Memory Chapter 1 - AQA

Chapter 1

Memory

It just weighs about 3 pounds ?

Contents

about the same as 1? bags of sugar. And holds about 100 billion nerve

Processes of memory

cells, and all your memories.

Encoding, storage and retrieval

12

? How are those memories stored?

A study of encoding

14

Different types of memory

16

? What do the memories actually look like in the brain?

Structures of memory

The multi-store model of memory

18

? Why do you think you remember

Primacy and recency effects in recall

20

some things and not others?

Memory as an active process

? Are memories accurate?

Barlett's War of the Ghosts study

22

? If they are not accurate, what makes them lack accuracy?

The theory of reconstructive memory

24

Factors affecting the accuracy of memory

Interference

26

Context

28

False memories

30

Revision summary

32

Practice questions, answers and feedback

34

Multiple choice questions

36

10 Chapter 1 Memory

Chapter 1 from AQA Psychology for GCSE by Cara Flanagan, Dave Berry, Ruth Jones, Mark Jones and Rob Liddle ? Illuminate Publishing

These pages are uncorrected proofs and contain unfinalised artwork

Please note: the following material been entered in an AQA approval process

Chapter 1 Contents 11

Processes of memory: Encoding, storage and retrieval

The specification says ...

Processes of memory: encoding (input), storage and retrieval (output). How memories are encoded and stored.

The memory palace

Every year a World Memory Championship is held where competitors have to memorise long lists of hundreds of numbers and words. Ben Pridmore, from Derby, has won three times and explains how he achieves mind boggling feats ? it's called the method of loci or the memory palace. He memorises long lists of numbers by encoding them in meaningful associations. Ben turns numbers into images and then places them around an environment he knows well ? in his case it is often his old school, Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Horncastle, Lincolnchsire. To recall the numbers he takes a walk round the school and retrieves them. You may not be very impressed by this method but it is surprisingly effective and used by all memory champions and stage performers. You can see a great demonstration of this method by Professor Robert Winston here lumdv6f

What is meant by ...

Encoding

Retrieval

Encoding

Memory involves three processes: putting information into your brain (encoding), storing it there and retrieving it again. To begin we are going to focus on the encoding part. Encoding means changing information so it can be stored in the brain. The form of the information is changed.

Visual encoding

Some memories are stored visually. For example, if I ask you to count the windows on your house you probably `see' your house in your mind in order to count the windows. That information is visually encoded.

Acoustic encoding

Some memories are stored in terms of what they sound like. The most obvious example would be your favourite songs. If you think about them, you can hear the words and music. Another example is learning the alphabet to the tune of Twinkle twinkle little star ? the rhyme is encoded acoustically.

Semantic encoding

`Semantic' refers to meaning. We all know thousands of words and your semantic memory is the meaning of these words ? that is your ability to understand and use words and concepts. For example, you know and understand the word elephant and you can use the word in a sentence.

Other encoding

D R Tactile encoding is a memory of what things feel like and olfactory memory is

memory for smells.

Meaningful associations ...

All sorts of memory `tricks' rely on making meaningful associations. For example

ROY G. BIV helps me (Cara) remember the colours of the rainbow (R stands for red, O for orange ...) Or you can use each letter to make up a rhyme: Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. Both of these are well known mnemonic techniques ? methods to improve your recall of lists of things.

Stretch and challenge

Test it yourself. Ask people you know about whether they use meaningful associations such as the rhyme above to help them remember things. What kinds of things do people use to help them remember?

THINK LINK Memory is an example of a cognitive process. `Cognitive' means knowledge. Chapter 3 concerns cognitive development ? looking at how children think and learn.

You should always be on the lookout for links across the specification.

It's on the tip of my tongue.

A phrase which generally means failing to retrieve a word or name from memory but having some idea what it is and also feeling that any moment the word will be recalled.

Encode ? store ? retrieve

`Memory' describes a whole lot of different things: remembering

Apply it ? concept your last birthday, remembering the capital of France, remembering

what you did in your last maths lesson, remembering stuff for exams, remembering where you put that necklace, remembering

Ezra revising how to ride a bicycle ...

In all cases, we can describe the process in terms of:

1. Encoding: the information must be translated into a form so that it can be held in your brain.

2. Storage: the information is then kept in your brain for a period of time ? possibly even a lifetime.

3. Retrieval: the information has to be located and brought back out of your brain.

You can retrieve memories in several different ways: ? Recognition ? for example, doing multiple choice questions, you

are given four possible answers and have to decide which one is the right answer. Or seeing someone and being able to identify

T who they are ? which is different from trying to recall what

someone looks like. ? Cued recall ? you try to remember a piece of information ... it's

on the tip of your tongue ... and then someone gives you a clue or cue (It begins with the letter `B') and you can remember it.

AApply it ? resFearch Study tip ? Free recall is when you retrieve it without cues.

Read the item below and then answer the questions that follow.

Ezra finds that when he revises for his Psychology test, he remembers more information if he re-writes passages of the textbook into his own words as opposed to just staring at the textbook page or reading the page out loud.

A friend tests Ezra by asking him to recall what he learned the previous day. Ezra finds that he remembers most of the information but not all of it. However, when he is given the opportunity to look at some key words from his notes he finds that he can remember the rest of the information.

Questions

1. Identify the different ways in which Ezra learns. Refer to the different types of encoding in your answer. [3 marks]

2. Why couldn't Ezra remember all of his notes the following

day?

[2 marks]

Recognition or recall?

Don't lose marks

Make sure you expand enough on your answers.

A psychologist conducted a study on memory to see which method of remembering was superior ? recognition or recall. In the recall condition, 10 participants studied a list of 20 words. The list was removed and the participants wrote down as many words as they could remember. In the recognition condition, 10 different participants studied the same list of words. After this was removed, they were given a list of 100 words which included the 20 they had seen previously. They had to select the words they recognised.

