AQA MEMORY PSYCOLOGY EXAM ACTUAL
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS ALREADY
GRADED A+ GUARANTEED PASS
what is episodic memory
memory for personal events in an individual’s life - they are time stamped (so u
remember when they happened)
what researchers developed msm?
atkinson and shiffrin (1968)
State the coding, capacity and duration of the sensory register
coding-sensory specific
duration-limited - milliseconds
capacity- very large
what is procedural memory
memory for actions,skills and tasks
what is semantic memory
memory for facts and knowledge shared by everyone
what is the case study that provides support for different LTM?
Clive Wearing:
-contracted a virus which attacked his central nervous system which led to total
amnesia due to damage to his hippocampus and associated areas
-he is unable to store new memories
-lost his episodic memory - no memory of his wedding, can’t remember his musical
education
,-his procedural memory is still intact-can still play piano
strengths and weaknesses of long-term memory
strengths:
-clinical evidence
real life applications
weaknesses:
-conflicting neuroimaging evidence
-debate about division into 3 types
pros and cons of duration
cons: artificial stimuli in Peterson and Peterson (1959) as recalling consonant
syllables were meaningless and not reflective of everyday memory tasks -lacking
external validity
COUNTER: Bahrick et al (1975) high external validity has they investigated
meaningful memories (ppls names and faces). Recall rates lower when meaningless
stimuli used so bahrick findings reflect more real estimate of ltm's duration
name and outline procedure and findings investigating duration of STM
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
-participants were given nonsense trigrams (eg zfb)
-had to count backwards in threes from a large three-digit number (to prevent mental
rehersal) for varying periods of time
-correct recall of trigrams after 3seconds = 80%
-correct recall of trigrams after 18sec=3%
-suggests stm duration about 18 seconds
name and outline procedure and findings which investigate the coding of STM and
LTM
Baddeley (1966)
-gave diff lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember
, -GROUP 1-words sounded similar
-GROUP 2-words sounded different
-GROUP 3- words with similar meanings
-GROUP 4-words with diff meanings
-Participants were shown original words and asked to recall them in order correctly
-when recalled immediately(recall from stm) they did worse with acoustically
similar words
-when recalling list after 20 min (recall from ltm) and they did worse with
semantically similar words
-suggests info is coded acoustically in stm and semantically in LTM
what is the pros and cons of research on coding
adv: consistent evidence-Baddeley's 1967 research established stm coded
acoustically + ltm semantically-helped understanding of memory system leading to
multi store model
disadv: artificial, meaningless stimuli so don't tell us much about coding in diff
memory tasks in everyday life
name and outline procedure and findings of the study which investigated capacity of
stm using digit span
jacobs (1887)
-4 digits read out participants had to recall these out loud in correct order
-if recalled correct researcher reads out 5 digits and so until participants cant recall
order correctly = individual digit span
-mean digit span = 9.3 items and for letters 7.3 items
pros and cons of research on capacity
pros: evidence consistent over time as Jacobs 1887 study on digit span lacked control
as ppts digit span could of been underestimate because of procedural elements but
other findings since 1800's have been affirmed by other highly controlled studies
cons: overestimated capacity - Cowan 2001 reviewed other stm capacity research
and concluded capacity is 4 +-1 chunk
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS ALREADY
GRADED A+ GUARANTEED PASS
what is episodic memory
memory for personal events in an individual’s life - they are time stamped (so u
remember when they happened)
what researchers developed msm?
atkinson and shiffrin (1968)
State the coding, capacity and duration of the sensory register
coding-sensory specific
duration-limited - milliseconds
capacity- very large
what is procedural memory
memory for actions,skills and tasks
what is semantic memory
memory for facts and knowledge shared by everyone
what is the case study that provides support for different LTM?
Clive Wearing:
-contracted a virus which attacked his central nervous system which led to total
amnesia due to damage to his hippocampus and associated areas
-he is unable to store new memories
-lost his episodic memory - no memory of his wedding, can’t remember his musical
education
,-his procedural memory is still intact-can still play piano
strengths and weaknesses of long-term memory
strengths:
-clinical evidence
real life applications
weaknesses:
-conflicting neuroimaging evidence
-debate about division into 3 types
pros and cons of duration
cons: artificial stimuli in Peterson and Peterson (1959) as recalling consonant
syllables were meaningless and not reflective of everyday memory tasks -lacking
external validity
COUNTER: Bahrick et al (1975) high external validity has they investigated
meaningful memories (ppls names and faces). Recall rates lower when meaningless
stimuli used so bahrick findings reflect more real estimate of ltm's duration
name and outline procedure and findings investigating duration of STM
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
-participants were given nonsense trigrams (eg zfb)
-had to count backwards in threes from a large three-digit number (to prevent mental
rehersal) for varying periods of time
-correct recall of trigrams after 3seconds = 80%
-correct recall of trigrams after 18sec=3%
-suggests stm duration about 18 seconds
name and outline procedure and findings which investigate the coding of STM and
LTM
Baddeley (1966)
-gave diff lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember
, -GROUP 1-words sounded similar
-GROUP 2-words sounded different
-GROUP 3- words with similar meanings
-GROUP 4-words with diff meanings
-Participants were shown original words and asked to recall them in order correctly
-when recalled immediately(recall from stm) they did worse with acoustically
similar words
-when recalling list after 20 min (recall from ltm) and they did worse with
semantically similar words
-suggests info is coded acoustically in stm and semantically in LTM
what is the pros and cons of research on coding
adv: consistent evidence-Baddeley's 1967 research established stm coded
acoustically + ltm semantically-helped understanding of memory system leading to
multi store model
disadv: artificial, meaningless stimuli so don't tell us much about coding in diff
memory tasks in everyday life
name and outline procedure and findings of the study which investigated capacity of
stm using digit span
jacobs (1887)
-4 digits read out participants had to recall these out loud in correct order
-if recalled correct researcher reads out 5 digits and so until participants cant recall
order correctly = individual digit span
-mean digit span = 9.3 items and for letters 7.3 items
pros and cons of research on capacity
pros: evidence consistent over time as Jacobs 1887 study on digit span lacked control
as ppts digit span could of been underestimate because of procedural elements but
other findings since 1800's have been affirmed by other highly controlled studies
cons: overestimated capacity - Cowan 2001 reviewed other stm capacity research
and concluded capacity is 4 +-1 chunk
