Cognitive Psychology Memory Objectives To be able to

Cognitive Psychology Memory Objectives: • To be able to define memory • To understand what memory is • To be able to describe coding, capacity and duration of memory.

Starter - Discussion • How have you used your memory today? • What would happen if you had no memory? • What different kinds of things do you remember? • What use is memory to a cat or dog? • What techniques do you use to improve your memory?

New information Specification: • “Short-term memory and long -term memory” • “features of each store: coding, capacity and duration”

Key Terms Coding: Format in which information is stored in different memory stores Capacity: the amount of information that can be held in a memory store Duration: length of time information can be held in memory

Key Terms STM: The limited-capacity memory store. Coding is mainly acoustic (sounds). Capacity is between 5 -9 items on average, duration is between 18 -30 seconds LTM: permanent memory store. Coding is mainly semantic (meaning). It has unlimited capacity and can store memories for up to a lifetime.

Page 5: Types of Memory • Read and highlight page 5 • You need to understand different types of memory and the difference between coding, capacity & duration.

Card Sort activity

Short-Term memory – Research on Capacity • LIMITED capacity • 18 -30 seconds Key Study: Miller 7+/-2 • Give yourself a number 1 or 2 • Using the task sheet – carry out the Miller study. • Read the instructions carefully • Number 1’s first, then number 2’s

Short-Term memory – Research on Capacity • Research into capacity in short term memory Miller (1966) • Aim? • Method: Participants were given 'sentences' of varying lengths that approximated 'true' English. They were asked to recall words in the correct order given in the sentence. • Findings: The more sense the sentence made, in terms of grammar, the better the recall. • Findings: Participants recalled about seven pieces of information, supporting that the capacity of STM is about 7+/-2 • Conclusion? • Criticisms of this laboratory experiment include ecological validity, demand characteristics, experimenter bias, participant variables/individual differences. • LTM - infinite

Short-Term memory – Research on Capacity • Chunking – grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks • How do you recall your phone number? Do you do it as single digits or in groups of numbers? • Miller (1956) said we can recall 5 words as well as 5 letters, therefore chunking can increase the amount remembered in STM.

Chunking - Experiment Read the following letters… YEBNOIPDTALGRCU Try the same thing with this list DATNOLPIBREYCUG Finally… CARDOGLITPENBUY Use your knowledge of the capacity of STM to explain why one of these lists is easier than the others.

Short-Term memory – Research on Capacity Evaluation: P- A limitation of this research is he may have overestimated the capacity of STM E- for example, Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM was actually only about 4 chunks E – therefore there are inconsistent findings in research into chunking L- this reduces the reliability of Miller’s research.

Research on Duration (STM) – Peterson & Peterson • STM – 18 - 30 seconds • How short is it exactly? üRead and highlight pg. 7 üAnswer the corresponding questions.

Research on Duration (STM) – Peterson & Peterson Evaluation: P -Meaningless stimuli- the stimulus material was artificial. E- Trying to memorise syllables doesn’t reflect real life memories. E – Therefore… L – This means the study lacks external validity because…

Starter whiteboards

Research on Duration (LTM) – Bahrick et al (1975) Page 9 – Key study Using page 46 of the textbook, write up Bahrick’s experiment. Aim: Method: Results: Conclusion: Evaluation:

Research on Duration (LTM) – Evaluation: What is better about Bahrick’s study compared to Peterson & Peterson? • Higher external validity, meaningful memories were studied therefore… • What could be a weakness of carrying out research in a natural setting? Pg. 47

Research on coding What is coding? Refer to your key term list. Format in which information is stored (acoustic/semantic…) Experiment on coding: Instructions: 1. We need four groups of participants… 2. Each group will be given a different set of words, you need to learn them (30 seconds) 3. you will then be asked to recall them in the same order (write them down on a piece of paper)

What do you notice about these 4 lists of words? 1 2 3 4 man pit great good cab few large huge can cow big hot cad pen huge safe cap sup broad thin mad bar long deep max day tall strong mat hot fat foul cat rig wide old map bun high late

Word lists A: Acoustically similar B: Control Acoustically dissimilar C: Semantically similar D: Control Semantically dissimilar man pit great good cab few large huge can cow big hot cad pen huge safe cap sup broad thin mad bar long deep max day tall strong mat hot fat foul cat rig wide old map bun high late

Research on coding • Read and highlight notes on page 8. • Can you think of any +/- of the experiment? • Evaluate the research method used.

Research on coding Add onto page 8: If participants were asked to recall the word list after a time interval of 20 minutes (LTM recall) they did WORSE with semantically similar words. This suggests that information is coded semantically in LTM. STM = Acoustically. LTM = Semantically.

Task 1. Outline and evaluate research into the features of STM (coding, capacity and duration) (12 marks)

Plenary – STM or LTM? Coding Acoustically M T S

Plenary – STM or LTM? Coding Semantically M T L

Plenary – STM or LTM? Capacity 7+/- 2 S M T

Plenary – STM or LTM? Capacity Unlimited M T L

Plenary – STM or LTM? Bahrick Study M T L

Plenary – STM or LTM? Peterson & Peterson M T S