Questions

When explaining key terms in Psychology (see question 3 below), it is always good practice to give a relevant example to illustrate your point as this further demonstrates your knowledge and understanding of a topic (AO1).

1. Which one of the following terms is a description of storage?

1. Write a suitable alternative hypothesis for this study.

[2 marks]

(i) Putting information into your memory. (ii) Recalling information.

2. Apart from ethical issues explain one strength of the

research method used in this study.

[2 marks]

3. The psychologist used two different groups of participants.

Identify this experimental design and explain how she

could have allocated the participants to the two conditions

of the study.

[1 mark + 2 marks]

(iii) Learning information in terms of how it sounds. (iv) Holding information in your memory. [1 mark]

2. Use your knowledge of psychology to explain how

memories are encoded. Give an example in your

answer.

[2 marks]

4. The psychologist repeated the study using a matched pairs design. Explain one reason why she did this. [2 marks]

3. Explain what is meant by each of the following

terms: storage and retrieval.

[4 marks]

Check it

12 Chapter 1 Memory

Processes of memory: Encoding, storage and retrieval 13

Processes of memory: A study of encoding

The specification says...

Processes of memory: How memories are encoded.

Ear this!

List A cat, cab, can, cad, cap, mad, max, mat, man, map List B pit, few, cow, pen, sup, bar, day, hot, rig, bun Close your book and try to remember both lists of words in the order they were presented. Which list did you recall better? List C great, large, big, huge, broad, long, tall, fat, wide, high List D good, huge, hot, safe, thin, deep, strong, foul, old, late Now try to remember lists C and D in the order they were presented. Which list did you recall better? Any ideas why?

What is meant by ...

Encoding

Long-term memory

A study of encoding

Alan Baddeley (1966 a,b) conducted one of the best-known studies of encoding in memory.

Psychologists distinguish between short-term memories (STMs) and longterm memories (LTMs) ? sometimes we store information but only rather briefly; for example, if you are phoning someone up you remember their phone number while dialing it but then the number is forgotten. This is an example of short-term memories.

Long-term memories are those which last longer, in other words, you can retrieve them later on, after hours or days or even years.

Baddely's study: Aim

Baddeley aimed to see if there was a difference in the type of encoding used in short- and long-term memory.

Study nspoet cnifaimcaetdioinn

Method

There were four groups of participants: A, B, C, and D. Each group was given one of the lists on the left.

Group A heard 12 sets of five words from List A. For example, one set might be: cab, can, mad, man, max, another set might be: mat, map, cap, cad, cab. The words were read out at a rate of one per second.

After each set of five words the participants were asked to immediately recall the five words in the correct order. The participants had a card with all the ten words from the list; it was the order of recall that mattered.

Group B did the same with list B.

This study is not named in the specification and therefore you cannot be asked questions specifically about this study. However you can use the study as a means of answering questions about how false memories affect the accuracy of memory.

Group C did the same with list C except they waited 20 minutes before

D R they recalled the words, and the same applied to group D with list D.

Results

Baddeley found that participants did worse with list A than list B.

He also found that they did worse with list C than list D.

Conclusion

List A has acoustically similar words (they sound the same) whereas list B has acoustically dissimilar words (they don't sound the same). The fact that participants did worse with list A than list B suggests that words are encoded acoustically because those were the words that got muddled up so they must have been thinking in terms of the sounds of the words. This applies to short-term memory (STM) because they were asked to recall the list immediately.

List C has semantically similar words (they have a similar meaning) whereas list D has semantically dissimilar words (they don't mean the same thing). The fact that participants did worse with list C than list D suggests that information is encoded semantically if it isn't recalled immediately. This applies to long-term memory (LTM) because these lists were recalled after 20 minutes.

Overall this suggests that short-term memories are encoded acoustically and longer-term memories are encoded semantically.

Study tip

Conclusions

A conclusion is an interpretation of the results ? an attempt to generalise from the particular research study to wider issues. In this case, making a statement about short-term memory generally, rather than a statement about the participants in the study.

14 Chapter 1 Memory

Evaluation

A controlled experiment

+ Point: One strength is this is a well-controlled experiment which enhances the validity of the results.

Explanation: The study was conducted within a lab where conditions could be carefully controlled so that no other factors would influence participant's ability to recall the lists. One important factor that was controlled was poor hearing, which could be an extraneous variable. If participants had poor hearing they might be less likely to hear similarity in words. Baddeley did give participants a hearing test.

The level of control means we can be more confident that the results are due to changes in the independent variable (acoustic or semantic similarity/dissimilarity).

STM may sometimes be visual

Point: One weakness is that Baddeley

? overlooked cases where encoding in STM is

visual rather than acoustic.

Explanation: Baddeley used quite artificial stimuli (word lists). If different stimuli were used STM may not always be acoustic. In another study Brandimote et al. (1992) found that participants used visual encoding in STM when processing visual information (see details of the study on the right). Normally we `translate' visual images into verbal codes in STM, but this may not always be the case ? especially if verbal rehearsal is prevented.

This means that STM is not always acoustic.

? FEXTRA: Was it LTM? Point: Another weakness is that Baddeley may not have been testing LTM at all.

AExplanation: In the study LTM was tested by waiting for just 20 minutes. There are many things that we remember for 20 minutes but have forgotten by the next day, so recall after 20 minutes may not really be LTM.

Therefore Baddeley may not have actually been testing what he claimed to be testing.

Apply it ? research

DTPC and OZVF

A memory researcher wanted to see if encoding in STM really is acoustic. She selected a sample of 24 participants and divided them into two equal groups.

In Condition A, the participants were presented with several sequences of similar sounding consonants (`D', `T', `P', `C', etc.) and then asked to recall

TStretch and challenge eachsequence.

In Condition B participants had to recall sequences of dissimilar sounding consonants (`O', `Z', `V', `F', etc.).

