psychlotron org uk What did you have for

psychlotron. org. uk • What did you have for breakfast? • What’s in porridge? • How do you make a cup of tea?

You are learning about. . . • Types of memory • Autobiographical memory You are learning to. . . • Draw conclusions from empirical evidence • Use evidence to evaluate psychological theories psychlotron. org. uk Today’s session

• Tulving (1972) – Semantic memory • store of general factual knowledge about the world – Episodic memory • store of past experiences (could be from another source) • Cohen & Squire (1980) – Declarative memory • Knowing what – Procedural memory • Knowing how psychlotron. org. uk Types of Memory

• How could we investigate the idea that there actually different types of memory? psychlotron. org. uk Types of memory

• Tulving (1989) • Corkin (1968) • Heindel et al (1988) psychlotron. org. uk Evidence for different types of memory

• What might be meant by ‘autobiographical memory’? • Memory for information relating to the self: – Facts about the self – Memory of past experiences • Specific e. g. Your twelfth birthday • Generic e. g. What your school day was like psychlotron. org. uk Autobiographical memory

450 No. Memories Recalled 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 -10 10 -20 20 -30 30 -40 40 -50 Age in years 50 -60 60 -70 70+ Rubin et al (1986) psychlotron. org. uk What do people remember?

• Why do people have a reminiscence bump? – Frequent rehearsal – Greater distinctiveness (more ‘firsts’) • Why do people have infantile amnesia? – Immature memory systems in brain – Lack of language to structure memories – Repression (Freud) psychlotron. org. uk Rubin et al (1986)

• Studies of autobiographical memory: – Rubin et al (1986) – Bahrick et al (1975) – Linton (1986) – Waagenar (1986) • What conclusions can be drawn from these studies? • What problems are there with the validity of these studies? psychlotron. org. uk Evidence