old prevents new
• retroactive - new prevents old
• schmidt et al

  investigated retroactive interference in real life

  formed students given map of town with street names replaced with numbers and asked to name as many as they could. data with number of house moves and visits recorded

  found negative correlation between number of times p's moved and number of streets remembered correctly
• schmidt et al conclusion

  learning new patterns of street names makes remembering older ones harder
• interference theory evaluation

  :-) schmidt

  :-(artificial settings that lack mundane realism
• anxiety on accuracy of ewt

  johnson and scott

  condition one - low anxiety - waiting room heard amicable converstion before man emerging with a pen

  condition two - high anxiety - p's heard argument and sound of glass before man emerged with bloody knife

  both conditions asked to identify the man from 50 photographs

  c1 - 49% identified

  c2 - 33% identified
• tunnel theory - enhanced memory for central events
• anxiety on ewt evaluation

  :-) loftus and palmer - eye trackers, eyes moved to weapon not face

  :-( anxiety may improve accuracy, real life robbery, asking leading q's with no effect

  :-( pickel - unusualness not danger - hairdressers with scissors vs raw chicken
• reconstructive memory

  memory of events can be affected by leading questions and post event effect

  loftus and palmer leading questions study - smashed 40.8mph vs contacted 31.8mph