MEMORY <3

MEMORY <3

1. THE MSM

2. THE WMM - This is a flowchart of a more detailed STM model than the MSM. 4 interconnected components. Atkinson and Shiffrin created this model. At the top there is the CE which is the boss of the system. It decides what information we pay attention too and bring to our memory. It has a very temporary duration and little/no capacity. Coding depends on the sense. On the LEFT there is THE VSSP which has the visual cashe 'inner eye' and inner scribe 'internal map' and how we navigate the house at night (3-4 blocks), It is coded visually. On the RIGHT there is the Phonological loop with the phonological store and articulatory processes (reherses the speech with capacity of 2 seconds). It is coded acoustically. In the middle there is the EB, which was added in 2000 by Badderely. It links all the information together from the components and transfers it to the LTM. It has a very limited capacity of 4 chunks as it is a temporary storage system.

   • AO3 - Not enough detail of HOW the CE works. If it's so important then more research should have been done into it. We have very minimal information of how it transfers the information. The case study of EVR - performed well on tasks which suggests he had an intact CE, however bad on decision making which meant it was not intact as he couldn't pull information from his LTM and make links to make an appropriate decision. Suggests the CE is OVERSIMPLIFIED are there is several components rather than 1.
   • A03 - Support from PET scans provided physiological evidence of there being different components, specialising in different tasks. Cohen et al did PET scans on people and found activity in Broca's area (speech production) when the ppts were completing a verbal task. He also found high activity in the Occipital lobe (visual reasoning) when ppts did a task using the VSSP. Because this was done under controlled conditions and with scientific devices, it provides strong in validity findings can be relied upon.
   • AO3 - However it does not explain the other types of memories. Berz critcised this model because it failed to account for musical memory as we can listen to instrumental music without in impairing our abilities on any other acoustic tasks. Listening to this should occupy the Phonological store's limited capacity, making other acoustic tasks hard, but this is not the case! This suggests the WMM does not give us a complete picture of how different types of memory are processed.

3. Types of LTM by TULVING

   • EPISODIC = this is 'episodes' of our life such as personal memories and events -- birthdays, competitions and yesterday's breakfast. It requires conscious effort to think about it and recall the memory. We have to search through our memories to then verbalise it. The strength of the episodic memory depends on the emotions present at the time the memory is coded. They are complex and time stamped
   • SEMANTIC = facts about the world and is always being added to such as the capital of England is London. This is also a conscious type of memory that we have to make an effort to recall from. Much less personal and is NOT time stamped. We earn these facts all throughout our lives so it's impossible to know when we learned it.
   • PROCEDURAL = memories of actions and skills. We don't need conscious awareness for this, such as riding a bike we just KNOW how to do it. It's a developed skill that we automatically access from our procedural memory. Many procedural LTMs occur early in life, but it can be hard to verabalise these skills.
   • AO3 - Tulving used brain scan studies to show that different types of memories are stored in different parts on the brain. They were asked to perform different types of memory tasks whilst scanning their brains using PET scans. He found episodic memories = pre-frontal cortex. Semantic memories = posterior region of the cortex. This suggests that the types of memory are seperate the PET provide scientific, physcial, objective neuro-imaging evidence
   • AO3 - an issue with the LTM subsystems is the extent to which episodic and semantic memories overlap. For example, I remember learning that the exoskeleton of reptiles in Year2, and recall the exact event, and when I got all the capitals right of the counteries with dad. Therefore it is unclear if a semantic memory is just gradual information from episodic memory rather than a seperate system. As it is difficult to explain, it questions the validity of seperate types of LTM and the internal validity of the research provided for this
   • AO3 - it uses very small samples and case studies which means it has low population validity. Also low generalisability to others
   • A03 - research support has real life applications. to improve lives. EPISODIC memory is the type most often affected by mild cognitive impairment, which highlights a benefit of being able to distinguish between types of LTM

