Memory

The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

1) the amount of info that can be held in a memory store 2) the length of time information can be held in memory

Limited capacity store Coded - acoustically (sounds) baddely Capacity - 5 to 9 items (7+-2 jacobs digit span) Duration - 18 to 30 seconds Peterson of peterson

Permanent memory store Coding- semantic (meaning) baddely Capacity - unlimited (wagenaar) Duration - unlimited (barick)

Beddeley gave lists of words to four groups of ps to remember Group 1 : acoustically similar Group 2: acoustically different Group 3: semantically similar Group 4: semantically different Short term memory - when asked to recall words straight away, Group 1 had the worst recall. This suggests that information is encoded acoustically in STM. This is because STM gets confused with words acoustically similar and muddles them up, resulting in fewer being remembered Long term memory - when asked to recall words after 20 minutes, Group 3 had the words recall this suggests info is encoded semantically in LTM, the LTM gets confused by similar meanings the same waythe STM gets confused by similar sounds

Research often conducted in controlled laboratory conditions. Eg baddeley study. Strength as we can be confident that coding in STM is acoustic and semantic in LTM . High internal validity Negative - not clear how long we need to wait to test for LTM. Weakness as perhaps we should’ve waited longer than this amount of time to measure long term memory as there are much longer gaps between learning and recall in real life, is coding in ltm really semantic?

Short term memory- Joseph Jacobs developed a technique to measure digit span. Procedure- researcher read out 4 digits p tried to recall numbers outloudin order. The number of digits increase until they stop getting it right Findings - the mean digit span was 9.3 items. This decreased to 7.3 when letters were used instead of numbers Miller suggested that capacity is about 7+-2 but noted that people expand capacity by chunking. Information kept in stm is in fragile state, will dissappear if not rehearsed. Maintainance rehearsal occurs when we repea5

Wagenaar. Created diary of 2400 events over 6 years and tested himself on recall of events rather than dates. He found he had excellent recall, suggesting the capacity of ltm is extremely large

The effects of age are acknowledged. Jacob tested individuals of ranging ages and found that digit span increases with age as memory becomes more complex. This is a strength as the estimate of the capacity of Stm accounts for people of all ages. (Individual differences)

Results are often based on case studies. For eg, wagenaar used hid own memories to measure his long term memory. Weakness as memories not representative of general population, subjective and hard to app,y to others

Procedure- peterson and peterson 24 participants took part in 8 trials. Student given triagram and 3 digit num to remember, and count backwards from it to prevent rehearsal. Percentage correct decreased as retention interval increased Conclusion- If rehearsal prevented- stm has limited duration

BAHRIK Studied 392 ps from America who were aged between 17 and 74. Recall was tested 2 ways Photo recognition test - name as may of individuals as you can from 50 yearbook photos Free recall test- recall all the names from the individuals in the yearbook without any cues, Found that photo recognition was 90% accurate after 15 years and 70% accurate after 48 years

Used meaningful memories as stimuli. Bahrik asked to recall yearbook photos of people they saw and went to school with everyday. This is astrengj as everyday memories where presented, so high external validity and can be generalised to every day memories Short term memory One WEAKNESS is that it makes uses of artifical stimuli. For eg, peterson and peterson asked participants to remember nonsense triagrams Weakness as lacked external validity as it didn’t represent real life memory activities

Atkinson and shiffrins model was the first cognitive explanation of memory. Argues that memory’s made up of 3 seprate unitary stores. Sensory register, stm, and ltm For info to be retained as memory, the process of attention and rehearsal are required

Receives information from 5 senses

Well supported by a range of research evidence Glazner and cruise provide clear evidence for existence of the stm and ltm as distinct memory stores. Procedure- participants heard list of words and Had to recall them in any order. Findings- participants had good recall forthe first part of the list primary affect and last part, recency affec This suggests the msm as it suggests the stm and ktm are distinct memory stores TOO SIMPLISTIX msm states that stm is a unitary stores however evidence from people suffering from amnesia show that this can’t be true. For eg Warrington and shallice studied a patient with amnesia known as kf. Verbal was poor but visual was unaffected Suggests that there may be more than one store of stm. Serious limitation Overemphasises importance of rehearsal. According to msm, the more you rehearse information the more likely you’re to transfer it to the ltm. However this isn’t always the case. Very often we are able to recall information that we haven’t rehearsed such as swimming and yet we are unable to rehearse info such as reading notes

Baddely and hitch

Stores and manipulates visual information from the eyes or long term memory. The vss can access ltm and receive visuopatial info Subdivided by loggie Can be subdivided into Visual cache: stores information about shape and colour(how it looks like) The inner stribe-deals with spatial and movement info (where something is) Coding - visual Capacity- 3-4 objects

Deals with auditory information, spoken or written material and preserves order in which info arrives Cod8ng - aciustic Baddely divided phonological loop into 2 parts - Phonological store (inner ear) holds speech based info eg words we hear for 1-2 secs Articulatory control process (inner voice) silently repeats the words from the Ps on a loop to prevent them from decaying

Main component of the working model of memory. Decides water we pay attention to, makes decisions and allocates tasks to slave systems. No storage capacity Can only pay attention to a limited number of stimuli

Integrating visual, spatial and verbal, information from the different slave systems into a single unit of information Capacity- limit3d of about 4 chunks

Fell from motorbike, he could see but he couldn’t speak. This suggests there’s multiple slave systems. His visual spatial sketchpad was unaffected but his phonological loop was. Criticism to the msm Shallice and Warrington studes this

Supported by clinical evidence. People suffering from amnesia can prove.Shallice and Warrington studied the case of KF, whose brain was damaged in motorbike accident. They found that he could see but couldn’t speak. This can be explained by damage to the phonological loop but the visiopatial sketchpad still intact. Supports stm more than 1 component in real life situations Central executive is too vague. Eslinger and damasio argue that there are probably several components within the central executive . Eg Evr he performed well on tests requiring reasoning but showed poor judgement. This implies that central executive is not unitary and its explanations too sim&plistic Has positive practical applications. Wmm is used to help children who have an impaired working memory. Eg alloway developed several methods to improve the wm of children with adhd. These including breaking instructions down to into individual steps and asking the child to repeat instructions. These applications strengthen wmm in its validity in relation to the real world

That there are 3 ltm stores Tulving was one of the first cognitive psychology to realise that the msms view of ltm was too simplistic