Psych - Memory

• Who is Clive Wearing?

  he was a musician who contracted Herpes. caused an inflammation on the brain as it crossed the blood brain barrier and it destroyed his hippocampus. he can still conduct a choir but cannot form new memories.
• what is coding?


  The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.
• what is AO1, AO2 and AO3

  1= facts, description, knowledge

  2=application

  3= evaluation
• what is capacity


  The amount of information that can be held in a memory store
• What is duration?


  The length of time information can be held in memory
• what is the coding test- Baddely (1966)


  Wanted to see if coding was different in STM and LTM

  4 groups of different words given to ps.

  1= acoustically similar e.g. cat,cab STM

  2=acoustically dissimilar e.g. pit,few STM

  3= semantically similar e.g. large, big LTM

  4= semenatically dissimilar e.g. good, huge LTM.
• what were the results of the coding experiment.

  when ps had to recall immediately. worse at acoustically similar. 10% accuracy (60-80% for group 2)

  recall after 20 mins performed worse with semantically similar 55% accuracy (70-85% for group 4)

  
  

  information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM.
• what was the test for capacity?- Miller (1956)


  digit span technique originally done by Jacob's (1887). experimenter reads out top line of numbers and p recalls in correct order. continue until failure (digit span is the line you stopped at)
• what conclusions did Miller and Jacob's draw?

  Miller's magic number 7+/-2 chunks when we chunk information it increases the capacity of what we can remember.
• what was the study done to research duration- Peterson and Peterson (1959)


  Aim: to find out the duration of STM (LTM is unlimited). 24 undergrad students were given a trigram and a 3 digit number and had to count backwards from until told to stop. then recall the trigram.
• what was the findings in the peterson and peterson experiment?

  the longer the retention interval the lower the percentage of correct responses. This suggests that the duration of STM is 18-30s (limited)
• what was Bahricks yearbook study?


  tested the duration of LTM.

  392 ps from Ohio 17-74. 2 tests:

  photo recognition=given 50 photos and had to identify them.

  free recall= recall the names of as many people as they can.
• what was the results of Bahricks study?

  Recognition after 15 years was 90% and after 48 years it was 70%. free recall after 15 years was 60% and 30% after 48 years.
• evaluation points of Duration

  artificial, doenst reflect memory in our everyday life, lacks external validity. the information may have only been displaced.
• evaluation points of duration (LTM)

  used real life meaningful memories. higher external validity. however extraneous variables weren't controlled (may have looked back)
• evaluation points of capacity (STM)

  overestimated because Cowan (2001) found the capacity was 4 chunks.
• evaluation of coding (ST and LT)

  artificial stimuli, no personal meaning. cant generalise.
• external validity


  extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings
• extraneous variable


  any variable that isnt the IV that may have an effect on the DV.
• Who is Henry Molasion? (HM)

  At 7 had a bike accident- epileptic seizures. At 27 surgeon used a straw to suck out part of his hippocampus. stopped his seizures but was unable to form new memories but could learn simple motor skills.
• what is a flash bulb memory?

  a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event
• KF- Shallice and Warrington (1970)


  suffered from brain damaged as a result of a motobike accident. Had no problem with LTM. ST forgetting of auditory letters and sounds was greater than forgetting visual stimuli. he can't remember words but could remember meaningful sounds.

  poor auditory good visual.

  
• what was George Sperling (1960) study?

  supports existence of sensory register and iconic memory store. flashes a 3x4 grid for 50 milliseconds and asked ps to recall the letters. sounded different tones to indicate a row. 80% accuracy (row) suggest that the grid was in SR but decayed rapidly. shows our SR is made up of different sub stores and that the capacity of iconic store is large but decays rapidly.
• MSM (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968)


  linear model.

  info flows in sequence

  3 unitary stores

  environmental stimuli

  5 senses

  main 2 (iconic and echoic)

  duration 0.5s, capacity 100 million cells per eye

  attention

  STM

  limited capacity (7+/-2)

  limited duration (18-30s)

  accousitic

  maintenance rehearsal

  LTM

  unlimited capacity and duration

  semantic

  
• evaluating the MSM (murdocks serial position curve)

  confirms there are seperate store for LTM and STM

  U shaped curve

  beginning= recalled because they've been rehearsed and transferred to LTM.

  end= recalled because they are in STM.

  SUPPORTS MSM
• evaluation of MSM (KF)

  dissproves

  amnesia patients- KF

  stores process auditory and visual separately

  kf= poor auditory but good visual

  MSM says that STM is a unitary store KF shows it must be more complex
• what are the types of LTM- Tulving


  episodic, semantic, procedural
• What is episodic memory?

  personal events e.g. your first day at school
• What is procedural memory?


  LTM store of how to do things e.g. how to ride a bike
• What is semantic memory?

  knowledge of the world e.g. where the Eiffel tower is.
• weakness of LTM stores

  Cohen and squire (1980) disagree with the x3 types. they accept procedural memories but that episodic and semantic are stored together on one LTM store known as declarative memory. procedural memories are therefore non- declarative
• evaluation of the types of LTM: Clive wearing and HM

  episodic in both men was affected but semantic memories where ok. They could still understand the meaning of words. Also still had procedural memories- evidence for LTM being stored in different parts.
• evaluation of the types of LTM: neuro imaging

  Tulving got ps to perform different memory tasks while scanning their brains. episodic and semantic= prefrontal cortex.
• Evaluation of the types of LTM: Real life application

  Belleville et al (2006) target specific types of memory loss in older people
• Working Memory Model Baddely and Hitch (1974)


  They questioned the existence of a single STM store.

  They believed that STM was more complex than just being a temp store for transferring information to LTM.

  Doesnt replace MSM but an explanation.

  
• what is the central executive


  monitors incoming data, makes decisions, direct attention to tasks and coordinates slave systems. limited capacity.
• what is the phonological loop

  processes auditory info. divided into 2 stores. Phonological store (inner ear) which is words you hear and Articulatory control system which is your inner voice. Has a capacity of 2s worth of what you can say acoustic coding.
• what is the visuospatial sketched?


  Visual and spatial information. divided into the visual cache which is visual data and the inner scribe which is the arrangement of objects in the visual field. (Baddely 2003) 3 or 4 objects and is coded visually
• what is the episodic buffer

  added by Baddely in 2000 it processes visual,spatial and verbal information (temp store when others are full) integrates ot from the stores to create a mental episode of what's happening. 4 chunks .
• strengths/weaknesses of the WMM

  the letter F study- ps had x2 visual tasks. one was tracking a light and the other was describing the angle on an F. doing x2 visual tasks is harder because the capacity is limited supports vvs limited capacity because ps struggled as they completed for space

  
  

  word length effect: ps found it harder to remember a list of long words rather than short words (word length effect) this is because there is only limited capacity

  
  

  WEAKNESS: Lack of clarity on central executive most important but least understood not fully explained, vague