Memory

Memory

1. Memory Tests

   • Recall
     • Free Recall
       • To produce a response, as you do on essay tests or short answer tests
     • Cued Recall
       • You receive significant hints about the material
   • Recognition
     • Recognition
       • Choosing the correct item among several options
     • 2AFC Recognition
       • Two alternative forced choice
   • Savings
     • Savings
       • Comparing the speed of original learning to re-learning

2. James (1980)

   • Primary Memory
     • "Sensations outlast for some little time the objective stimulus which has occasioned them"
   • Secondary Memory
     • "The knowledge of a former state of mind after it has already once dropped from consciousness"

3. Durations of Memories

   • Gregg (1975)

4. Modal Multstore Model of Memory

   • Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
     • Sensory Registers
       • Brief sensory stores (iconic memory, echoic memory..)
     • Short Term Store
       • Primary memory held for seconds, maintained by rehearsal.
       • Limited capacity, limited duration
     • Long Term Store
       • Secondary memory, unlimited capacity & duration

5. Sensory Memories (Visual)

   • Jevons (1871)
     • Throw a handful of beans onto a black tray containing a white box
       • How many beans are in the white box?
         • Answer immediately
     • Accurate up to about 8 - for 9 & above he was right only half the time
   • Averbach (1963)
     • Uses a Tachistoscope to display patterns of dots for brief intervals masked by a subsequent erasing pattern (backward masking)
     • Estimates of dots as a function of total number & variable interval (ms)
     • Estimating "Span of Apprehension"
       • With extra viewing time up to 150 ms, the no. of dots he could count increased steadily
       • More than 8 dots = extra viewing time makes little difference

6. Sperling (1960)

   • Partial Report Procedure
     • Pp asked to recall a whole 12 item grid
       • Max recall: 4 or 5 items
     • Immediate cue to recall one row
       • Performance close to 100% for that row
         • As if they remember 11 items
     • Recall cue delayed by 1 second after stimulus
       • Performance back down to 30% - approx 4 items
     • As if almost the full grid was once available in visual memory but decays rapidly

7. Sperling (1960) Interpretation & Issues

   • Support
     • Brief sensory store that holds a pre-categorical visual image
       • "Iconic memory" Neisser (1967)
   • Arguements
     • "Output interference" rather than decay?
     • Estimated capacity at 9 items
       • Averbach & Coriell (1961)
         • 12 items if cued item by item
     • Landman, Spekreijse & Lamme (2003)
       • 1.6 second duration - longer than Sperling's estimates
     • Does memory trace need a seperate store?
       • Nairne (2003)
         • Or could it be the same as short-term memory?

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