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Summary Year 1 Psychology notes - Memory
Memory notes - Year 1 psychology
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PSYCHOLOGY - MEMORY NOTESMemory- human memory can most broadly be defined as the process by which we retain information
about events that have happened in the past.
Short term memory: information that we process and recall straight away is usually stored in our
short term memory. It stores the information we are currently aware of.
• Coding- the format in which the information is stored in memory.
Long term memory: Continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness, but
can be recalled when needed. If you attend long enough to information in your short term memory, it
can be transferred to your long term memory.
The case study method:
• Investigation of an individual or a small group
• Regarding a usual phenomenon
• In depth analysis of the individual
• Qualitative
TYPES OF LONG TERM MEMORY:
• Tulving (1985) was one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the multi store models
view of the LTM was too simplistic and inflexible.
• Tuvling proposed that there are in fact three LTM stores containing quite different types of
information:
1. Episodic memory
2. Semantic memory
3. Procedural memory
Episodic memory refers to our ability to recall events or episodes from our lives.
• These are timestamped so you remember when they happen.
• For examples, your last visit to the dentist.
• Recalled from the brain in the right prefrontal cortex.
Semantic memory refers to memories that relate to the knowledge of the world.
• These are not timestamped as we may not remember where exactly we first learnt this.
• They have often been likened to a combination of an encyclopaedia and a dictionary.
• For examples, names of countries.
• Recalled from the brain in the prefrontal cortex.
Procedural memory refers to our memory for actions, skills and how we do things.
• We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort.
• For examples, driving a car.
Case study of HM and Clive Wearing:
• For both men, their episodic memory was impaired in due to amnesia as they both had great
difficulty recalling past events. However, both their semantic and procedural memory were intact.
• This supports Tulvings view that there are three different memory stores in the LTM as one can be
damaged but the others are unaffected showing they are all separate.
, Sensory register:
• Coding is modality specific
• Duration is 250 milliseconds
• Capacity is unlimited
Short term memory:
• Coding is acoustic
• Duration is 18-30 seconds
• Capacity is 7 +/- 2
Long term memory:
• Coding is semantic
• Duration is forever
• Capacity is unlimited
WORKING MEMORY MODEL ( STM)
• The working memory model is an explanation of how short term memory is organised and how it
works (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974)
• The WMM is concerned with the part of the mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and
manipulating information from the environment, such as working on a maths question.
• The model consists of 4 main components each of which is different in terms of coding , capacity,
and duration. These are:
1. Central executive
2. Phonological loop
3. Visuo-spatial sketchpad
4. Episodic buffer
Central executive:
• The central executive is an attentional process that monitors incoming data
• It is the ‘boss’ of working memory as it decides how to process the incoming information by
allocating relevant slave systems to tasks.
• It has a very limited processing capacity.
Phonological loop:
• The phonological loop is one of the slave systems
• It processes auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives.
• The phonological loop has two sub-divisions:
The phonological store- stores the words you hear (inner ear)
The articulately process- allows for maintenance rehearsal. The capacity of this loop is believed
to be two seconds of what you can say. (Inner eye)
Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad:
• The visuo-spatial sketchpad is another slave system in the WMM.
• It stores visual and/or spatial information when required such as if you were asked to work out how
many doors in your house as you need to visualise to answer.
• The capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad is limited to about 3-4 objects (Baddeley, 2003)
• Logie (1995) sub-divided the visuo-spatial sketchpad into two:
The visual cache- stores visual data
The inner scribe- records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
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