The researcher found that the participants in Condition B recalled more sequences on average than participants in Condition A.

Maria Brandimonte and colleagues (1992) showed that STM encoding was not always acoustic. If information is presented visually then STM is visual. The stimulus material used in this study was six picture pairs, where one picture of each pair was part of the other picture. Two picture pairs are shown below.

1.

Questions

1. The researcher presented each participant with five sequences. Explain how she could have used randomisation to do this. [2 marks]

2. The researcher conducted this

experiment in a laboratory. Explain

one strength and one weakness of

this type of study

[2 marks + 2 marks]

3. Explain one way the researcher

could have chosen a random sample

of participants.

[2 marks]

4. Explain one strength and one

weakness of random sampling.

[2 marks + 2 marks]

picture. The pictures were displayed for 2 seconds.

Afterwards participants were asked to verbally recall the composite images in any order. Using an independent groups design, some participants were given an articulatory suppression task in the interval before recall (i.e. they had to say `la la la la'). This was done to prevent any verbal rehearsal in the retention interval.

2.

Participants were asked to subtract the second picture from the first one for each pair, producing a `reduced'

This suppression task had no effect on performance for images that had no name but improved performance for images that could be named (a verbal activity). This shows that storage can be visual.

This is an interesting study to try yourself.

Study tip

Understanding the marks

It is possible that you may be asked to answer a 9-mark question on one study of encoding ? consisting of 4 marks description (AO1) and 5 marks of evaluation (AO3), as in `Check it' question 3. You can see that the question says `describe' and `evaluate' but it doesn't tell you how many marks for each.

Looking at this spread you may wonder ? there is more AO1 (description) of the study than AO3 (evaluation). The reason is that we have to spend time carefully describing the study so you can understand it.

In addition you may be asked just to describe the method or results of the study (as in Q2) so you need the detail ? but you must learn to describe each study succinctly so you have time for the evaluation.

1. Research into encoding could be said to lack

validity. State what is meant by a `lack of

validity'. Briefly explain why validity might

or might not be an issue in a study that

investigated encoding.

[3 marks]

2. Imagine that you have been asked to

conduct a study to investigate encoding.

Write a hypothesis for this research study.

[2 marks]

3. Describe and evaluate one study that has

investigated how memories are encoded.

[9 marks]

Processes of memory: A study of encoding 15

Check it

Processes of memory: Different types of memory

The specification says...

Processes of memory: Different types of memory; episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory.

People with amnesia usually can remember how to do things, such as make scrambled eggs or ride a bicycle, but they lose almost all recollection of their past life. They remember how to speak but can't remember facts about the world or personal events that happened to them. In other words they appear to lose only certain kinds of memory.

One famous case was a gifted British musician, Clive Wearing. He developed an infection in his brain and within a day had lost almost all memory of his past. He can still play the piano brilliantly and conduct a choir but he can't remember his musical education. He can remember some other aspects of his life before the infection, but not others. For example, he knows that he has children but cannot remember their names. He recognises his wife, Deborah, and greets her joyously every time they meet, believing he has not seen her in years, even though she may have just left the room for a few minutes.

What is meant by ...

Episodic memory

Procedural memory

16 Chapter 1 Memory

Long-term memory (LTM)

If I tell you my phone number will you still remember it in an hour? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? We remember some things for only a short time and these are called short-term memories. There is no exact time when something becomes a long-term memory but, in general, short-term memories are ones that disappear within a few hours or days. Long-term memories, as the name suggests, stay with us for weeks, months and even a life-time.

When psychologists have studied long-term memory, they have identified three key types.

1. Episodic memory

Episodic memory is your memory for events (episodes) from your life. It's your memory for the things you have done and experiences you have had. For example, a visit to the dentist, a gig you went to last week, your birthday party when you were 10, and so on.

You recall the time and place of such episodes. You may also remember who else was there, what happened before and afterwards, and you may also remember what you felt about it. So these memories are `time-stamped'.

2. Semantic memory

Semantic is about `meaning'. Your semantic memory is like your own encyclopedia. It is the meaning of everything you know ? but specifically it is the knowledge that is shared with other people (whereas episodic memories may be unique to you). For example, Paris is the capital of France, or England won the World Cup in 1966 are both semantic memories.

Unlike episodic memories, semantic memories are not `time-stamped'. We don't usually remember when we first learned about Justin Bieber, for example (if you do ? then that memory is an episodic one).

D R 3.Proceduralmemory

Procedural memory is `muscle memory' ? remembering how to do things.

We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort. A good example is driving a car. Our ability to do this (eventually) depends on procedural memory. We change gear without having to recall how. We indicate left or right at a junction without even realising we've done so.

These are the sorts of skills we might even find quite hard to explain to someone else. If you try to describe what you are doing as you drive the car, the task may well become more difficult.

Declarative and non-declarative memories

You don't need to remember the terms declarative and non-declarative but they provide a good way of summarising the differences between the three types of long-term memory. Episodic/semantic memories are grouped together as declarative memories because they require conscious recall. Procedural memory doesn't require conscious recall and so is classified as non-declarative.

This is what you have learned so far

Basic Memory Processes

Encoding

Code and put into memory

Storage

Maintain in memory

Retrieval

Recover from memory

Types of memory codes ? Acoustic ? Semantic ? Visual

Types of longterm memory ? Episodic ? Procedural ? Semantic

Types of retrieval ? Cued recall ? Free recall ? Recognition

Evaluation

Specific locations in the brain

+ Point: One strength of dividing LTM into different types is that brain scans have shown separate locations in the brain for each of the three types of memory, supporting the idea of different kinds of memory.

Possibly an episode she would prefer to forget.

Explanation: If the three types of memory are different then each should have a specific location in the brain.

Researchers have found support for this, for example: ? Episodic memory is associated with the right prefrontal area.

Apply it ? research

? Semantic memory is associated with the left prefrontal area.

