PSYA1: Cognitive Psychology – Memory

In this topic you will:

Understand the nature of memory and relevant research, including:- Encoding- Capacity- Duration

Understand the multi-store model of memory, including:- The model itself- Strengths and weaknesses

Understand the working memory model, including- The model itself- Strengths and weaknesses

Understand methods used to conduct research.

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Memory

We will be looking in detail at human memory. Some of you may not have thought about it before, but ask yourself the question “What if we had no memory?”. It is something we easily take for granted.

In this section of the syllabus we will cover research into memory as well as models of memory.

A model is not an actual version of something; it is just a representation of something so that we can tell how it works. Kind of like the London underground map.

The underground doesn’t actually look like this map, but it is a representation of it so we can figure out easily how it works. In the psychology of memory, models are used to help us understand how memory works.

As we go through the studies, make sure you keep detailed notes so that you can refer back to the research as you will need to know it for your exam. You will need to be able to show how evidence supports an idea but also how it contradicts it. This allows us to evaluate.

Key Terms:

Model Representation Support Contradicts Evaluate

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LESSON 1 - The Nature of Memory (Introduction)

Use pages 61-63, 65 to fill out the tables below. You will need to read through the pages carefully to find the answers.

Key Word DefinitionEncoding

Capacity

Duration

Sensory Memory (SM)

Short term memory (STM)

Long term memory (LTM)

Use the table below to describe the different memory types in terms of the way in which they encode, their capacity (size) and duration.

SM STM LTMEncoding

Capacity

Duration

** Also this lesson you looked at correlations. Keep your notes filed in the right place.

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LESSON 2 – STM duration

Key Study: Peterson and Peterson (1959) p. 64

Read through in your textbook and fill in the boxes below using the APFC format.

AIM: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PROCEDURE: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FINDINGS:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CONCLUSIONS:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick Question – What is this study testing?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick Question – What did this technique become known as?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 2: LTM duration

Key Study: Bahrick et al (1975) p. 67

Read through in your textbook and fill in the boxes below using the APFC format.

AIM: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PROCEDURE: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FINDINGS:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CONCLUSIONS:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick Question – Which type of recognition was the highest?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick Question – Are there any ethical issues?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 2 – Prep task

Using the Peterson and Peterson model, conduct your own version. You can do an exact repeat of it if you like and try and test a few participants (at least 5).

You will need:

A stopwatch. A 3 digit number the participants must count back from in 3s during the delay

period. A way of measuring if their response is correct or incorrect.

Results

Trigram and time allowed

Number of correct responses from ps

WRT – 3 secsZPS – 6 secsVJP – 9 secsXGA – 12 secsKZY – 15 secs

Plot a graph of your results including a line of best fit

3 6 9 12 150

20

40

60

80

100

120

Retention Interval(s) in seconds

Lett

er re

call

(%)

On a separate piece of paper write down some evaluation points. What do you think is good about this particular experiment? What is bad about it? Do you think it feels natural for the participant?

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LESSON 3 – Research Methods: Variables, Reliability and Validity

Lesson objectives - using Peterson and Peterson, we are going to think about variables in experiments and the validity of research.

The independent variable is manipulated by the experimenter. Sometimes it is organised by groups (i.e. one group does one thing and one group does another) and sometimes it is a natural variable (i.e. one group is male and one group is female).

The dependent variable is measured by the researcher. It is usually the participant’s performance on a particular task.

So, in Peterson and Peterson, identify:

The IV:____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The DV:____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reliability is whether or not you would get the same result if you repeated the research. Studies must be consistent and standardised in order to show good reliability. Therefore experiments have good reliability as they are scientific and controlled.

Validity is whether or not the experiment is measuring what it intends to measure. For example, if someone uses a questionnaire to measure stress, is it actually measuring stress?

Read pages 23-4

Is the Peterson and Peterson study valid? What might affect the validity of the research?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 4: STM and LTM – Encoding and Capacity

Using your textbook and the handout (Taken from “The Complete Companion” by Cardwell and Flanagan), fill in which research applies to which area with a brief description of the study. Don’t go into as much detail as the last two!

STM LTM

Encoding Conrad (1964)... Baddeley (1966)...

Capacity Jacobs (1887)...

Miller (1956)...

No real study on this – the answer is potentially limitless!

Duration Peterson and Peterson (1959) found that when participants were asked to delay recall of meaningless trigrams (e.g. VZF), the successful recall rate decreased rapidly after a few seconds. This supports the multi-store model, which suggests we need to rehearse information in STM in order to push it through to LTM.

