Outline three differences between short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Diana 12th November 2004 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY * Outline three differences between short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). Duration Differences i.e. how long it lasts: - Information held in STM is lost rapidly when there is little or no opportunity to rehearse it since rehearsal would send the information into LTM and it will be easily recalled. This suggests that holding information in STM is only for a few seconds since holding information in STM is fragile and easily forgotten. Peterson and Peterson (1959) concluded this by asking participants to remember trigrams when not allowed to rehearse it. Unlike STM, information can be held in LTM for a long a long period of time and mostly forever. It is said that the elderly never forget their childhood memories. Bahrick, Bahrick and Witlinger (1975) carried out a study into LTM (where photographs of high school students were taken from the year and ex-students were asked to recall the names of the photographs. They found out that 90% of the names could still be remembered even after 34yrs. Encoding Differences: - Based on a study carried out by Baddeley (1966), there is evidence that STM is acoustically encoded i.e. encoding by the similarity of the sound of the words e.g. cat, mat, rat...etc, whereas LTM is semantically

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This study is based on the theory of cue dependent forgetting - more specifically, context dependent forgetting - a phenomena in cognitive psychology, proposed by Tulving and Pearlstone (1979).

Abstract This study is based on the theory of cue dependent forgetting - more specifically, context dependent forgetting - a phenomena in cognitive psychology, proposed by Tulving and Pearlstone (1979). A study by Abernathy (1940) has been replicated, using an experimental method to test the alternative hypothesis that recall is better in the same environment as information is learnt. With a significant difference of 7% higher recall in the same environment as information was learnt, the alternative hypothesis has been accepted. Introduction Background research This investigation involves research into memory, which is part of cognitive psychological theory. The cognitive approach assumes that the brain is an information processor with inputs, processes and outputs. Memory is one such process, where information is encoded, stored and then recalled. One theory of memory is the multi-store model, proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin, which suggests there are three different memory stores - sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. This study is concerned with long-term memory. Relating to memory is forgetting, or failure to recall information. There are two main theories of forgetting, one of which explains when information is not recalled because it is unavailable, and the other when it is inaccessible. This study focuses on cue-dependent memory. In trace

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To make participants rely on their short-term memory by using visual intakes/coding of six from the consonants B, C, F, M, N, P, S, T, V and X, because the rate was to fast for the participants to keep them they had to rely on their memory.

Encoding in short term memory - Conrad (1964) Aim: To make participants rely on their short-term memory by using visual intakes/coding of six from the consonants B, C, F, M, N, P, S, T, V and X, because the rate was to fast for the participants to keep them they had to rely on their memory. Procedure: participants were shown random sequences of six letters taken from the consonants B, C, F, M, N, P, S, T, V and X. Six letters were shown in rapid succession in a screen and participants were required to write them down as they appeared. Findings: Errors were noted and rate of presentation was too fast for the participants to keep up so they had to rely on memory. Conrad found that the significant majority involved the substitution of a similar sounding letter for example 'b' for 'v' and 's' for 'x'. In a similar study he found that participants found it hard to recall a string of acoustically similar letters. Conclusions: He concluded that's such acoustic confusion provided evidence for acoustic coding in STM. Criticisms: * On the negative side, he only used six certain constants he may of found more out if he had used a lager group of letters. * Also people in real life often learn lists like this so it would be new to their memory not an everyday thing they usually use. Capacity in short term memory - Jacobs (1887) Aim: To investigate how much information

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Baron-cohen

Case Study - Baron Cohen Info: Simon Baron-Cohen is a professor of developmental psychopathology in the departments of psychiatry and experimental psychology, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.[1] He is best known for his work on autism, including his early theory that autism involves degrees of 'mindblindness' (or delays in the development of theory of mind), and his later theory that autism is an extreme form of the 'male brain', which involved a reconceptualization of typical psychological sex differences in terms of empathy and systemizing. Baron-Cohen published "Does the autistic child have a 'theory of mind'?" in 1985 with autism researchers Uta Frith and Alan Leslie.[2] It proposed that children with autism show social and communication difficulties as a result of a delay in the development of a theory of mind. In his 1995 book Mindblindness (MIT Press), he suggested that an individual's theory of mind depends on a set of brain mechanisms that develop in early childhood, including the eye direction detector (EDD), the shared attention mechanism (SAM), and the intentionality detector (ID). Baron-Cohen singled out SAM as a key precursor to theory of mind, giving rise to the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT).[3] Baron-Cohen's theory, outlined in his 2003 book

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Utilising Learning theories, critically evaluate any 2 biological explanations for criminal behaviour".

Psychology Assignment 1 Task: "Utilising Learning theories, critically evaluate any 2 biological explanations for criminal behaviour". Are criminals born or are criminals made? This is a question that many psychologists have researched into to try and come to a conclusive answer. However, they are divided into two; one side believing in the nurture approach (made criminals) and the other believing in the nature approach (born criminals). The biological psychologists have looked into various biological reasons for why people commit crimes. When imaging the type of criminals that were used for research, it is important to note that psychologists mainly focused on criminals who had committed crimes involving, aggression, violence and sex. Lombroso's work of 1876 and the twin studies of Bartol (1999), have contributed research to support their theory that there are biological reasons for why people commit crimes e.g genetics. In contrast psychologists who believe in the 'nuture' theory have contributed equally as much research, in the form of Pavlov's works of 1927 and 1955, and Skinner's work of 1953. It is necessary to look at the individual studies to be able to determine which research may be considered most solid and viable to determine what really influences criminal behaviour. Lombroso's research focused on the physical aspects of criminals, such as the face and