Testing episodic ? Procedural memory is associated with the motor area which controls fine motor skills. memory Motor area

Prefrontal area

Amnesic patients

Point: Another strength is that people who suffer from loss of

+ T memory due to brain damage lose only certain kinds of memory as described in the case of Clive Wearing (facing page), supporting the idea of different kinds of memory. Explanation: Another famous case of amnesia happened to a man known as HM who had severe epilepsy as a young boy. An operation to remove his hippocampus (to reduce epilepsy from Fthat area) resulted in a catastrophic loss of memory ? but not all his memory. He could recall how to do things but was unable to remember events from his past. This again shows that there are different kinds of memory.

A Study tip EXTRA: It's not as simple as it seems

A psychologist wanted to see if episodic memory worsens as people get older. He tested the episodic memories of ten people of different ages. The results are given in the table (the higher the score, the better the episodic memory).

Questions

Participant

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Episodic memory score (out of 20)

7 15

6 19

4 18

9 11 12 15

Age (years)

62 22 68 18 73 32 45 55 35 27

1. Use a piece of graph paper to sketch a suitable graph of these

results. Label your axes and give the graph a suitable title.

[5 marks]

2. Identify the type of graph you have sketched and the type of

correlation your graph shows.

[1 mark + 1 mark]

3. Calculate the median episodic memory score and the mean age of

the participants. Show your workings for both.

[2 marks + 2 marks]

4. Give one strength and one weakness of correlations. [2 marks + 2 marks]

? Point: One weakness is that, in reality, there isn't a clear difference between episodic and semantic memories (you may already have realised this).

Less is more

Students find evaluation difficult. Try to take it slowly. You may need to come back to these evaluations when you have become more

Explanation: Amnesic patients actually retain some of their

experienced.

semantic memories, such as language (you use your semantic memory to recall the vocabulary of any language). And most of

One of the key tips is: LESS IS MORE

our memories are a fusion of episodic and semantic ones. For

You are better off understanding ONE critical point well than knowing

example, your knowledge (semantic memory) of Justin Bieber is

them all superficially. Practise writing one well-elaborated, beautifully

closely linked to your experiences of seeing him sing (episodic

polished AO3 point. You can read advice about AO3 on page 6.

memories).

Therefore the idea of three stores may be just too neat and tidy to be true. It is an oversimplification.

Stretch and challenge

1. Which one of these is a description of procedural

memory?

[1 mark]

(i) Your memory for personal events.

You could investigate people's episodic memories, in particular, their early memories. Ask people what their earliest memory is or ask them to tell you about happy events they recall from their childhood.

What patterns can you see in the things that people recall?

(ii) Your unconscious memory for skills. (iii) Your memory for knowledge and facts of the world.

2. Outline two criticisms of research into different types of

memory.

[4 marks]

3. Explain what is meant by the terms episodic memory,

sematic memory and procedural memory.

[6 marks]

Processes of memory: Different types of memory 17

Check it

Structures of memory: The multi-store model

The specification says ...

Structures of memory: The multi-store model of memory; sensory, short term and long term.

Features of each store: coding, capacity, duration.

Digit span

Here are 5 digits:45292 Close your eyes and try to repeat them in the same order. Easy. Now try 6 digits:261834 7 digits:8692561 8 digits:52796427 9 digits:362597182 Most people can remember between 5 and 9 items.

Chunking You can increase your digit span by chunking, which is how we remember phone numbers. It is easier to remember 020 7329 6438 than 02073296438. It's also easier to remember list B below rather than list A: List A: F Y I B B C F A Q I T V K G U S A A T M List B: FYI BBC FAQ ITV KG USA ATM It's all about looking for associations again, as discussed on page 12.

What is meant by ...

Coding

The model

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968) developed a model to explain how memory works. The model consisted of three kinds of memory and an explanation about how information moves from one store to the next.

Eyes

Ears

Other sensory stores

Short-term memory

(STM)

Prolonged rehearsal

Long-term memory

(LTM)

Stimulus from the environment

Sensory register

Maintenance rehearsal

(rehearsal loop)

Sensory memory

The beginning of any memory happens when information is received by one of the senses ? hence `sensory' memory. When you look at an object, that visual image is remembered at least for a very short time. When you hear someone's voice, their message can be heard for a very short time afterwards.

? Coding Sensory memory is a storage place at your eyes or ears or fingertips or nose. These memories are coded (or encoded) in a form appropriate to the sense ? so memories at your eyes are encoded visually and memories at your ears are encoded acoustically.

? Capacity All the information from your world passes through your five senses. For example, the retina in your eyes (which record visual input) contains millions of cells. Therefore, we say that sensory memory has a very high capacity.

? Duration Information remains in your sensory memory only very briefly ? less than

D R half a second for visual sensory memory ? unless you pay attention to it.

If you pay attention to the information from your sensory memory, this information is transferred to another area of your brain, which is referred to as your short-term memory.

Short-term memory (STM)

STM is known as a limited capacity store, because it can only contain a certain number of `things' at any one time. If you try to squeeze any more into it, this won't work ? old information is overwritten or pushed out. This is what happens when you try the digit span test on the left ? there is only so much space to hold information (you can practise and increase it).

? Coding tends to be acoustic i.e. in terms of `sounds'.

? Capacity is, on average, between 5 and 9 items or chunks of information.

? Duration is less than 30 seconds unless it is rehearsed. For example, if you tested your memory for 5 digits after 30 seconds you wouldn't remember them ? unless you had rehearsed them. If you repeat the digits verbally over and over they will stay in your STM.

Role of rehearsal

In fact, if you kept silently repeating ? or rehearsing ? the digits, they will go in your long-term memory and you will recall them tomorrow or even next week and possibly even next year if you rehearse them enough. This is called maintenance rehearsal.

Long-term memory (LTM)

? Coding tends to be semantic rather than acoustic.

