Psychology

Psychology

1. Memory

   • Multi-Store Model of Memory
     • Evaluation of the MSM
       • Positive Evaluation points of the MSM
         • Supported by research studies that STM and LTM are qualitatively different. For example, BAddeley founf that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs but we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs. This clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and LTM is semantic. This difference supports thhe MSMs view that these two memory stores are seprate and independent
       • Negative Evaluation points of the MSM
         • The MSM states that STM is a unitary store in other words there is only one type of shirt term memory.However, evidence from people suffering from amnesia shows that this cannot be true. This unitary STM is a limit of the MSM because research shows that at the very least there must be one short term store to process visual information and another to process auditory information
   • Working Model of Memory
     • Diagram for the WMM
     • Central executive
       • An attentional process that monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks. The central executive has a very limited storage capacity
     • Phonological Loop
       • Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives.
         • It is subdivided into: The Phonological store, which stores the words you hear. The articulatory process, allows maintenance rehearsal. The capacity of this loop is believed to be two seconds worth of what you can say.
     • An explanation of how one aspect of memory is organised and how it functions
   • Types of Memory
     • Procedural Memory
       • Our memory for actions, skills and how we do things
         • Things such as riding a bike
       • Skills that we may find hard to explain to someone else
       • We can recall these memories without concious awareness or a great deal of effort
     • Semantic Memory
       • This type of memory includes things like ehat an apple tastes like or the meaning of words
       • Often likened to a combination of an encyclopedia and a dictionary
       • Contains our knowledge of the world,includes facts but in the broadest sense
       • These memories are not 'time-stamped' in other words we don't really remember when we learnt about these things
     • Episodic Memory
       • Refers to our ability to recall events
       • Single episode will contain several element.s. For example people and places interwoven into a single memory
       • They are 'time-stamped' this means that you remember when they happened
       • Been likened to a daily diary, something like being able to recall a one direction concert
   • Peterson & Peterson
     • 1959
     • Brown - Peterson Technique
       • Simple memory test but prevents rehearsal of data by including an interference task which is usually counting backwards from a given number. However, any task that takes over cognitive processing works to interfere with rehearsal
   • Experiment to find the Capacity of STM
     • Serial digit span technique. Participants are presented with a series of digits and are required to repeat them back to the experimenter. The lost begins with one digit and is increased by one digit after each repetition. STM memory span is indicated when the participant is correct to 50% of the time.
     • Chunking - Miller 1956. The magic number 7 plus or minus 2. We can recall words as easily as sinlge digits. Therefore if we chunk digits tigether we can remember more
   • Capacity of LTM
     • It is not possible to set a limit to the capacity of LTM. Research suggets that there are number of LTM systems that are responsible for storing different types of information. We are always capable of learning more

2. Attachment

   • What is attachment?
     • An attachment can be defined as a close two way emotional bond between two individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
   • People whom are attached to each other demonstrate a variety of different behaviours for example, proximity: try to stay physically close to those they are attached to, separation distress: people become distressed when they are separated from their attachment figure and secure-base behaviour: when we are being independent away from our attachment figures we tend to make regular contact with them.
   • Caregiver-infant attachment - From a young age babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers, it is thought that these interactions play an important role in the child's social development, in particular for the development of caregiver-infant attachment
   • Reciprocity - A description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both mother and infant respond to each others signals and elicits a response from the other
   • Interactional synchrony - mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated way
     • The temporal co-ordination of micro level social behaviour
     • It is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment
     • Isabella et al. (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony. They also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment. They found that hight levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother infant attachment.
     • Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old. An adult displayed one of three facial exppressions or one of three distinctive gestures. The child's responses were filmed and identified by independent observers. An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.
   • Attachment figures
     • The role of the father
       • In 2202, Grossman carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents behaviour and relationship to the quality of childrens attachment in their teens. Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to childrens attachments in adolesence suggesting that father attachment was less important. However, the quality of fathers' play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with nurturing
       • Fathers as primary carers

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