4. Explanations for forgetting - LTM

   • INTERFERENCE THEORY - Proactive is when PRevious information interferes with the new. What's your address? cote green lane...oh wait no! Retroactive is when REcent information interferes with the old. Spanish at GCSE but French at A level, I would know that the new French replaces the Spanish
     • AO3 - research support from Baddeley and Hitch investigated interference effects in an everyday setting of RUGBY PLAYERS recalling the names of the teams they had played against. They found that the players that had played the most games had the poorest recall due to the most interference. The more recent teams they had played against interfered with the names of the teams they had previously played against. This demonstrates the effect of RETROACTIVE interference in everyday = high ecological validity!
     • A03 - this research has important practical applications. Chandler found that students who were revising similar topic subjects at the same time experience interference and are more likely to forget information. Such as revising psychology and sociology back to back can cause confusion. Therefore, students should plan their revision effectively to avoid the mix up/confusion. It's a strength because the research can be used for real-world situations.
     • AO3 - People with a better working memory are less effected by proactive interference than others. Kane and Eagle. They gave ppts 3 word lists to learn. People with poor working memory showed more proactive interference when recalling the second and third lists than did those with better working memories. A better WM meant having greater reseources to consciously control processing and counteract the effects of ProAI.
   • RETRIEVAL FAILURE (due to absence of cues) - when a memory is initially placed, associated cues are stored at the same time. if these cues are not available at the time of recall it may appear that you have forgotten, but in-fact it is still there in your brain, it's just hard to access. Tulving and Thompson came up with this.
     • Context-dependent forgetting is the absence of EXTERNAL cues such as words, places and smells. I would remember how to make a pizza better in the domino's environment than my house
       • GODDEN + BADDELEY = deep sea divers working underwater. 18 divers had learned a list of 36 unrelated words either underwater or on land and then asked to free recall it either underwater or on land. It created 4 conditions, each diver took part in all conditions so it was repeated measures... L+L = 13.5. W+W = 11.4 in comparison to around 8 words when the locations of L+R were different! The external cues were the same :)
         • A03 - because it was repeated measures they may have naturally remembered it better. Demand
     • State-dependent forgetting is the absence of INTERNAL cues. If they aren't there when recalling from learning the memory accuracy will be less. This is mood, emotional state and physiological state (sober/drunk).
       • GOODWIN ET AL = male volunteers learned a list when they were either drunk or sober. Those who were drunk were 3x over the UK drink driving limit. They were asked to recall it 24hrs later and some had to get drunk again. The recall scores were highest when learning drunk and recalling drunk. When consistent = better memory
     • A03 -
     • AO3 -

5. Factors effecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. EWT is the evidence provided in court by a person who has witnessed a crime/incident

   • LEADING QUESTIONS = it suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads them to a desired answer. 'What colour was the man's HAT', suggesting he was wearing a hat.
     • LOFTUS + PALMER = lab experiment using independent groups. 45 AMERICAN students were shown several films of different car accidents. Post-film they were given a questionaire to complete with one critical question = 'how fast were the cars going when they ____ each other' . It was either contacted, hit, bumped, collided or smashed to see the impact of leading questions. Contacted = 31.8 and Smashed 40.8. Clearly makes a difference to the answers and can impact real court EWT cases. The IV was the wording of the question and DV the speed reported by ppts (mph).
   • POST - EVENT DISCUSSION = this is when a witness discusses any information after the event has happened. This can be with other people, news reports or other witnesses.
     • GABBERT ET AL = The aim was to investigate the effects of post-event information distorting the accuracy of EWT. It was a lab experiment, with an experimental group and control group. The EG paired ppts watched a video of the same simulated robbery but from different angles so each ppts could see elements in the event that the other could not. They then discussed what they had seen and individually did a test of recall. The control group watched the robbery but did not discuss it. 71% of ppts in EXG mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they did not see but heard in the discussion. 60% said the girl was guilty despite the fact they had not seen her commit a crime from their angle. 0% of the control group made errors. He concluded that witnesses go along with the added info due to social approval (NSI) or believing they are right (ISI)
   • AO3 - Research support of misleading info by Loftus. College students were asked to evaluate advertising material about disneyland which had misleading information about bugs bunny or Ariel. They could not have possibly seen them as not disney + not introduced. Ppts were assigned to either the BB, Ariel or control condition. All had visited disneyland. Ppts in the experimental group were more likeley to report they had shaken hands with these characters than the control. Shows how misleading information can create inaccurate memories.

6. Improving the accuracy of EWT -- including the Cognitive Interview

7. STM capacity = MILLER = his idea that things come in groups of 7 such as days of the week and that we are predisposed to remembering this quantity and that a 'chunking' method can help us recall more information

   • STM capacity = Jacobs = Digit Span Experiment. Gave ppts a number of digits and made them read outloud. If they repeated it correctly then they added a digit om. They did this till failure. The average mean letter span was 7.3 and mean digit span was 9.3.

8. STM = Duration = Peterson et al. increasing retention intervals decreased the accuracy of recall when counting down from a 3 digit number. 24 undergraduates. 8 trials, 3 letters and 3 digits and told to count up to 18 on a timer to prevent rehersal. 3 sec = 80% correct. 6 sec = 50% correct. 18sec = less than 10%. STM has an 18 duration.

   • AO3 - The stimulus material was artificial and it does not reflect everyday activities with meaningful information, lacking ecological validity Although we may need to remember phone numbers

9. He found photo recognition of graduating classmates of the 396 ppts decreased from 90% to 70% between 15 years and 46 years of graduating.

   • AO3 - High ecological validity. They investigated meaningful memories (HS faces and names). When studies on LTM used meaningless pictures the recall rates were lower. Therefore, Bahrick's findings reflect a more 'real' estimate of the duration of LTM

10. CODING= Baddeley = He found more mistakes were made when ppts when recalling acoustically similar words straight after learning them (STM). More mistakes were made when recalling more semantically similar words 20 minutes after learning them (LTM).

    • AO3 - He used artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material. It will not tell us much about everyday memory based on everyday tasks. When processing something meaningful it uses semantic processing, even for STM tasks. Therefore the findings from this study have limited application

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