? Capacity is potentially unlimited because of the way our brains evolved ? the brain is constantly weeding out unneeded information so that we do always appear to have more room.

? Duration is potentially up to a lifetime.

1188 Chapter 1 Memory

Write your name in the air with a sparkler

How does this work? It is called persistence of vision and it works because of sensory memory. The afterimage of the sparkler persists in the eye for a very short time after the sparkler has moved on ? therefore we see the path of the sparkler.

Evaluation

Supporting research

+ Point: One strength is there is evidence for different memory stores.

Explanation: A major strength is that the model is supported by research studies that show that STM and LTM are indeed qualitatively different. For example, Baddeley (page 14) found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs. But we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs. The strength of this study is that it clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and in LTM it is semantic.

Stretch and challenge

A memory game

So they are different, and this supports the view that these two

memory stores are separate and independent.

Further support is given by the study described on the next page on the serial position effect.

The model is too simple

Point: One weakness is that the model is too simple.

? Explanation: The multi-store model suggests that we have just

one STM and one LTM. However, research has shown that each of these stores has separate parts. STM is divided into separate visual and acoustic stores, and LTM is divided into episodic, semantic and procedural memory (as discussed on the previous spread).

This suggests that our memory is far more complex than the multistore model originally proposed.

EXTRA: Artificial materials

Point: Another weakness is that research studies in the 1950s and

? 60s tended to use artificial memory tasks.

T Explanation: The studies often required participants to recall word

lists or nonsense syllables such as PRQ or SDF.

This means that the results would not illustrate all the different ways

AZAapcphlyarity'?s pcohFnocneeptnumber Study tip we use memory but instead tended to focus on verbal learning.

This game has been called pelmanism or concentration. It can be played with ordinary playing cards or a special set with matching figures. All the cards are laid face down at the start of the game.

The first player turns over two cards ? if they match the player keeps the cards. If they don't match the player turns them back again and both players try to remember what the cards are and where they are.

The second player turns over one card and then a second one ? if they match the player keeps the cards and so on.

At the end, the player with the most cards wins.

------------------------------------

Obviously the game is a test of memory ? but is it shortterm memory or long-term memory?

Read the item below and then answer the questions that follow.

What is evaluation?

Zachary has been given a phone number that he needs to remember but does not have anything to write it down with. He keeps repeating the number to himself over and over again until he finds a pen to make a note of it. The following day he finds to his surprise that he can still remember it.

Questions

Use the multi-store model of memory to explain:

Questions may ask you to evaluate a topic or may ask you to give one criticism ? evaluation is the same as criticism. Both are ways of assessing the value of something ? that's why we say `eVALUate'.

Strengths and weaknesses are all ways of giving evaluation ? a positive criticism is still a criticism.

1. Why he needed to repeat the number to himself whilst looking for a

pen.

[2 marks]

2. Why he was able to remember the number the following day. [1 mark]

1. Identify three features of short-term memory (STM). Refer to encoding, capacity and duration in your answer. [3 marks]

2. Explain how the multi-store model has

increased our understanding of memory.

[4 marks]

3. Outline and evaluate the multi-store model

of memory.

[9 marks]

Structures of memory: The multi-store model 19

Check it

Structures of memory: Primacy and recency effects in recall

The specification says ...

Structures of memory: Primary and recency effects in recall; the effects of serial position. Murdock's serial position curve study.

Be a scientist

No we are not going to look at bean sprouts but we are going to use a magnifying glass, so to speak. We are going to look up close at some memory processes. 1. Working in a group, write a list of 20 words. Each

word should be four letters in length. Try to avoid very unusual words. 2. Each student in the group should test at least one participant. Read the 20 words out to your participant (always use the same word order). When you have finished ask your participant to write down as many words as they can. 3. For each word, you need to record whether recall was correct or not ? you should ignore spelling mistakes. 4. Your group should pool their results and count how many people remembered the 1st word correctly, and the 2nd word correctly and so on. Now try to draw a graph of your group results.

What is meant by ...

Primacy effect

Murdock's serial position curve study

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Bennet B. Murdock Junior conducted a similar investigation to the one described on the left.

Aim

Murdock (1962) set out to see if memory for words was affected by the number of words a person had to remember.

Method

To create his word lists Murdock randomly selected words from the 4,000 most common words in English.

103 students on a Psychology course took part in the study and were tested in groups over a number of different sessions.

In each session, the participants listened to 20 word lists, each containing different words. The words lists varied in length from 10 words to 40 words.

After each list the participants had to recall the words they had just heard.

Results

Murdock found that the likelihood of recall was related to the position of the word in the list, as shown in the graph below for a 20-word list.

1.00

Probability of recall

.80

.60

D R .40

.20

.00 0

5

10

15

20

Serial position

A similar graph was produced no matter what the length of the list ? in every case participants had: ? Higher recall for the first few words on the list than those in the middle of the

list. This is called a primacy effect because primacy means `first'. ? Highest recall for the final few words on the list. This is called a recency effect

because these words were most recent.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate a serial position effect ? the position of a word determines the likelihood of its recall. Recency effects are strongest.

The results support the multi-store model because they fit the predictions of the model. The first words are well remembered because they have been rehearsed longest and are therefore long-term memories. The more recent words are well remembered because they are still in the short-term memory store. So the study illustrates the action of short- and long-term memory as described by the multistore model.

Probability of remembering

Serial position effect

Primacy effect Recency effect

20 Chapter 1 Memory

Beginning

End

Position of the item in the list

Evaluation

A controlled laboratory study

+ Point: One strength is that this study was conducted in very controlled conditions which means we can trust the results.

Explanation: When we are studying cause and effect relationships it is important that we control everything carefully to isolate the variables we are interested in. In this study the:

? Independent variable (IV) was the position of a word in the list.

? Dependent variable (DV) was the probability that the word was recalled.

