Explain the concept of memory architecture with reference to the multi-store, unitary store, and working memory models of memory, outlining laboratory and neuroscience evidence for these models

Atkinson and Shiffrin Multi-Store Model of Memory

  • Sensory memory
    • Iconic – visual memory
    • Echoic – auditory memory
  • Short-term memory
    • Capacity 7 +/- 2 depending on chunk size

Unitary Store Model

 Single store of memory

  • STM consists of temporary activations of LTM representations or recently perceived items o Activations usually arise from focused attention o Highly vulnerable to distraction
  • Amnesiacs’ LTM impairments due to impaired relational memory o Primarily supported by the hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe

Baddeley Model of Working Memory

  • Phonological loop – sound-based or verbal structure – limited storage, limited time (2secs)
  • Visuospatial sketchpad – visuospatial stimuli – limited storage
  • Central executive – serves to control access to other components
  • Episodic buffer – holds and integrates diverse and multimodal information

Describe how encoding and retrieval effects influence memory performance; give an example or application of some of these effects in everyday life

Levels of Processing

  • Craik and Lockhart (1972) – disagree with rehearsal as the only means of memorizing
  • Craik and Tulving (1975) – depth of processing determines likelihood of recalls

Describe some of the ways that we forget or misremember things; define and give examples of these

7 Sins of Memory

  • Transience – memories fade over time
  • Absent-mindedness – attention linked with remembering
  • Misattention – source amnesia
  • Suggestibility – thinking we remember
  • Bias – distortions in recall
  • Persistence – recurring memories we don’t want
  • Forgetting – the inability to remember previously learned information

Proactive and Retroactive Interference

  • Proactive Interference – old memories interfere with the retrieval of new memories
  • Retroactive Interference – new memories interfere with the retrieval of old memories

Encoding Specificity

 Tulving’s (1979) – retrieval success directly related to the degree of informational overlap between the information presented at retrieval and the information stored in memory, including its context

–     Godden and Baddeley (1975) – words learnt in the same environment are recalled better than words learnt in a different environment

Motivated Forgetting

  • Repression (conscious) and suppression (unconscious)
  • Misremembering – repressed/recovered memories – selective forgetting or distressing events

Decay Theories of Forgetting

  • Memory ‘trace’ fades with time

Consolidation Theory

  • A process lasting a long time that fixes information in long-term memory
  • Reconsolidation – a processes whereby old memories are re-accessed

Explain what is meant by implicit learning and outline the methods (and difficulties) for demonstrating that it is distinct from explicit memory

  • Implicit learning – learning of complex information in an incidental manner, without awareness of what has been learned
  • Explicit learning – active learning process