Psychology UNIT ONE Memory

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Multi-Store Model definitions

Encoding: changing information so that it can be stored

Storage: holding information in the memory system

Retrieval: recovering information from storage

Multi-store: the idea that information passes through a series of memory stores

Sensory store: holds very limited information received from the senses for less than one second

Short-term store: holds approximately seven (+/- 2) chunks of information for less than a minute

Long-term store: holds a vast amount of information for up to a lifetime

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Multi-Store Model diagram

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Multi-Store Model Peterson and Peterson and Murdoc

Aim: to see if rehearsal was necessary to hold information in the short-term store.

Method: Participants were given trigrams to remember, but were immediately asked to count backwards in threes out loud for different lengths of time. This was done to prevent rehearsal. Participants were then asked to recall the letters in the correct order.

Results: Participants had forgotten virtuall all of the information after 18 seconds.

Conclusion: We cannot hold information in the short-term store unless we rehearse it.

Aim: To provide information to support the multi-store explanation of memory.

Method: Participants had to learn a list of words presented one at a time, for two seconds per word, and then recall them in any order.

Results: The words at the end of the list were recalled first (recency effect), and words from the beginning of the list were also recalled quite well (primacy effect), but middle words were not.

Conlusion: This provides evidence for separate long-term and short-term stores.

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Multi-Store Model Evaluation

  • participants in the studies had to learn random trigrams or lists of words- not the type of memory tasks we have to do in the real world. The studies lack ecological validity
  • not everything we learn has to be rehearsed, as many everyday events are easily remembered
  • rehearsal doesn't necessarily make things easier to recall, we need to understand them
  • they help us to remember why it is so hard to remember the registration of a passing car or someones phone number, without rehearsal

Practical Applications

  • car registration plates and post codes never exceed seven characters, so they are easier to remember
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Reconstructive memory- Bartlett

Bartlett said that we alter our memories to fit in ith what we already know, so they make more sense to us.

Aim: To see if people, when given something unfamiliar to remember, would alter the information

Method: Participants were asked to read a story called 'The War of the Ghosts', a Native American legend. Later they were asked to retell the story as accurately as possible. This retelling was repeated several times during the weeks that followed.

Results: Bartlett discovered that his participants found it difficult to remember bits of the story concerned with spirits and changed other bits of the story so that it made more sense to them. Each time they retold the story they changed it more.

Conclusion: Our memory is influenced by our own beliefs.

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Reconstructive memory- Wynn and Logie Evaluation

Aim: To see if the recall of familiar stories changes in the same way as unfamiliar stories.

Method: They asked university students to recall details of their first week at university. They were asked to do this several times throughout the year.

Results: The accuracy of their descriptions remained the same no matter how many times they were asked to recall the information.

Conclusion: Memories for familiar events will not change over time.

Evaluation: -emphasises the influence of people's previous knowledge on their memory (people in different cultures may have difficulty agreeing) -would be very difficult to score the accuracy of the stories -however we often tell people about what others have said to us and explain our day, emphasising some things and downplaying others so has high ecological validity

Practical Applications: helps us to understand why two people who are recalling the same event might have completely different versions of the story. Witnesses recalling crimes may think they are being accurate but may have altered the facts

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Levels of Processing Definitions and Craik and Loc

Structural Processing: Thinking about the physical appearance of words to be learnt.

Phonetic processing: Thinking about the sound of words to be learnt.

Semantic processing: thinking about the meaning of words to be learnt.

Levels of processing: the depth at which information is thought about when trying to learn it.

Aim: to see if the type of question asked about words will have an effect on the recall of words.

Methods: Participants were presented with a list of wrods one a time and asked questions about each word, to which they had to answer yes or no. Some questions required structural processing, some required phonetic and some required semantic processing. They were then given a longer list of words and asked to identify the words they had answered questions about.

Results: partcipants identified 70% of the words that required semantic processing, 35% of those which required phonetic processing and 15% of those which required structural.

Conclusion: the more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered.

