Memory

Memory

1. Murdock's Serial Position Curve Study

   • Aim
     • To provide evidence for the existence of separate stores in the multi-store model
   • Method
     • 16 participants were presented with a list of 20 words at 1 per second. They were then asked to recall as many as they can in 90 seconds
   • Results
     • The words at the end of the list were recalled first (recency effect) however, the words at the beginning of the list weren't recalled as well (primacy effect)
   • Evaluation
     • Importance
       • Provided evidence for the existence of separate short-term and long-term stores in the multi-store model of memory
     • Limitations
       • Lacks ecological validity because its not something people would have to do in real life. Also, all the participants were a similar age and they were all studying psychology, therefore they my have behaved differently or worked out the aim of the study.

2. Key Terms

   • Encoding
     • Taking information into the memory and changing it into a form that can be stored
   • Retrieval
     • Recovering information from storage
   • Storage
     • Holding information in the memory system
   • Episodic Memory
     • Unique memories which are concerned with personal experiences or events
   • Procedural Memory
     • Our memory for carrying out complex skills
   • Semantic Memory
     • Memories which are concerned with general knowledge rather than personal experience

3. Memory Structure Key Words

   • Capacity
     • How much info can be stored
   • Coding
     • The way that information is represented to be stored
   • Long-term Store
     • Memory store that holds a vast amount of info for a very long period of time
   • Sensory Store
     • Memory store that holds information received from the senses for a very short period of time
   • Short-term Store
     • Memory store that holds approximately 7 bits of info for a limited amount of time

4. Bartlett's War of the Ghosts Study

   • Aim
     • to see if people, when given an unfamiliar story to remember, would alter the information so that it makes more sense to them