Psychology- memory

short term memory

our temporary store that holds information

long term memory

our permanent memory store that can hold a lot of information for a long time

coding

the way in which information is stored in various memory stores

capacity

the amount of information that can be held in a memory store.

duration

the length of time information can be held in a memory store

basic memory process

encoding -> storage -> retrieval

encoding

code and put into a memory

types of memory codes

-acoustic

-visual

-semantic

storage

maintain in memory (capacity and duration)

types of long term memory

-episodic (events)

-procedural (how)

-semantic (faster)

retrieval

recover from memory

types of retrieval

-recall (cues)

-recognition

research into coding

Baddeley (1966a, 1996b)

method of Baddeley’s research into coding (1966a,1996b)

1996b)"Group 1 (acoustically similar): words sounded similar (cat, cab, can)

Group 2 (acoustically dissimilar): words sounded different (pit, few, cow)

Group 3 (semantically similar): words with similar meaning (great, large,big)

Group 4 (semantically dissimilar): words with different meanings (good,huge,hot)

Participants were placed into one of four groups, and given a list of words. They were then shown the lists again, and asked to recall them in the correct order.

"results of Baddeley’s research into coding (1966a,1996b)"

When they had to do this immediately (STM recall), they tended to perform worse with acoustically similar words.

When they had to do this after 20 minute (LTM recall), they tended to perform worse with semantically similar words.

"conclusion of Baddeley’s research into coding (1966a,1996b)"

This suggests that information is coded acoustically (based on how it sounds) in STM, and semantically (based on the meaning) in LTM.

research on capacity

Digit span (Jacob’s, 1887)

Span of memory and chunking (Miller, 1956)

Digit span (Jacobs, 1887)

Jacobs found out how much information the STM can hold at one time, by measuring digit span. The researcher reads out four digits, and the participants recalls these out loud in the correct order. If this is correct, the researcher reads out five digits, and so on, until the participants cannot recall them in order correctly. This indicates the individual’s digit span. Jacob found that the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3 items. The mean span for letters was 7.3.

Span of memory and chunking (Miller, 1956)

Miller made observations of everyday practice. For example, he noted that things come in seven: seven notes on the musical scale, seven days of the week, seven deadly sins etc.

Miller thought that the span (i.e capacity) of STM is about 7 item, plus or minus 2. But he also noted that people can recall five words as easily, as they can recall five letters. We do this b chunking, where we group sets of digits or letters into units or chunks.

duration of STM (Peterson and Peterson, 1959)

Margaret and Lloyd tasted 24 students in 8 trials each. On each trial, the student was given a consonant syllable (such as YCG)to remember and were also given a 3 digit number. Th student counted backwards from this number, until to stop. The counting backwards was to prevent any mental rehearsing of the consonant syllable. On each trial, they were told to stop at varying periods of time (retention intervals from 3 to 18 seconds).

3 seconds -> average recall at 80%%

18 seconds -> average recall at 3%

STM duration may be 18 seconds, unless we repeat information over and over (verbal rehearsal)

duration of LTM (Bahrick et al 1975)

Bahrick et al (1975) studied 392 American ppts aged 17 and 74.

He got photos from school yearbooks and tested recall in various ways, including photo recognition and name recall to name their graduating class.

Ppts within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate in photo recognition.

After 48 years, recall declined to 70%

Free recall was less accurate: about 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years.

LTM may last up to a lifetime.

multi store model of memory

"a representation of how memory works. It has three stores: sensory stores, STM, LTM. It also describes how information can move from one store to another.

key facts about multi store model of memory

-the MSM states there are three different memory stores that are completely independent of each other.

-a linear sequence so information can flow backwards and forwards.

MSM diagram

what are the three components of MSM?

sensory stores, STM, LTM

coding of sensory register/store

sense specific (touch, taste, sound, smell, sight)

capacity of sensory register /store

very high

duration of sensory register/store

less than half a second

coding of short term memory

acoustically

capacity of short term memory

7 +/- 2 items

short term memory duration

18-30 seconds

coding of long term memory

semantically

capacity of long term memory

potentially unlimited

duration of long term memory

last for many years (potentially a lifetime)

"Who is HM and what happened to him?"

