cognitive psychology

cognitive psychology

1. Long term memory

   • encoded semantically
   • unlimited capacity
   • unlimited duration
   • information loss due to interference
   • retrieved during cues
   • lasts 2mins-100years

2. short term memory

   • encoded semantically
   • information needs attention to be maintained
   • information needs repitition to be maintained
   • information loss due to decay
   • information loss due to displacement
   • capacity - 5-9 items
   • duration - 15-30s

3. digit span - Miller (1956) most people may a memory of 7+-2

4. reconstructive memory

   • memories are not exact copies of what is encoded and stored. memory is not an exact reproduction.
   • memories are affected by prior knowledge and experience.
   • we use schemas to fill in the gaps when we recall events.
   • (Bartlett) - perception affects memory. He found that once pps had given an object they'd seen a label it affected how they drew it afterwards.
   • (Barlett) - imaging. while using ink blots the apps often gave descriptions based on their interests, experiences and mood at the time.
     • once its been given meaning it is more easily stored.
     • he concluded that memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled.
     • Its rarely accurate, prone to distortion, rationalisation, transformation and simplification.
     • schemas are mental representations we have of specific events or objects. overtime we animate new information into existing schemas to change what we have learnt, as well as accomodate to change our schemas.

5. Loftus and Palmer showed pps a view of a car crash and asked each of the pps how fast they thought the car was going (varying the verbs)

   • Bumped
   • hit
   • collided
   • contacted - 31.8MPH
   • Smashed 40.8MPH
   • They then asked the pps if they had seen any broken glass during the video
     • control - 6
     • Hit - 7
     • Smashed - 16

6. Baddeleys experiment

   • 72 pps split into 4 groups (male and female)
   • independant groups design
   • Volunteer sample
     • from applied psychology unit
   • standardised procedure
   • Aim: to see whether LTM is encoded semantically or acoustically. To see if acoustically similar words were harder to recall than semantically similar words
   • lab experiment
   • 10 words - 4 word lists
     • list A - acoustic similarity
     • list B - words matched to L.A not acoustically similar (control list)
     • List C - semantically similar (adjectives with similar meaning)
     • List D - adjectives matched with L.C not semantically similar (control list)