Specification terms Capacity Amount of material that can be kept in a memory store. Duration Length of time material can be kept in a memory store. Encoding The process of converting information from one form (‘code’) to another so it can be stored in the various memory stores and passed between them. Long-term memory (LTM) Permanent memory store with practically unlimited capacity, storing memories for up to a lifetime. Encoding is mainly semantic (meaning). Sensory memory (SM) Memory stores for each of our ve senses, e.g. vision (iconic store) and hearing (echoic store). Encoding in the iconic store is visual and in the echoic store is acoustic. Capacity is huge but duration is very brief. Short-term memory (STM) Limited-capacity memory store. Encoding is mainly acoustic (sounds), capacity is between 5 and 9 items, duration is up to 30 seconds without rehearsal. Duration Sensory memory (SM) The rst part of the memory system – all stimuli from the environment pass into it. SM is actually ve stores, one for each of our senses. Duration of SM is very brief. For example, information in the visual store (called iconic memory) lasts for less than half a second. Information in the auditory (sound) store (called echoic memory) lasts for about 2–4 seconds. Short-term memory (STM) A temporary store. Information lasts up to 30 seconds before it disappears (Peterson and Peterson 1959). Material stays in STM for longer if we repeat it over and over (maintenance rehearsal). If we do this for long enough, the material may pass into long-term memory. Long-term memory (LTM) The potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time. Material in LTM may last up to a lifetime. Harry Bahrick et al. (1975) found that many people could recognise the names and faces of school classmates a¡er almost 50 years. Capacity Sensory memory Capacity is very high. For instance, there are over one hundred million cells in the retina of each eye and each of these cells stores sensory data. Short-term memory A limited-capacity store because it can only contain a certain number of ‘things’ before forgetting occurs. George Miller (1956) noted that this capacity is between ve and nine items of information. He called this ‘the magic number 7 plus or minus 2’. Long-term memory Capacity is practically unlimited. We store everything we have learned in it. When you forget information in LTM, it may still be there but you just can’t access it because you don’t have the right cues (discussed on the next spread). Encoding Sensory memory Encoding involves converting information from the environment (sights, sounds, smells, etc.) into a form in which it can be stored in memory. Encoding in each SM store depends on the sense. For example, in the iconic store it is visual (information received by the eyes). Encoding in the echoic store is acoustic (sound information received by the ears). Short-term memory Encoding is mainly acoustic (based on sounds, e.g. of words). Alan Baddeley (1966a) found that when people recall words from a list immediately a¡er hearing them, any mistakes they make are acoustic, such as substituting a word with another that sounds the same (e.g. recalling ‘cat’ instead of ‘cap’). Long-term memory Encoding is mainly semantic (based on meaning). Baddeley (1966b) found that mistakes in recalling words from LTM tended to involve substituting a word that means the same thing (e.g. recalling ‘big’ instead of ‘large’). Making links to the key assumptions Assumption: Behaviour is a product of information processing The three memory stores are different but connected. Information from the environment goes into SM rst, then some of it is passed on to STM. Most of this is forgotten but some of it is passed to LTM. Some processing of the information takes place in each memory store (e.g. rehearsal in STM). Assumption: The brain can be compared to a computer How do you think the concept on this spread illustrates the ‘computer analogy’ assumption (see page 10)? Persistence of vision (and hearing) Who doesn’t love a sparkler? You light one, it eventually catches, and you start waving it around with glee, just like you did when you were six. It’s great fun because you can trace letters and words in the air – your name, ‘Hello’ and other less polite words perhaps. As a six-year-old maybe you accepted this air-writing without question. But of course, a lit sparkler can’t really leave words in the air (unless it’s a magic sparkler, obviously). You can ‘see’ the words because your eyes have a memory. An after-image persists on your retinas for about 1/25th of a second after the sparkler has moved on. This is called persistence of vision and is an example of sensory memory. Your ears have a ‘memory’ too. Has a teacher or parent ever said to you, ‘What did I just say?’ when they spotted you daydreaming? If you surprised them (and yourself) by repeating their last few words back to them, that’s another example of your sensory memory in action. Key concept 1: Characteristics of three memory stores Content area A1: Cognitive approach Unit 1: Psychological approaches and applications 12 Copyright: Sample material
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