Supporting Research - Memory

Supporting Research - Memory

1. Multi-Store Model

   • Sensory Register
     • Capacity - High
       • Sperling used the whole and partial report technique
     • Encoding - Iconic and Echoic mainly
       • Crowder found the iconic store can hold info for milliseconds but the echoic can for 2/3 seconds
   • STM
     • Capacity - 7+/-2 chunks
       • Participants were asked to learn lists of words that got progressively longer and the results were plotted on a graph.
     • Duration - 30 seconds
       • Peterson and Peterson gave participants nonsense trigrams and asked them to recall them. 80% accurate after 3 seconds, <50% after 6 seconds, <10% after 18.
     • Encoding - Acoustic
       • Baddeley got participants to learn a list of words either semantically similar, semantically dissimilar, acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar. STM = most mistakes acoustically sim. LTM = most mistakes on semantically sim.
   • LTM
     • Encoding - Semantic
     • Duration - Unlimited
       • Bahrick et al - 400 US students name recognition of class mates. 80% accuracy after 48 years.
     • Capacity - impossible to test

2. Types of LTM

   • Episodic and Semantic
     • Tulving and his radioactive gold.
   • Procedural
     • Clive Wearing

3. Working Memory Model

   • Central Executive
     • Baddeley - participants generated random strings of numbers on a keyboard whilst completeing an interference task. When the task was alternating between numbers and letters it was evident that this was competing for the same CE resources.
   • Phonological Loop
     • Baddeley et al found a word length effect, the capacity is determined by the length of time it takes to say the word NOT the number of items. But without a verbal rehearsal system short words were recalled no better.
   • Visuo-spatial sketchpad
     • Baddeley et al asked participant to plot the course of a light spot whilst carrying out another task. If it was another visual task the performance was poor.
   • Episodic Buffer
     • Alkhalifa reported a patient who had an impaired LTM but could remember 25 prose items, this suggest the existence of an episodic buffer which holds items in the working memory.

4. interference theory

   • Baddeley and Hitch - rugby players

5. Cue-dependent retrieval theory

   • context-dependent
     • Baddeley and Godden - divers
   • state-dependent
     • Carter and Cassaday - hayfever tablets make you drowsy

6. Factors affecting EWT

   • Misleading information - leading questions and post-event infomation
     • Loftus showed 45 students films of car accidents and then interviewed them using different verbs in tihe crucial quetion.
       • 8 mph difference between smashed and contacted
       • A week later asked did you see the broken glass (there was none). Twice as likely to say yes in the smashed condition.
   • Anxiety
     • Positive effects
       • Christinne and Hubinette asked 110 real eyewitnesses who saw 1/22 bank robberies, either onlookers or victims (bank clerks) to desribe the robber.
         • Victims were more accurate than onlookers.
     • Negative effects
       • Participants were either exposed to a low-key discusiion and a man comes out holding a pen covered in grease, or a arguemement nwith smashing glass and screaming and a man emerged carrying a penknife covered in blood.
         • Greasy pen = 50% accurate photo recognition
           • Bloody penknife = 30% accurate photo recognition