Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

1. THEORY - Multi-Store Model - Atkinson and Shiffrin (1986)

   • Memory consists of 3 stores: A sensory register, short term store and long term store. Each store has a different capacity, duration and mode of encoding information.
     • Supporting evidence - Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) investigating the serial positioning effect.

2. THEORY - Working Memory Model - Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

   • Short term memory compromises of different systems for different types of information - a central executive which controls and co-ordinates the operation of two subsystems: the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad.
     • Supporting evidence - Baddeley (1988) investigating the function of the phonological loop.

3. CLASSIC STUDY - Baddeley (1966b)

   • Aim - To investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic word similarity on recall and learning to see which memory store encodes which type of information.
     • Procedure - Each participant was assigned one of four word lists (acoustically similar/dissimilar and semantically similar/dissimilar) to learn. There was then a listening test, 4 learning trials, an interference task and a recall retest.
       • Conclusion - Short term memory is largely acoustic so acoustically similar words were difficult to encode. Encoding in the long term memory is largely, but not exclusively, semantic.

4. CONTEMPORARY STUDY - Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil (2012)

   • Aim - To investigate development of phonological loop in children 5-17 years and compare findings to adults/alzheimer sufferers/old people.
     • Procedure - 570 participants all Spanish speakers from Madrid were divided into 5 groups and tested individually to recall digit spans read out at one per second.
       • Conclusion - Digit span storing and recall improves with age starting at 7 years. Comparisons to older/alzheimers showed that having alzheimers didn't impact on phonological loop ability but ability declined with age. Also, Spanish speaking participants had shorter digit span store/recall the anglo-saxons.