AQA GCSE Psychology Unit 1 - Memory

Types of memory

• Procedural - how to do something

• Semantic - facts or meaning

• Episodic - experiences / personal events

Encoding

The process of converting information into a format that can be stored in our memory

Types of encoding

• Visual - stored as a mental image

• Acoutsitc - stored as a mental recording

• Semantic - stored as a fact

Types of Retrieval

• Free recall - no additional help or aid

• Recognition - able to identify something seen before

• Cued Recall - using a clue

Multi-Store Model of Memory

• Sensory input into the sensory store

  • information forgotten due to decay

• information moves to STM store through

  attention

  • information forgotten due to decay and displacement

  • infiormation maintained by rehearsal

• information into LTM through encoding

Components of the MSM

• Sensory Store

  • in the form it arrives

  • limited but unmeasureable capacity

  • stays for >1 second

• STM

  • acousticly

  • 7±2 items

  • stays for 20-30 seconds

• LTM

  • semantic

  • boundless

  • lifetime

Murdock’s Serial Position Study

• 10 - 40 words of the 4,000 most common english words

• 103 psychology students tested in groups after listening to words

• Higher recall for words at the beginning and end of the list due to primacy and recency effect

• likelihood of remmebering word is related to its position in a series

Evaluation of Murdock’s Serial Position Study

• Lab experiment

  • the researcher was able to control extraneous variables to ensure it was only the IV affecting the DV

• Low mundane realism

  • research only tells us about one aspect of memory that we do not use alot

• Low populational Validity

  • the sample was 103 psychology students which is not representative of the global population

Bartlett’s ‘War of The Ghosts’ Study

• Two conditions:

  • tell the story to someone and have them tell it to someone else

  • tell the story to someone and then ask them about it again later

• The story was altered by ppts as ir was passed on and became more european sounding

• memory is reconstructive and reconstructs things to make them more familiar

Evaluation of Bartlett’s ‘War of The Ghosts’ Study

• Used lots of different materials but found similar results

  • shows that the results were not due to the specific source material - increased validity

• good mundane realism

  • the part of memory tested is soemthing commonly used - results have more real world app

• low control

  • study was conducted casually and participants were not given very clearx instructions

Theory of Reconstructive Memory

• Memory is an active process

• memories are changed to fit what we know

• Fragments of stored information are reassembled during recall

• we have to try to make sense of the things we recall

  • effort after meaning

Baddeley and Godden’s Diving experiment

• 18 divers listened to 36 unrelated words, 9 on thr surface, 9 underwater.

• four minutes late theyre tested in four groups:

  • learned and recalled in the same place

    • UU

    • SS

  • and learned and recalled different places

    • US

    • SU

• Divers taugh and tested in the same places had a higher recall

Evaluation of Baddeley and Godden’s Diving experiment

• recall was short term

  • participants recalled the words almost immediately meaning it doesnt show us the long term effects of context

• low ecological validity

  • the context of the task was at a beach or underwater, which is not a representative location

• low mundane realism

  • research only tells us about one aspect of memory that we do not use alot

Types of Interference

• Retroactive - Old information prevents recall of newer information

• Proactive - More recent information prevents recall of olderinformation

McGeoch and McDonald (1931)

• using repeated measures M and M gave ppts various word lists to memorise

• once theyd learned the first word list to 100% they were given a second list of either

  • Synonyms

  • Anonyms

  • Unrelated

  • Nonsense

  • Numbers

• The most similar word lists had the lowest recall and thr greatest interference

Evaluation of McGeoch and McDonald (1931)

• Low ecological validity

  • context of the study was in a “lab“ which is not representative of our usual environment

• Low mundane realism

  • not representative of tasks we do in everyday life

• Done in a highly controlled environment

  • researchers used counterbalancing to combat order effevts, increasing validity

Elizabeth Loftus’ False Memories Study

• Participants read stories from their childhood

• between 1 and 2 weeks later ppts were asled which story they thought was falso and told which one it was

• 68% of true stroies were remembered by participants

• 25% recalled the false study

• Its possible for people to ‘remember’ an event that was suggested to them

Evaluation of Elizabeth Loftus’ False Memories Study

• High mundane realism

  • retelling stories is something people do alot which gives the study higher validity

• real world application

  • changed the way courts deal with eyewitness testimonies - no longer regarded as reliable

• ethical issues

  • participants may be left with implanted false memories even after debrief