Memory

Identify and define the three types of retrieval

Cued = Remembering information with a prompt

Free recall = Remembering info without the intervention of any cues/prompt

Recognition = Identifying previously learned information after being presented with it (multiple choice)

Identify and define the three processes of memory

Encoding = Changing the format of information so it can be stored

Storage = Holding information for later use

Retrieval = Recalling information so it can be used

What are the capacities, durations and encoding types of the stores on the Multi-store model of memory?

Sensory = unlimited capacity, 0.25 second duration and encoding depends on sense

Short = capacity of 5-9 pieces of information, under 30 sec duration and primarily visual and acoustic encoding

Long = unlimited capacity and duration, semantic encoding

Describe the multi store model of memory

Information flows through the sensory, short term and long term stores. It’s transferred from sensory to short term if attention is paid and short term to long term if it’s rehearsed.

Each of the stores have different capacities, durations and ways of encoding. For example the sensory and long term store have unlimited capacity while the short term can hold 5-9 pieces of information at once.

Evaluate the Multistore Model of Memory

P - It’s been researched into

E - Murdock’s Serial Position Curve provides evidence for their being LTM and STM

E - This supports the model

L - It can be supported by evidence

P - Its simplistic

E - The model only shows one type of LTM

E - Research shows there’s 3 types of LTM

L - It’s limited

Describe Murdock’s Serial Position Curve study

Aim: Murdock wanted to investigate if the position of a word on a list would affect the ability to recall it.

Method: He read participants out a list of 10-40 random words and then asked them to recall as many as possible. He used a lab experiment and standardised procedure.

Results: He found that words from the start and end of the list were most likely to be recalled.

Conclusion: This was called the primacy and recency effect (words from start were rehearsed into LTM while words at end were still in the STM)

Evaluate Murdock’s study

P - Was replicated many times

E - He used a standardised procedure

E - The study was easy to recreate

L - High reliability

P - Used an artificial task

E - Participants were asked to recall a random list of words

E - This does not reflect natural behaviour

L - The study lacks ecological validity

Describe the Reconstructive Theory of Memory

Memory is not a clear reproduction of the past that we retrieve but instead an active process involving effort after meaning. We remember things as fragments of meaning that we must rebuild to make sense of, using our schemas. This means our memory can biased as we remember things as how they make sense to us, rather than what they literally are.

Evaluate the Reconstructivist Theory of Memory

P - The theory can be applied to real life situations

E - It states how our schemas influence how we recall events, potentially leading to us recounting something incorrectly

E - This can explain why some eyewitnesses remember events inaccurately

L - Theory has good application

P - Schemas are hard to test

E - Schemas cannot be directly observed

E - Researchers cannot directly measure how a persons schema is affecting their recall

L - Theory is limited as it’s hard to scientifically prove

Describe Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts Study

Aim: To investigate how cultural schemas would affect the recall of an unfamiliar story

Method: Bartlett read his male university students a Native American story. In one version he asked them to recall it after 15 minutes and then several more times after different durations. In the other he asked them to pass it on to the other participant (serial recall). Bartlett made a record of the stories that were told each time. Lab study

Results: Students remembered the basic parts of the story but had displaced many unfamiliar, cultural words with something from their own culture (e.g the men were fishing instead of seal hunting). They also omitted sections and added sections all in a way that made more s made to them.

Conclusion: Ideas from the story were distorted as the participants didn’t have the cultural schemas in their LTM to connect the information to. How we retrieve stories depends on our existing schemas.

Evaluate Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts Study

P - He used a natural task

E - Participants were asked to recall a story

E - This reflects human behaviour

L - The study has high ecological validity

P - The sample is not representative

E - Participants only consisted of British university students

E - They may be smarter than the average person - more knowledge and better memory

L - The study has limited generalisability

How does interference influence memory, what are the two types?

Interference is when two similar memories compete with eachother leading to inaccurate recall as one memory displaces the other.

Retroactive interference = New information displacing old information

Proactive interference = Old information displacing new information

How does context affect memory?

Being in the same/similar situation to where a memory was formed can improve accuracy of recall

What are false memories? Who studied it?

False memories are distorted/false recollections of events that didn’t happen.

Loftus studied them by telling 24 participants one true childhood story about themselves and one false one. A quarter of the participants ended up believing in the false memory, supporting that memory is reconstructive.