The researcher controlled the familiarity of the words, the speed they were read at and ensured that practice had no effect on performance (the participants might have got better at recalling lists the more they did it). Therefore, none of these things would have affected the DV.

Artificial task

Point: One weakness is that, in this study, memory

? was investigated by using lists of words that only

represent a small part of what we do with our memories.

Explanation: The problem is that this research only tells us about one aspect of memory ? how we deal with memorising words. But we do a lot of other things with our memories such as remember how to play basketball or remember whether we like someone or not.

So this way of studying memory is really rather artificial. It does relate to some aspects of life (like learning for an exam) but not to many other aspects

+ Foflife. EXTRA: Supporting research

Point: One strength of this study is research with

Aamnesiacs supports the conclusions. Explanation: Research has shown that people who have amnesia and can't store long-term memories also do not show a primacy effect but they do show a recency effect (Carlesimo et al. 1996).

This confirms that the primacy effect is related to long-term memory.

You are only as good as your last record ? a recency effect. It is said that people best remember the thing someone did more recently. So if you are a recording artist, you may have had a string of hits records but if your latest one is a flop, then everyone says `What a loser'.

TApply it ? concept Anothercommon observation is that first impressions count ? which is a primacy effect.

The Generation Game

Read the item below and then answer the question that follows. The Generation Game was an 80s TV show which featured a particularly novel way for contestants to win prizes. They had to watch a number of items go past them on a conveyer belt and had to remember as many of those items as they could ? they were allowed to take home anything they remembered. There were usually 20 items and each contestant saw each item for a few seconds before it disappeared out of their view. Contestants often remembered the first and last prizes that they saw.

Question Explain why the contestants tended to remember the first and last prizes that they saw. Refer to the primacy and recency effect in your answer. [4 marks]

Study tip

Describing a research study

This spread looks at a research study. You can see that it has been divided into aim, method, results and conclusions. This is one way to examine a research study in detail.

Aim ? this tells us what the researcher was trying to investigate.

Method ? a description of what the researcher actually did, so anyone can repeat the study if they want to check the results.

Results ? gives us details of what data was produced in the study. A graph provides an easy way to `eyeball' the data.

Conclusions ? an analysis of the results to consider the implications of the study.

1. Outline what is meant by the following terms:

(i) Primacy effect.

(ii) Recency effect.

[4 marks]

2. You have been asked to conduct an experiment to investigate the effects of serial position when learning a list of words. Describe how you would conduct this experiment.

In your answer, you need to include:

The experimental design you would choose, and why this would be suitable.

The task participants would be required to do and the data that you would collect.

The results you would expect to find from your

experiment.

[6 marks]

3. Describe and evaluate Murdock's serial position

curve study.

[9 marks]

Structures of memory: Primacy and recency effects in recall 21

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Memory as an active process: Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study

The specification says...

Memory as an active process: Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study.

Read this story and then close the book and write down as much as you can remember.

One night two young men from Egulac went down the river to hunt seals, and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they thought: `Maybe this is a war-party'. They escaped to the shore and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe, and they said: `What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.'One of the young men said: `I have no arrows.' `Arrows are in the canoe,' they said. `I will not go along. I might get killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,' he said, turning to the other, `may go with them.' So one of the young men went, but the other returned home. And the warriors went up on the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water, and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say: `Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been hit.' Now he thought: `Oh, they are ghosts.' He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot. So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went ashore to his house, and made a fire. And he told everybody and said: `Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit and I did not feel sick.' He told it all and then became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried. He was dead.

22 Chapter 1 Memory

The study

inNsapmeecdifisctautdioyn

Frederic Bartlett (1932) conducted a series of studies to show that memories are formed through reconstruction. His hypothesis was that if a person was given something to remember and then asked to recall the story or picture over a period of weeks or years, the recollection would be endlessly transformed (i.e. changed).

In particular, if the information to be remembered is somewhat unfamiliar and/or unusual, people will impose their own familiar expectations and make the story more familiar over time. Such expectations are based on social and cultural knowledge.

Aim

To investigate how memory is reconstructed when people are asked to recall something repeatedly over a period of weeks and months.

Bartlett's aim was to use a story from a different culture to see how cultural expectations affect memory.

What is meant by ...

Culture

Method

Bartlett used a technique he called serial reproductions. In the War of the Ghosts study he showed participants the story on the left and asked them to reproduce it shortly after (e.g. 15 minutes later), then he showed the new version to another person and asked them to recall it a short time later, and repeated this with further participants.

A key feature of the story was that it belonged to a culture that was very different from that of the participants ? Bartlett's participants were people at his university in the UK (students, friends and colleagues).

Bartlett kept a record of successive recall (a protocol). None of the participants knew the purpose of the study.

D R Results

Bartlett found that participants remembered different parts of story and that they interpreted the story within their own frames of reference (social and cultural expectations), changing the facts to make them fit. You can see two examples of what people remembered on the facing page that show how the original story was transformed.

Bartlett made several observations about the transformations that occurred: ? The story was shortened, mainly by omissions. ? The phrases used were changed to language and concepts from the participant's

own culture. For example, using `boats' instead of `canoe'. ? The recalled version soon became very fixed, though each time it was recalled there

were slight variations.

Conclusions

All of these transformations had the effect of making the material easier to remember. We don't remember details, we remember fragments and use our knowledge of social situations to reconstruct memory. Individuals remembered the meaning and tried to sketch out the story using invented details.

This reconstructed version of events is simpler to remember and therefore becomes our memory for the event.

Stretch and challenge

Consider the protocols* on the facing page (*a `protocol' was the term Bartlett used for the record of recall).

Identify some key differences between them and the original.

For example: ? Can you find examples of words that were changed? ? Can you find examples of where the meaning was kept the same

but some elements were changed from the original? ? Can you find examples where cultural elements were changed?

