June 2011

Write letter in box

B=duration, short term, up to 30 seconds

C=encoding, short term, mainly acoustic

Outline the working memory model

There are three main components in the original 1974 version of the working memory model. These are the central executive which acts like a manager, allocating, processing resources and coordinating the activity of the two slave systems; the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The phonological loop is the inner ear and inner voice and is responsible for processing phonological inform action. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is the inner eye and processes visual and spatial information. Having separate slave systems explains how people are able to perform two tasks at the same time. 

Explain one limitation of the working memory model

It fails to account for musical memory because we are able to listen to instrumental music without impairing performance an other acoustic tasks.

Write a directional hypothesis for this experiment

Participants who use a memory improvement strategy will correctly identify more pictures/objects than participants who do no use a memory improvement strategy

Explain what is meant by an independent group design

In an independent group design a different group of participants is used in each condition

Explain one strength and one weakness of using independent group design

Participants are naive because they take part in only one condition, so are less likely to show demand characteristics. There are no order effects such as practice or fatigue because participants take part in one condition individual variation because there are different participants in each condition. More participants are needed than if a repeated measures design was used.

Explain why pilot studies are used

A pilot study is used to check aspects of the research such as weather. Participants understand standardised instruction, whether timings are adequate etc. It allows the researcher to try out the study with a few participants so that adjustments can be made before the main study, so saving time and money

What do the standard deviations in Table 1 tell us

The standard deviation is larger in the condition with the memory improvement strategy larger spread of scores

One strategy to improve memory in this experiment

Visual imagery such as peg word method could be used. in this case the doll could be…