Memory

Procedures

• Pts presented with 4 word lists
• List A-Acoustically similar
• List B-Acoustically dissimilar
• List C-Semantically similar
• List D-Semantically dissimilar
• 20 minute retention interval in which pts had to condict another task
• Ensured recall would involve LTM

Findings

• Pts given List C performed worst-55% recall
• Other lists 70-85% recall

Conclusions

• Since list C was least efficiently recalled it appears there is semantic confusion in LTM
• LTM tends to be encoded on a semantic basis

Strengths

• Makes cognitive sense in everyday life
• For example if you try to remember a TV program you watched a while ago, you'll find the overall  content but not the words

Limitations

• Different types of LTM
• Riding a bike is procedural memory
• Autobiographical or personal memories of events or places is episodic memories

AO1

• Attkinson & Shiffrin
• 3 distinct stores
• SM-Holds information in the senses for brief periods of time 
• STM-Limited capacity, encodes mainly acoustically, short duration
• LTM-Potentially unlimited capacity and duration, encodes mainly semantically
• If a persons attention is focused on information in SM it is transferred to STM or displaced
• STM to LTM through rehearsal 
• The more it is rehearsed, the better it is rememebered
• Without rehearsal, information is displaced

• Glanzer & Cunitz gave pts word list to remember and found that people recalled more words from the begining of the list
• Due to primacy effect suggests words have been encoded to LTM due to rehearsal
• Modern brain scanning-Prefrontal cotex active when working on STM task and hippocampus active when engaged in LTM task
• Simplistic, assumes both stores are individual made up of one component each but research and evidence of brain damaged patients such as KF have demonstrated STM consists of different stores
• Cannot explain flashbulb memoeries where information is encoded into LTM without rehearsal

• Controls the activity of WMM
• Co ordinated the 2 slave systems
• Directs attention the most important information at the expense of the other less important information
• Modality free-can process information from any sense
• Used when carrying out difficult mental tasks such as problem solving
• Can also be used for the temporary storage of informaition while another task is being carried out in STM

• Inner eye
• Uses a visual code dealing with the temporary storage of cisual and spatial items and the relationship between them
• Helps to naviaget around and interact with your phsical environment
• Material is rehearsed and encoded through mental pictures

• Auditory store
• Deals with speach based information
• Capacity is determined by the amount of information that can be rehearsed  before it fades
• Baddeley suggests that it is limited to what you can say out loud in roughly 2 seconds. Therefore lists of short words are easier to remember than long words
• Divided into phonologial store and articulatory contol system
• Phonological store- a passive storage system that deals with the perception of sounds ans speach
• Spoken words enter the store directly 
• Written words must be converted into spoken words to enter the phonological store
• Articulatory control system-an active rehearsal system where words from the phonological store can be maintained by subvocal repetition
• Circulates information round like a tape loop until the material is spoken