Sir Frederic Bartlett (1886?1969)

Evaluation

Lacks control

? Point: One weakness is the study was conducted rather casually, with no set standards about where and how people recalled the information.

Bartlett is regarded as one of the `great' psychologists. His main work was a book called Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932), which included his War of the Ghosts study. The book (and his studies) changed the view psychologists had of memory. His theory of reconstructive memory is discussed on the next spread.

Explanation: The participants were not given very specific instructions at the outset about what they should do. Another study found that recall was much more accurate when participants were told, from the beginning, that accurate recall was important (Gauld and Stephenson1967). However, participants did still make errors.

Bartlett was also a pioneer in experimental psychology, setting up a lab at the University of Cambridge in 1912. He was knighted just after the Second World War because of his work with the Royal Air Force.

This suggests that recall is probably more accurate than Bartlett suggested.

The results were biased

Apply it ? research Point: Another weakness is that Bartlett's own beliefs may

? have affected the way he interpreted the data.

Canteen questions Explanation: The conclusions depend on how you interpret

the results. Bartlett analysed each example of recall and had to decide what counted as accurate recall and what didn't. Since he believed that recall would be affected by cultural expectations, he may have been more likely to see this kind of effect in the results.

This means that we cannot fully trust the results of his study.

EXTRA: The story was unusual

Point: One weakness is that the story was unusual and

? therefore may not reflect everyday memory processes.

T Explanation: Most of the time we use memory to deal with

quite everyday experiences. In such cases our memories are not affected by cultural expectations and we therefore may recall things quite accurately.

Therefore, this study may tell us very little about everyday

Fmemory AWhat people remembered . . .

A psychology student wanted to find out if memory is reconstructive. He recruited ten students who happened to be in the school canteen at the time. He presented them with an unfamiliar story and gave them two minutes to read it. He then took the story away and the participants had to write down their own version of it from what they could remember. The student then collected the participants' responses.

Questions

1. Are the data collected in this study qualitative or quantitative? Give

one reason for your answer.

[2 marks]

2. Identify the sampling method used by the student.

[1 mark]

3. Explain one weakness of this sampling method.

[2 marks]

4. Identify an alternative sampling method the student could have used

to overcome the weakness you identified in question 3 and give one

reason for your choice.

[1 mark + 2 marks]

5. Give one strength and one weakness of correlations.

[2 marks + 2 marks]

Reproduction 3

Reproduction 7

This is the story of two young Indians who lived at Egulac. One day they were engaged in seal-fishing, the day being calm but foggy. Suddenly through the fog was heard the sound of paddles, and soon five canoes emerged into view. In the first canoe were five men, one of whom called to the young Indians, `Come with us, and fight the people who live beyond'.

`Nay', replied the two, `we cannot come to fight, for we have no arrows'.

`That does not matter', said the warrior, `there are arrows in the canoe, so come, and tarry not'.

Then said one of the Indians, `I cannot come, for my parents, who had need of me, will be sorely grieved'.

But the other one said, `I will come with you, for there is none to miss me'.

And they set sail and went to fight at Kalama, and the fighting lasting very long, many of both sides being killed and wounded. At last the warrior said to the young Indian, `Go home, for you are sore wounded'. But the Indian replied, `Nay, that cannot be, for I feel no pain'.

Still the warrior urged him, and he returned to Egulac, where he told the people of the great fighting at Kalama, and how he was wounded and yet felt not sick.

And all that day until night he continued well, and felt no pain until sunrise the next day, when, on trying to rise, a great black thing flew out of his mouth, and when the people approached him to raise him, they could not, for he was dead.

Once upon a time two young Indians from Momapan were fishing for seals, when a boat containing five warriors came down the river. `Come with us', said one of the warriors, `and help us fight the warriors further on.'

`I cannot', said one of the Indians, `I have a mother at home, and she would grieve sorely if I were not to return.' The other Indian simply said, `I have no weapons'. `I have some in the boat', replied the warrior. Whereupon the Indian stepped into the boat and they all rowed off to the fight.

In the course of the battle the Indian was mortally wounded. `Take me home', he said, `to Momapan. That is where I came from ? I am going to die.' `On no', said the warrior, to whom he made this request, `you will live'.

But before the boat got clear of the conflict the Indian died, and his spirit fled. They stopped the boat and tried to lift him out, but they were unable to do so, because he was dead.

1. Describe the method used by Bartlett in the War of the

Ghosts study.

[2 marks]

2. Researchers have criticised Bartlett's War of the Ghosts

study because the story used was unusual. Outline one

other criticism of Bartlett's study.

[3 marks]

3. Explain what Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study shows

about memory being reconstructed.

[3 marks]

Memory as an active process: Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study 23

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Memory as an active process: The theory of reconstructive memory

The specification says...

Memory as an active process: The Theory of Reconstructive Memory, including the concept of `effort after meaning'.

The theory

Frederic Bartlett (1932) conducted the War of the Ghosts study to support his theory of reconstructive memory. We looked at this study on the previous spread and it showed how people tend to remember the overall meaning of the events and reconstruct the story from this overall meaning. This shows that memory is an active process ? people don't behave like a passive memory machine, recording everything that happened. They actively reconstruct a memory.

Image to come

Memory is inaccurate

Many people believe that they have a very exact recall for events that have happened in their past. It is quite likely that you have argued with a friend about something in the past. Your friend's memory and your memory don't match and you feel very sure that you are right. Your memory may seem very real and accurate.

Psychologists too believed that memory was simply an act of reproduction ? that we store information about an event and recall it later without altering the record in any way.

However, Bartlett challenged this and proposed that memory was an active process. We store fragments of information and when we need to recall something we build these fragments into a meaningful whole. The result is that elements are missing and memories are not an accurate representation of what happened.

In one study participants were shown a picture similar to the one above of two men (one white and one black) arguing on a subway train. When later asked to describe the picture, participants invariably remembered the open razor (the preferred mugging weapon in those days) as being in the hand of the black man, whereas in fact it had been held by the white man. This study was conducted by Allport and Postman in 1947 and illustrates how our expectations influence what we `see' and recall.

