Cognitive psychology:

Memory
Introduction
•Cognitive psychology concerns mental
processes
•Main emphasis on information processing:
taking in and analysing information to initiate
and monitor behaviour
•Mental processes featured here is memory, the
retention of experience.
1. Explanations of memory (the multi-store and working models)

2. Different types of long-term memory

3. Explanations of forgetting

4. Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

5. Strategies to improve memory recall

The multi-store model (MSM)
Devised by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
- First cognitive explanation of memory
- Before the MSM, psychologists tried to study and explain
memory through biological means.
- Model explains how information flows through a series of
storage systems, with three permanent structures in memory
1. The sensory register (SR)
2. Short-term memory (STM)
3. Long-term memory (LTM)
Each stage differs in terms of:

Coding- the form in which the information is stored

Capacity- how much information can be stored

Duration- How long information can be stored for

•Information gathered by the sense organs enter sensory
register
•Only the small amount paid attention to passes to short-term
memory for further processing, the rest is lost very quickly.
•Information in short-term memory that is actively processed
enough (thought about), mainly through rehearsal, transfers
to long-term memory for more permanent storage.
The sensory
register (SR)
CODING IN THE SR
• Information is stored in a Crowder (1993)
Found SR only
raw, unprocessed form, with retains information
separate sensory stores for in the iconic store
different inputs: for a few
milliseconds but
for 2.3 seconds
• The echoic store for auditory within the echoic
information, the iconic store store, which
supports idea of
for visual information, the sensory
haptic store for tactile information being
information, the gustatory coded into
CAPACITY OF THE SR

• The capacity of each sensory

memory store is very large,
with information contained
being in an unprocessed,
highly detailed and ever-
Sperling (1960)-
changing Flashed a 3x4 grid of letters
format.
onto a screen for one twentieth of a second,
asked participants to recall letters of one row. As
information faded quickly, he sounded different
tones to indicate which row had to be recalled.
Recall of letters in the indicated row was high,
suggests all information originally there,
DURATION OF THE SR
• All sensory memory stores have limited duration,
though the actual duration of each store is no
constant with different types of information within
each store decaying at different rates
• There is some evidence that duration decreases
Walsh & Thomas (1978)
with age.
Found the iconic store has average
duration: 500 milliseconds, decreasing
with age. Suggests duration of sensory
memories are limited.
SHORT-TERM
MEMORY(STM)
CODING IN STM
• Information arrives from the SR in its original
form such as in sound or vision and is then
encoded (Entered in the STM) in a form STM can
more easily deal with.
• e.g., if the input into SR was the word ‘fish’, this
could be coded into the STM in several ways:
- Visually (by thinking of an image of a fish)
- Acoustically (by repeatedly saying ‘fish’)
- Semantically (by using knowledge of fish)
• Research suggests main form of coding in STM is
 CAPACITY OF STM
• STM has a limited
Jacobs (1887)
capacity, as only small Tested STM with the serial
amount of information is digit span method where
held in the store. participants presented with
• Between 5-9 items can be increasingly long list of
numbers. When participants
held though capacity is fail on 50% of tasks, they are
increased by ‘chunking’ judged to have reached
• Chunking is where the capacity.
Found capacity for
size of the units of numbers= 9
information in storage is Capacity for letters= 7
 Peterson & Peterson
DURATION OF STM (1959)
Read nonsense
• The amount of time
trigrams (words of
information remains three letters that don’t
within STM without form recognizable
being lost is limited to words like ZBF) to
max of about 30 participants then got
seconds. them to count
• This can be extended by backwards in threes
from a large no. for
rehearsal (repetition)
varying periods of time.
of information which if is
done long enough will Found 90% recalled
Long-term
Memory(LT
M)
 CODING IN LTM
Coding involves the form by Frost (1972)
Gave participants
which LTM are stored: sixteen drawings in
• The means by which four categories (e.g.,
information is shaped into animals), differing in
visual orientation like
representation of memories. angle of viewing
Coding of information will be perspective.
stronger (and thus memory
The order of recall of
more retrievable) the deeper items suggested
the level of processing of a participants used
visual and semantic
CAPACITY IN LTM
The potential capacity of LTM is unlimited.
Information may be lost due to decay and
interference, but such losses don’t occur due
Anokhin (1973)
to limitation of capacity.
Estimated the number of possible neuronal
connections in the human brain is 1 followed
by 10.5 million km of noughts. He concluded ‘
no human yet exists who can use all full
potential of the brain’ suggesting the capacity
DURATION IN LTM
Duration of LTM depends on individual's lifespan,
as memories can last for a lifetime. Items in LTM
have a longer duration if originally well coded and
certain LTM have a longer duration like those based
on skills rather than facts. Material in STM that isn’t
Bahrick
rehearsedet al
is (1975)
quickly forgotten but information in
Showed 400 participants aged between 17 and 74 years a set of
LTM doesn’t have to be continually rehearsed to be
photos and a list of names some of which were ex-school friends
retained.
and asked them to identify them. Those who’d left high school in
the last 15 years identified 90% of faces and names, those who
left 48 years identified 80% names and 70% faces, suggesting