Memory

Memory

1. Capacity

   • 7+/-2 Chunks
     • Found using Jacobs digit span technique
     • Milner established idea of chunks

2. Duration

   • 30 seconds
     • Found through Petersons and Petersons nonsense trigrams

3. Encoding

   • Short term memory encodes information acoustically
     • More errors were made when words sound the same. Shows we encode words through how it sounds
   • Baddeleys Experiment into Encoding
     • Used sets with semantically similar words (same meaning) and acoustically similar words (same sound)

4. Capacity

   • Infinate information can be stored

5. Duration

   • Some information can be remembered for a life time
     • Study by Bahrick using recall and recognition of year book photos showed this
       • Some people question whether results were affected by memory loss with age

6. Encoding

   • Long term memory encodes semantically
     • More errors were made when words meant the same. Shows we encode things through how they sound

7. Multi-Store Model

   • By Atkinson and Shiffrin
   • 3 single seperate stores
     • STM
     • LTM
     • Sensory Register
       • ie Haptic = touch & Iconic = visual
     • Therefore we cannot do dual tasks
   • We remember things through maintenance rehersal
   • HM & Clive Wearing
     • CASE STUDIES
     • Both struggle to lay down new memories using STM but LTM is not affected. This provides evidence to suggest LTM & STM are seperate stores
   • Found to be too simplistic because...
     • Craig & Lockhart found that ELABORATIVE REHERSAL, deep processing is how we remember things
     • People can perform visual and acoustic tasks simultaneously. According to MSM the capacity of STM would be filled. Suggests there is not just a single store.
     • The patient KF could not deal with verbal information but could deal with visual information. Suggests there is more than one store in STM and KF only damaged one
     • Validity of experiments have been questioned as often only students were used as PPs and always lab experiments so demand charecteristics were likely to be present

8. Working Memory Model

   • Adds depth to the STM
     • Visiou Spatial Scratchpad
       • Stores and processes information in a spatial form. Helps you navigate.
       • Visual Cache
         • Colours and Shapes
       • Inner Scribe
         • Spatial
     • Phonological Loop
       • Deals with written and spoken material
       • Phonological Store
         • Holds information in speech based form for 1-2 seconds
       • Articulary Controll Process
         • Used to reherse information held in the phonological store
     • Centeral Executive
       • "The boss"
     • Episodic Buffer
       • Chunks information and transfers it into the LTM and also brings information forward into mind too
   • The WMM is supported by...
     • PET Scans
       • Use radioactive glucose to measure activity in the brain and make moving images of this movement
         • Found that different areas of the brain are used when completing visual and acoustic tasks. Evidence for PL & VSS
     • Dual Task studies
       • Unlike predicted in MSM, Baddelys research suggests that there is more than one store.
     • The Patient KF
       • He couldnt with verbal info but could still process visual. Suggesting he had only damaged the PL.
   • HOWEVER...
     • The patient EVR struggled to make decsiosns after brian surgery but could still reason well. Suggets more in depth research should be done investigating the CE

9. Long Term Memory

   • Explicit Memory
     • "Knowing that"
     • Episodic Memory
       • Personal events
     • Semantic Memory
       • Information
     • Tulving (1989)
       • Used a gamma ray detector to measure brain activity. Found that episodic tasks used frontal cortext and semantic tasks used posterior cortex of brain
   • Implicit Memory
     • "Knowing how"
     • Procedural Memory
       • Skills ie riding a bike
       • Case Study: PM
         • Proffessional chellist who suffered damage to the brain. Couldn't remember dates or name of famous musicians but was still able to play.
           • Suggests "knowing how" area is seperate to "knowing that" area

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