What is meant by ...

Apply it ? concept

Memory in the office...

Reconstruction

According to Bartlett the information we store in our long-term memories has been changed before it is `recorded'. We `record' small pieces of information and later, when recalling the event, we recombine the pieces to tell the whole story. Each time you retell the story the elements are combined slightly differently.

D R Socialandculturalinfluences

A key part of Bartlett's theory is that the way we store and later recombine the `small pieces' can be related to social and cultural expectations. In the picture on the left, the way participants remembered the picture was influenced by what they expected to be true ? that a black person is more likely to be the attacker.

In the War of the Ghosts study, people transformed those parts of the story that didn't fit their own cultural expectations; for example, in the actual story the young men were hunting seals ? this was often misremembered as going fishing, a more common activity for British young men.

Social/cultural expectations may influence storage and/or recall. Bartlett called his work `the social psychology of remembering'.

Effort after meaning

In the War of the Ghosts what people recalled was the general meaning of the events rather than specific details (though they did remember some of these too). Bartlett used the phrase `effort after meaning' to describe this. What he meant was:

1. We focus on the meaning of events.

2. Afterwards we make an effort to interpret the meaning in more familiar terms. In other words, we try to make sense of the `fragments'.

Read the item below and then answer the question that follows.

Brewer and Treyens (1981) did a study where they had participants wait in an office for 35 seconds (see picture of office on right). Participants were then asked told to go in another room and recall everything that they had just seen.

The researchers found that office-related items like a desk and a chair were far more likely to be recalled than non-office items like a picnic basket or a skull. In addition to this, a number of participants recalled seeing paper even though there was none in the room.

Question

Explain how this study shows that memory is an active process. Refer to Bartlett's study in your answer. [3 marks]

24 Chapter 1 Memory

THINK LINK Understanding individual, social and cultural diversity

Barlett's research offers insights into cultural and social differences. The way people see the world is profoundly affected by their social/cultural environment.

You will learn more about this in Chapter 6 on Language, thought and communication (see pages 000?000).

Evaluation

Bartlett also used images to show how cultural expectations affected memory. In this example he showed a participant

More realistic research

Point: One strength is that Bartlett's way of investigating memory reflects

+ how we actually use memory in our everyday lives, which is more realistic

than research using word lists to be remembered.

Explanation: Before Bartlett's work, psychologists investigated memory using rather artificial materials to be learned such as nonsense syllables and word lists (e.g. RTC and KLO). These are `artificial' because we rarely use our memories to deal with such things. (The reason to use them in research is

Stretch and challenge because then any difficulties with memory are not related to the complexity

of the material to-be-remembered. It is a kind of control in research.)

This means that the social origins of memory were obscured in such artificial research. Bartlett's findings are more relevant to real-life memory processes.

(It is worth mentioning that for many years Bartlett's work was regarded by psychologists as rather untrustworthy because it lacked careful controls. More recently psychologists have again started using more qualitative methods similar to those used by Bartlett.)

? T Some memories are accurate Point: One weakness is that it is wrong to suggest that all memories are inaccurate or affected by social expectations.

Explanation: Other studies have shown that memory can be very accurate. For example, in situations that are personally important or

Fdistinctive, we do remember considerable and accurate detail. There are

examples of this in the War of the Ghosts ? participants often recalled `Something black came out of his mouth' because it was quite a distinctive phrase.

AThis shows that people do not always actively reconstruct memories and

an Egyptian `mulak' (an owl) and asked them to memorise the drawing and produce their reproduction of it. This was then shown to another person who also then produced their redrawing. People formed a memory that the drawing was cat-like and the meaning then generated the image that over time became more and more cat-like.

Research on eyewitness testimony is discussed in the real-world application (below left). One of the key studies on eyewitness testimony was conducted by Loftus and Palmer (1974). They showed participants a film involving a car accident and afterwards asked them the following question `About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?'.

Not all participants had the same question ? other participants were asked ``About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?' or `About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?'.

If the question contained the word `smashed' then people gave a higher speed estimate than when `hit' or `bumped' were used.

shows that some memories are accurate.

Loftus later demonstrated that these `leading

Real-world application

+ Point: Another strength of this theory is that it can explain problems with eyewitness testimony.

questions' actually changed the way that people remembered the accident. It seems that our memories can be changed relatively easily.

Explanation: Eyewitness testimony used to be regarded as very important and reliable evidence in court cases. Such testimony was relied on to give an accurate picture of what actually happened when a crime was committed. For example, an eyewitness might swear on oath that they had seen a particular person present at the crime scene whereas later evidence challenged this.

Bartlett's research showed that memory isn't always accurate and can be affected by our expectations of what happened (as in the picture of the two men and the razor). Research on eyewitness testimony has subsequently shown that people do not always recall what they see or hear accurately (see Stretch and challenge on right). This shoews that Bartlett's research has had important consequences

Study tip

Real?world application

1. Outline two criticisms of the theory of reconstructive memory.

[4 marks]

2. Explain how effort after meaning can be used to

explain how people reconstruct their memories.

[3 marks]

3. Ann and Martyn were at the bank when a person attempted to rob it. Later, when they were at the police station, they gave different accounts of the incident. Ann said the incident happened in a different order than Martyn recalled. She also remembered the robber wearing different clothes and saying different things to the people at the bank than Martyn recalled.

One of the key aims of science is to produce knowledge that can be used to improve our world. In psychology, we therefore look for `realworld applications' of research. If a study or theory can produce such applications this is a strength of the study/theory (as is the case in the `real-world application' above).

Use your knowledge of the theory of reconstructive memory to explain why Ann and Martyn have different memories of the same event. [6 marks]

Memory as an active process: The theory of reconstructive memory 25

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