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Discuss the link between stress and illness

Discuss the link between stress and illness (12 marks). The immune system is designed to defend the body against antigens. It prevents them from entering the body and causing an illness. It works in three ways: it creates a barrier to prevent antigens from entering the body, if an antigen should get into the body, it tries to detect and eliminate the antigen, and is the virus is able to reproduce, the immune system is responsible is responsible for eliminating it before it can start causing problems. Many different investigations have been carried out into which is more damaging to the immune system, chronic stressors or acute stressors. One such investigation was carried out into stress caused by relationships. Both marital relationships and separation from a partner can be stressful. Kiecolt-Glaser in 2005 tested the impact of interpersonal conflict on wound healing. It was found that the blister wounds on the arms of marital couples healed more slowly after they had had a conflicting conversation rather than one which is supportive. Also, Malarkey in 1994 studied 90 newlywed couples over a 24 hour period. They were asked to discuss and resolve an issue which was likely t cause conflict, such as finances. Marital conflict produced significant changed in adrenaline and noradrenaline which could lead to poorer immune functioning. This research would suggest that people in a

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To what extent has research shown eyewitness testimony to be inaccurate?

To what extent has research shown eyewitness testimony to be inaccurate? Eyewitness testimony is the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator. The accuracy of eyewitness recall may be affected during initial encoding, subsequent storage and eventual retrieval. There are three stages of 'eyewitness memory'; encoding, retention and retrieval. Throughout these stages the memory is distorted, lost, modified, interfered with and reconstructed. Elizabeth Loftus has conducted many studies concerning eye witness testimony - one in which she worked with Palmer (1974) to see if leading questions distort the eyewitness's immediate recall. A leading question is a question that 'either by its form or content, suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads him to the desired answer'. After being shown films of traffic accidents, students were asked one critical question: 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' The word 'hit' was replaced with 'smashed', 'collided', 'bumped' and 'contacted' for different students. The students who were asked with the word 'smashed' estimated the highest speed, whereas the group asked with the word 'contacted' estimated the lowest speed. These findings tell us that a leading question can greatly affect the witness's answer. It also shows that

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The Effects of leading questions on Eyewitness Testimony

Method Design A laboratory experiment was used for this piece of research. This was chosen as in these settings there is a high degree of control for the researcher who is more able to control variables for a more effective and reliable piece of research. Also these types of experiments are usually easier to replicate if results need to be checked or reaffirmed. It is also easier to avoid extraneous or confounding variables, which could affect results. Examples of extraneous variables that could arise in this experiment could be distractions in the room where the experiment may take place, individual differences e.g. the moods of the participants may vary etc. To avoid this, the two conditions were set in the same room at the same time of day. This room was as devoid of colour and distraction as was possible in attempts to keep the participants on focussing on the task at hand. Other factors that could have affected the status/mood of the participant could have been weather or temperature. This was also avoided by keeping participants indoors in a classroom. This classroom had air conditioning facilities, these ensured that the room was kept at a comfortable temperature to avoid distraction. However there are some factors that need to be considered when conducting laboratory experiments for instance participants may change their behaviour if they are trying to guess or

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Levels Of Processing

Psychology coursework - Levels Of Processing. Introduction Background research Craik and Lockhart first put forward levels of processing theory in 1972, It stated that different ways of inputting information into memory have different levels of efficiency, both when recalling information by writing it down and recalling it orally. The Levels Of Processing model (proposed by Craik & Lockhart), instead it suggests that the storage is determined by processing. Their key theoretical assumptions were that; 1) The depth of processing of a word has a big effect on its memorability and 2) Deeper processing longer lasting and stronger memory traces. (Levels of processing diagram - Which type of processing takes longer to reach the long term memory?) Firstly Craik and Tulving conducted an experiment where participants were given a word list and asked if the word was written in capital letters (structural processing) or if it rhymed with another word (phonetic processing) or if it was part of a group (semantic processing). The aim of this experiment was to see whether words processed semantically would be better remembered than those processed phonetically or structurally. They conducted the experiment by handing the participants a word list and setting 4 tasks for the respondents to do where they had to analyse words for their meaning, appearance or sound. For example

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Identify features of Atkinson and Shiffrin's multistore model of memory.

AS Homework Memory Questions Identify features of Atkinson and Shiffrin's multistore model of memory Atkinson and Shiffrin's multistore model consists of three parts. Sensory memory, long term memory and short term memory. Sensory memory is a storage system that holds information in one of two forms, Echoic or iconic. It is available for a short period of time. It is either forgotten or sent to the short-term memory. This is used for storing information for short periods of time, before being sent to the long-term memory, or forgotten. Long-term memory holds a lot of information and stores it for a long time, usually until death. According to the multistore model of memory there are three separate parts of the memory system: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. Describe the differences between sensory memory and short-term memory. Sensory memory lasts for only a short amount of time before it goes to the short-term memory, whilst the short term memory last for about 30 seconds. The capacity of short-term memory is, according to Miller (1956) is 7 +/- 2. This is called Miller's magic number seven. Sensory memory comes in echoic and iconic senses, and is relatively not encoded. Atkinson and Shiffrin's multistore model describes the way information is transferred to the long-term memory store. Outline how this happens. Information is transferred from

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