Case study for the MSM. -> STM + LTM are separate.

Suffered from epilepsy for many years, and had surgery to relieve his epilepsy, where a surgeon removed his hippocampus.

HM lost his memory, and was left with no ability to store or retrieve new experiences, and he lived in the permanent present moment.

All memories of experiences disappeared after 30 seconds, as he was unable to transfer memories into LTM.

declarative memory

facts, data, events, knowing ‘that’

procedural memory

how to do things, knowing ‘how’

episodic store

our ability to recall events (or episodes) that have happened in our lives.

is the episodic store time stamped?

yes

is the episodic stores declarative or procedural?

declarative

where is the episodic store in the brain?

linked to hippocampus regions of the brain

semantic store

our knowledge of the world, such as facts

is the semantic store time stamped?

no

is the semantic store declarative or procedural?

declarative

where is the semantic store in the brain?

linked to the temporal lobe

procedural store

our memory for actions or skills, and we can recall these memories without conscious awareness of a great deal of effort.

is the procedural store time stamped?

our ability to do things depends in procedural memory- not time stamped.

is the procedural store procedural or declarative?

procedural

where is the procedural store in the brain?

linked to cerebellum

who was Tulving?

"one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the multi-store’s model view of LTM was too simplistic and inflexible. He proposed that there are actually 3 LTM stores, that contain different types of information

what are the 3 types of LTM?

episodic, semantic and procedural

what happened to clive wearing?

He suffers from chronic anterograde and retrograde amnesia (where he can’t form any new memories, and can’t remember previous memories). His amnesia was caused by a virus that attacked his CNS. He can’t remember the names of his children, but can play the piano. He can’t talk for longer than a few sentences, before forgetting. Every 20-30 seconds, his memory ‘resets’.

working memory model

a representation of short term memory. It suggests that STM is a dynamic processor of different types of information, using subunits (slave systems)m coordinated by a central decision making system.

"who was the working model memory (WMM) was proposed by and why?"

Baddeley and Hitch (1974), after they felt that the MSM doesn’t explain much about STM.

what does the WMM attempt to do?

explain the part of the mind that is active, when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information. the models consisted of four main components, each of which is different (in terms of function, coding and capacity).

working memory model diagram

purpose of central executive

Decision making process that monitors incoming stimuli, allocates tasks to the slave systems

capacity of central executive

very limited processing capacity

coding of central executive

all types of information

purpose of phonological loop

temporary store system for auditory information

what’s phonological loop divided into ?

1. Phonological loop (inner ear), which stores the words you hear.

2. Articulatory control process (inner voice), which processes speech production and rehearses/stores verbal information

capacity of phonological loop

roughly 2 seconds worth of what you can say

coding of phonological loop

acoustic

visio-spatial sketchpad purpose

stores visual/spatial information

what’s visuo-spatial sketchpad divided into?

1. visual cache (stores visual data)

2. inner scribe (records the arrangement of objects in visual field)

capacity of visuo-spatial sketchpad

3-4 objects

coding of visuo spatial sketchpad

visual

purpose of episodic buffer

added in 2000, responsible for combining all information processed elsewhere and preparing for LTM storage

capacity of episodic buffer

four chunks

coding of episodic buffer

all types of information

what happened to KF?

1970- Shallice and Warrington studied KF

-he had amnesia

-could not recall what someone read out (a sentence) → phonological loop

-could recall if he read it himself → VSS

what’s the first explanation for forgetting information?

interference

interference

one memory disturbs the ability to recall another. This might result in forgotting or disturbing one memory or even both. This is more likely to happens if the memory are similar.

proactive interference

last memories interfering with new memories.

retroactive interference

recent memories interfering with old memories

aim on the research on the effects of similarity (Mcgeoch and Mcdonald 1931)

To investigate whether words with the same meanings (synonyms) would be more prone to interference than information that was unrelated (investigating retroactive interference)

method on the research on the effects of similarity (Mcgeoch and Mcdonald 1931)

Participants learned a list of 10 words until they could recall them with 100% accuracy. They were then given a new list of 10 words to learn. They were then asked to recall the original list. They were six groups of partipants that each had 2nd lists that varied in word similarity.

