Let us recap what we have learnt about memory which is an aspect of cognitive psychology

What we want to find out about Memory What is it? How does it work? How do we know?

What would life be like if you had no short term memory?

You could look for Clive Wearing on U tube to find out more about living without STM

So what do we mean by memory? Is it remembering the places you have been?

What is memory? Is it remembering how to ride your bike?

What is memory? Is it recognising the faces of people you know?

What is memory? Is it learning and recalling information?

How accurate is memory? Can we rely on it?

So what exactly is Memory? Memory has been defined as the ability to retain knowledge and information as well as the ability to retrieve the information and knowledge which has been stored.

Psychologists use the term ‘memory’ to refer to these three processes. Encoding Storage Retrieval

Encoding This refers to how we encode sensory information so that we can make sense of the information. For example sound waves enter your ears and these are converted by your brain into words that have meaning.

This information can then be stored in your memory for use at a later date

Retrieval refers to the ability to recover information from storage.

Recall This is when you retrieve information that is stored. There are 3 Different types of retrieval. Recall This is when you retrieve information that is stored. Like writing down the number of words you can recall from a word list.

Recognition is when you know something is familiar.

Reintegration this is when you reconstruct a memory using cues.

Short Term Memory - (STM) and Long Term Memory – (LTM) There are two different types of memory. Short Term Memory - (STM) and Long Term Memory – (LTM)

Research has shown that short term memory differs from long term memory in four ways 1. Encoding in STM is mainly acoustic.

2. The capacity of STM is quite small. Miller calls it the Magic no This means you can only keep about 7 bits of information in it at a time

3.The Duration of STM only lasts for about 30 seconds. Meaning if it doesn’t make it into long term memory it will be lost

4. STM is organised sequentially This means you remember in the order the information went in

Memory experiment We are now going to do a memory experiment to test the theory of short-term memory capacity You will not be harmed during this experiment You have the right to withdraw at any time Okay? Then we’ll begin…

Procedure You will see some numbers flash up on the screen As soon as they disappear, please write down the numbers in the order you saw them

256

7598

62534

978513

2851480

59824371

452956139

9254817393

That was the end of the experiment

What was the capacity of your STM?

The following model describes how psychologists ‘see’ memory

Model of memory- Atkinson & Shiffrins two process model.

Please try to learn the model for next lesson See hand out Please try to learn the model for next lesson