Bahrick et al (1975) found participants tested 15 years after graduation were successful (90%) at identifying the names and faces of those in their year. After 48 years, this declined to 80% name recognition and 70% face. The free recall of names without photos was less good (i.e. needed prompts.

For your exam you should know around 3 studies per model of memory. This data supports a “multi-store model” of memory, which we will talk about soon, so you need to know how this can be supported.

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LESSON 4 – Prep Task

I would like you to have a go at a practice question. In the exam you will have one 12 mark question, which should be treated as a mini-essay. You will want to talk about the differences between them in terms of encoding, capacity and duration of STM and LTM. Try and come up with some criticisms of the study as well.

Outline and evaluate the evidence relating to the differences between STM and LTM. [12 marks]

One difference between STM and LTM is encoding. Evidence suggests that information in LTM is encoded through meaning (semantics). For example, in Baddeley (1966)…._______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Whereas in STM, memory is encoded acoustically (with sound). For example in Conrad (1964)___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Another difference between STM and LTM is duration. For example in Peterson and Peterson (1959)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 5 – Research Design

This is mainly a research methods lesson. To start a quick question – try and remember from memory 5 key points from Baddeley’s (1966) study:

1. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick question: How were participants organised in this study?

There were different groups - use a sketch to show how the participants were organised.

Baddeley’s study uses an “independent measures design” meaning that there were different/independent groups carry out the different conditions.

An alternative design would be “repeated measures design” which means the same group do the conditions of the experiment. Describe how Baddeley’s study could be carried out with a repeated measures design.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read pages 27 – 30 and complete relevant pages in research book.

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LESSON 6 – The Multi-Store Model of Memory

So far we have learnt that memory is not one part but several. Different parts do different things and serve different roles.

As discussed at the beginning of the course, a model is a visual representation of something. In this case we are looking at a model of memory.

Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed a model of memory which is known as the multi-store model of memory.

Fill in the gaps! All boxes and arrows require a label

Rehearsal Failure to retrieve Short term memory (STM)Long term memory (LTM) Sensory memory (SM) Non-attentionDecay Attention Rehearsal

Forgetting is different in the different stores:

In the SM you ‘forget’ information not attended to In STM you ‘forget’ information not rehearsed through decay In LTM you ‘forget’ but not being able to recall the information (tip of the

tongue phenomenon)

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Forgetting

STM LTMSMAttention Rehearsal

Rehearsal

Forgetting

Non- Attention

Decay Failure to retrieve

LESSON 7 – Evidence for the multi store model

Below is the multi-store model of memory. Using your knowledge of the evidence we have covered so far, draw an arrow to show where a study supports the model.

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Bahrick et al.

Key words DefinitionSerial position effect (Glanzer and Cunitz, 1966)

Primacy effect

Recency effect

LESSON 8 – Case Studies and Amnesia

Clive Wearing

In March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection—encephalitis—affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds—the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded. New events and experiences were effaced almost instantly. In addition to this inability to preserve new memories (anterograde amnesia), Clive had a retrograde amnesia, a deletion of virtually his entire past.

…I spotted the two volumes of Bach’s “Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues” on top of the piano and asked Clive if he would play one of them. He said that he had never played any of them before, but then he began to play Prelude 9 in E Major and said, “I remember this one.” He remembers almost nothing unless he is actually doing it; then it may come to him

[Taken from “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks]

Quick questions:

Why is this case study useful for understanding memory?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How does this case study support the multi-store model of memory?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is the case study valid?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 9 – Prep Task

The lesson primarily concerned research methods. See if you can use your understanding of Hawthorne effect, demand characteristics, extraneous variables and validity to answer the question.

Outline and evaluate research on the multi-store model of memory.[12 marks]

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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LESSON 10 – Evaluating the multi-store model of memory

Read pages 66 and 68 and take notes on the strengths and weaknesses of the multi-store model.

Strengths Weaknesses

Exam question

To what extent does the multi-store model offer a reasonable account of human memory?

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LESSON 11 – Assessment Objectives

Fill in what each assessment objective requires.

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AO1

AO2

AO3

Central executive

Episodic

Buffer

Visuo-spatialsketchpad

Phonological Loop

LESSON 12 – The Working Memory Model

Add the relevant information to the working memory model diagram below:

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LESSON 13 – Evidence for the Working Memory Model

Part of WMM EvidenceCentral Executive

Episodic Buffer

Phonological Loop

a) Phonological store

b) Articulatory loop

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

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LESSON 14 – Evaluating the Working Memory Model

Read pages 71-3 and take notes on the strengths and weaknesses of the model.

Strengths Weaknesses

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