Group 1: synonyms, Group 2: unrelated words, Group 3: unrelated words, Group 4: consonant syllables

Group 5: three-digit numbers, Group 6: no new list (control group)

results on the research on the effects of similarity (Mcgeoch and Mcdonald 1931)

Group 1 had the most affected recall (on average, 1 item recorded was correct from previous list)

Group 6 had the least affected recall (on average, 4 items recorded were correct from previous list)

Group 5 were least affected in terms of recall, with an interfering material (on average, 3.5 items recorded were correct from previous list)

conclusion on the research on the effects of similarity (Mcgeoch and Mcdonald 1931)

the most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar

what’s the second explanation of forgetting?

Retrieval failure.

It may be due to a lack of available memory cues. When information is stored in LTM, cues sssociated with the memory are also stored at the same time. If these cues are not available at the time of recall, you may have experienced retrieval failure, where you couldn’t access the memory.

retrieval failure

a form of forgetting- when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available, but not accessible, unless a suitable cue is provided.

cue

a ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory.

cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being coded at the time of learning.

Tulving (1983)- encoding specificity principle (ESP)

Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern to forgetting, which he named the ESP. This states that a helpful memory cue must:

1. be present at encoding (when we learn the material)

2. be present at retrieval (when we attempt to access the memory)

   If cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or absent), there will be some forgetting.

   Some cues are encoded in a meaningful, intentional ways, and others are non-meaningful and unintentional.

context dependent forgetting

external cues- regarding the environment

i.e the weather, our surroundings

state dependent forgetting

internal cues- regarding the physiology of the gift

i.e alcohol, being drowsy

research of context dependent forgetting

Golden and Baddeley (1975)

aim of Godden and Baddeley (1975)

to investigate whether training delivered on land influenced the work of scuba divers, when working underwater.

method of Godden and Baddeley (1975)

16 were asked to learn a list of words either on land or underwater, and then asked to recall the words either on land or underwater. This created 4 conditions (a repeated measure design)

1. learn on beach → recall on beach (cues match)

2. learn on beach → recall in ocean

3. learn in ocean → recall on beach

4. learn in ocean → recall in ocean (cues match)

results of Godden and Baddeley (1975)

beach + beach = 13.5

ocean + beach = 8.5

beach + ocean = 8.6

ocean + ocean = 11.4

conclusion of Godden and Baddeley (1975)

External cues are importantly in recall and should be present at both learning and recall of learning

research on state-dependent forgetting

Carter and Cassaday (1998)

aim of Carter and Cassaday (1998)

To investigate whether the state at learning and then the state at recall influences recall.

method of Carter and Cassaday (1998)

24 participants (aged 18-21, undergraduates) were asked to learn a list of words, either under the influence of an antihistamine (mild, sedative effect changing the physiological state of the participant) or not, and then recall the words either under the influence of the drug or not. Any participants in the ‘no drug’ conditions were given a placebo (vitamin C). The four groups were:

Group 1: learn AH -> recall AH (cues match)

Group 2: learn AH → recall vitamin C

Group 3: learn vitamin C→ recall AH

Group 4: learn vitamin C → recall vitamin C (cues match)

results of Carter and Cassaday (1998)

In the mismatch conditions (i.e learn /recall an antihistamine/placebo), recall was far worse than participants in the matched conditions (learn/recall on same drug)

conclusions of Carter and Cassaday (1998)

Internal cues are importantly in recall and should be present at both learning and recall of information

misleading information

information that is not necessarily false (although it can be), but instead can be factually accurate information, that is presented in such a way that they meaning if the information is disturbed.

what’s two examples of misleading information ?

leading questions and post-event discussion

leading question

a question which suggests a certain answer, because of the way it is phrased.

what is the research into leading questions?

loftus and palmer (1974)

aim of loftus and palmer’s (1974) research into leading questions

to investigate whether the information given in a question affects the response given