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A level psychology aqa memory
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A-level PsychologyPAPER 1 PAPER 2 PAPER 3
a. Social influence a. Approaches a. Issues and debates
b. Memory b. Biopsychology b. Relationships
c. Attachment c. Research methods c. Schizophrenia
d. Psychopathology d. Aggression
MEMORY
WHAT IS MEMORY? Memory is the process of retaining information over time. The
information that we retain is called “a” memory.
There are three stages to the memory process:
1. Encoding - the process of transforming information to put it into memory.
2. Storage - the process of maintaining information in our minds.
3. Retrieval - the process of taking memory out of memory storage. Retrieval occurs in
2 ways:
a. Recall - when we consciously re-access the whole memory without having to
be reminded of the memory first.
b. Recognition - when a person retrieves a memory once they’re shown the
memory again because it feels familiar to them.
MEMORY STORES
We have multiple memory stores that differ in
- Capacity: the size of a storage space, with a larger capacity meaning more can be fit
in storage.
- Duration: how long a memory store can keep information in it. If the store has a
longer duration means that the information can be kept for longer.
- Coding: what formats things are stored in, they use different codes.
Sensory coding is storing sensory information, there are 5 types of sensory
code in total, e.g. acoustic (stores information as sound) and visual codes
(stores information as images).
Semantic coding stores information by its meaning and the facts associated
with it.
, The Multi-Store Model
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), developed the multi-store model of memory to explain how memories are transferred from one store to the other.
The multi-store model of memory suggests that we have three memory stores, the sensory register, the short-term memory and the long-term
memory.
There are three memory stores:
SENSORY REGISTER is a temporary store that stores Sperling (1960) conducted a laboratory experiment, investigating the
sensory information while we process it, it stores all incoming capacity of sensory memory, a 4 by 3 grid of letters was displayed for 50
information from our senses, and it registers sensory milliseconds, in the first condition participants were asked to recall all 12
information from the outside world. The sensory register letters. In the second condition, participants were asked to recall one row of
codes information through the sensory coding, it has a the grid but didn’t know which row during its presentation. In condition 1,
duration of 1-2 seconds and has a large capacity. where participants had to recall the entire grid, they usually recalled around
4-7 letters. When participants were asked to recall only one of the rows,
they usually recalled around 3 letters. Sperling found that the sensory
register had a large capacity, information is stored for such a short
duration as it begins to lose all the information before finishing the recall.
SHORT-TERM MEMORY stores information for a short Jacobs (1887) found that the capacity of short-term memory was set at 7
period for an ongoing task. It has a longer duration than the +/-2 digits or letters, providing evidence that the capacity of short-term
sensory register, its duration is limited to around 18-30 memory is limited.
seconds, once information is no longer needed for an
ongoing task, it stops being stored in short-term memory. The Miller (1956) suggested that short-term memory capacity is 7 +/- 2
capacity of short-term memory is limited, it’s difficult to do chunks. Short-term memory can hold more information when it is combined
more than one task at once - there’s only so much we can do into one or more meaningful chunks. By chunking we can hugely improve
or think about at one point in time. The information stored in the capacity of our short-term memory. Miller found that while Jacob was
short-term memory can use both sensory and semantic right about the limited capacity of short-term memory, more information can
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