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Levels of Processing Evaluation

  • it does not explain why deeper levels of processing leads to better recall (deeper processing = more time? Or more effort?)
  • real life memory tasks are not about remembered lists of words, lacks ecological validity

Practical applications

  • instead of just reading something over and over when revising, change it into your own words so that you semantically process it and this will improve your recall
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Forgetting- Interference Underwood and Postman

Retroactive interference: information we have recently learnt hinders our ability to recall information we have learnt previously

Proactive interference: information we have already learnt hinders our ability to recall new information

Aim: To see if new learning interferes with previous learning

Method: One group of participants were asked to learn a list of word pairs. They were then asked to learn a second list of word pairs. The other group were asked to learn the first list only. Both groups were asked to recall the first list of word pairs.

Results: Group B's recall of the first list was more accurate of that than group A.

Conclusion: New learning will cause people to recall previously learned information less accurately.

-try to avoid studying two similar subjects in one night as they might interfere

-learning the skills for two sports at once may cause problems

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Forgetting- Context Godden and Baddeley

Aim: to see if people who learn and are tested in the same environment will recall more information than those who learn and are tested in different environments.

Method: Partcipants were deep sea divers, dividied into four groups. They were all given the same list of words to learn. Group 1 had to learn underwater and recall underwater. Group 2 had to learn underwater and recall on the shore. Group 3 had to learn on the shore and recall on the shore. Group 4 had to learn on the shore and recall underwater. 

Results: Groups 1 and 3 recalled 40% more words than groups 2 and 4.

Conclusion: Recall of information will be better if it happens in the same context that learning takes place.

-make your learning environment at home similar to that in the exam hall (eg work at a desk, don't study with music on in the background.

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Forgetting- Brain Damage

Milner et al

A patient suffering from epilepsy underwent an operation in which two thirds of his hippocampus was removed. Since the operation he was unable to learn new information. This shows that the hippocampus is crucial for recording new memories.

Russell and Nathan

A 22 year old patient had fallen from his motorcycle, banged his head and suffered sever concussion. Although X-Rays showed no fracture of the skull, he could not recall any events that had happened fortwo years prior.

Anterograde amnesia: being unable to learn new information after suffering brain damage

Retrograde amnesia: loss of memory for events that happened before brain damage occured

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EWT- Loftus and Palmer and Bruce and Young

Aim: to see if asking leading questions affect the accuracy of recall.

Method: Participants were shown films of car accidents. Some were asked 'How fast was the car going when it hit the other car?' Others were asked 'How fast was the car going when it smashed the other car?'

Results: Those who head the word 'smashed' gave a higher speed estimate than the others.

Conclusion: Leading questions reduce the accuracy of recall. 'Smashed' = faster

Aim: to see if familiarity affects the accuracy of identifying faces

Method: Psychology lecturers were caught on security cameras at the entrance of a building. Participants were asked to identify the faces seen on the security camera tape from photos.

Results: The lecturers students made more correct identifcations.

Conclusion: Previous familiarity helps when identifying faces.

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EWT- Geiselman et al and Cohen

Aim: to see if reinstating the context of an event affects the accuracy of witness' accounts.

Method: participants were shown a police training film of a violent crime. Two days later they were interviewed about it- for half of them, the context of the event was recreated. For the other half, standard police interview was used.

Results: Participants who had the context recreated recalled more accurate facts.

Conclusion: Recreating context during interviews will increase the accuracy of recall. This method is known as the cognitive interview.

Aim: To see if stereotypes can affect memory.

Method: Participants were shown a video of a man and a woman eating in a restaurant. Half of the participants were told that the woman was a waitress. The others were told that she was a librarian. Later, they were all asked to describe her behaviour and personality.

Results: They gave entirely different descriptions which matched the stereotypes about them

Conclusion: Stereotypes reduce the accuracy of accounts.

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EWT- Evaluation

Evaluation

-wacthing a video of a event is not the same as a real-life experience (you are prepared for what is about to happen and you are in a safe environment)

-real life incidents surprise/shock you and may pose danger

-emotional state at the tike of the incident as well as the time since the incident may also affect recall

Practical Applications

-police ad lawyers should avoid asking leading questions, adopt a neutral style of questioning

-identity parades alone may have limited use when trying to find a suspected criminal as memory for faces can be unreliable, so there needs to be other evidence as well.

-taking witnesses back to the scene of the incident and recreating context may help their recall 

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