Memory (Old Version)

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Cognition

The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses

Engram

Memory trace stored, withinbrain and can be extracted

Coding

The way in which information is stored/processed into memory

Capacity

A measure of how much can be held in memory, in terms of bits or chunks of information

Duration

A measure of how long a memory lasts in a store before it is no longer available for recall

How was coding of STM investigated?

Baddeley’s (1966) Cat/Mat Study

Acoustic Confusion

Things that sound similar (acoustically similar) are recalled poorly

How was capacity of STM investigated?

Jacobs (1887) Serial Digit Span

Chunking

Can increase number of items we can hold in STM
Group items into larger units

Miller’s Magic Number

7±2 items (the capacity of STM)

How was duration of STM investigated?

Peterson & Peterson’s (1959) Trigram Retention experiment

STM Duration

18-30 seconds

How was Coding in LTM investigated?

Baddlely's (1966) Cat/Mat with 20 mins

Semantic Confusion

Things that have similar meaning are recalled poorly

Capacity of LTM

Unlimited however no. items can't be measured so no studies to test it

How was the duration of LTM investigated?

Bahrick's (1975) High School Year Book Experiment

High School Year Book 15 years

90% correct recognition of faces and names

High School Year Book 48 years

80% names, 70% faces

Duration of LTM

A lifetime with cues

Sensory Register

Where info is very briefly held at each of the five senses

Coding of SR

SImply detects the incoming info, rather than trying to decode it

Capacity of SR

Iconic store and echoic stores have been found to be very large (Sperling, 1960)

Duration of SR

Iconic traces have been found to last for up to 250 milliseconds (Sperling, 1960)

MSM Case Studies

Shallice and Warrington's (1970) Case Study of KF
Blakemore's (1988) Case Study of Clive Wearing

MSM Evaluation KF Supports:

Idea of separate unitary stores
KF's STM capacity reduced to 1-2 items but LTM was fine

MSM Evaluation KF Challenges:

Simplified nature of the MSM
KF's difficulties in STM were only for verbal items, more than one unitary store for all STMs

MSM Evaluation Clive Wearing Supports:

Idea of separate stores

Clive's LTM had reduced functioning but STM was undamaged

MSM Evaluation Clive Wearing Challenges:

Simplified nature
Clive's difficulties with LTM were only for episodic, there is more than one unitary stores for all LTMs

MSM Issue/Debate

Machine reductionism

WMM Central Executive

Allocates resources depending on cognitive demand. Restricts conscious awareness to two items.

WMM Phonological Loop

Temporary acoustic storage system for auditory and verbal information