Psychology - Memory

Psychology - Memory

1. Coding, Duration and Capacity

   • Coding
     • The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores
     • Alan Baddeley ( 1966): Giving different lists of words to four different groups. The four groups were acoustically similar words, acoustically dissimilar words, Semantically similar words and Semantically dissimilar words.
       • Findings: Participants were asked to recall words immediately , After hearing them , participant did worse in acoustically similar words. (stm). After a time interval of 20 minutes (ltm), they did worse with the semantically similar words.
         • STM : Acoustically
         • LTM: Semantically
   • Duration
     • The length of time information can be held within the memory store
     • Duration of STM: Peterson an Peterson ( 1959) - 24 students were given trigrams and a 3 digit number to count back from ( this prevents mental rehearsal).
       • Retention intervals were given in 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds.
   • Capacity
     • The amount of information that can be held within a memory store
     • Joseph Jacobs (1887) - Digit span.
       • Findings: Mean span for digits: 9.3
         • Mean span for letters is 7.3
     • Miller (1956) everyday practices - majority run in 7's.
       • 7+/- 2

2. The multi- store model

   • The sensory memory us known as the Sensory Register
     • In the Sensory Register there is an Iconic and Echoic Store
       • Echoic memory is sound - Auditory information which is coded acoustically
       • Iconic memory is the visual information which is coded visually
     • VERY little duration: around half a second
     • High capacity ( over one hundred cells in the eye taking in information
     • A very little amount of what goes into the sensory register moves further into the memory system
       • The key process is Rehearsal
   • Short term Memory
     • Limited Capacity and Duration
       • Around 5 to 9 items.
         • Miller (1956) said = 7 +/- 2
         • More like 5 rather than 9!
     • Information lasts around 30 seconds unless rehearsed
       • Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material over and over again
         • It will eventually move into the LTM
       • as long as we rehearse something it will stay in our short term memories
   • Long Term Memory
     • Potentially permanent memory store
     • potentially Unlimited capacity and Duration
     • Episodic Memory
       • personal events
       • This includes places, people, feelings and behaviours involved in the event
       • Memories have to be retrieved consciously and with effort
       • These memories will be 'time stamped'
         • Meaning that you will remember when the event happened in the past
           • Either yesterday or 10 years ago etc.
     • semantic Memory
       • For our knowledge of the world
         • General knowledge
           • includes facts (broad term)
             • like an encyclopaedia and a dictionary
       • includes knowledge of an impressive number of concepts and wide range of concepts
       • These memories are not 'time stamped'
       • Need to be retrieved deliberately (consciously) and with some effort
     • Procedural Memory
       • Store for our knowledge of how to do things
         • Actions, skills etc
       • we recall these memories without a conscious or deliberate effort
       • Explaining these actions or skills such as driving can be very hard yet when we learnt it was due to our procedural memory that we remembered how to drive
     • Evaluation
       • Patient HM
         • Hippo campus removed
           • He could access procedural memories
             • Could not form new memories and had no episodic memories
               • recall events but were not 'time stamped'
                 • His semantic knowledge from previous to the oporation was good however after he lacked semantic information
                   • This provides evidence that there are separate stores within long term memory
                     • Procedural memory was not harmed. However episodic and partially semantic stores were harmed
       • Cohen and squire (1980)
         • argue that there are only 2 stores in the long term memory
           • Procedural is one store
             • non-declarative
               • Information that doesn't need to be consciously recalled
           • However semantic and episodic information is stored in one store together
             • This is called the Declarative store
               • information that is consciously recalled

3. The working memory Model

   • Representation of short term memory. Suggesting that it is made of individual subunits that are co-ordinated by a central decision maker - the central excecutinve

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