Ode to Elaine Paige

Howdy

Do you like what I did with the title? Elaine Paige? Memories? No?

That's right, this week's study is on chapter 8, Memory: Strucures, processes and skills. I've really enjoyed this week and am having a hard time deciding which option to do for the assignment as I've really loved both chapters, although I think there's slightly more in the way of evaluative material available for the first option, which is the aim of this assignment I think.

Anyway, lets get to it, I want this done by the weekend so I can get drunk and watch Dancing On Ice (it's the new X-Factor you know).

Memory is thought to consist of three main processes: Encoding (where new info from the senses is coded), storage (where said info is retained into the memory's storage systems) and retrieval (recovery of info from said storage syytems). Retrieval includes both recall ("recalling" something from your memory bank, a phone number for example) and recognition (recognising something, a person's face perhaps). These processes coexist and work together to create memory. Sometimes info can be encoded poorly at the first stage, and therefore not stored properly which has a knock on effect for retrieval, although retrieval may still be possible if cues are given, ie contextual info or hints (known as retrieval cues).

Key subsystems in memory include:

• Sensory memory (SM): Holds uncoded info for a few seconds.
• Short term memory (STM): A few seconds or minutes long.
• Long term memory (LTM): Long term storage of memory.

SM is where info from the senses is picked up straight away (a perceptual record). Info from the senses that gets out attention goes into SM and from there can possibly get encoded into STM. STM is though to only last a few seconds (ie when we are dialling a phone number). If the number is practised loads then it may get coded and end up in LTM, which is possibly unlimited and where memories can last a life time (ie, I can still remember being in nursery at age 3 when a clown came to visit and I was so scared that I wet my knickers infront of the headmaster. True story).

People are more likely to remember the first lot of info from a set and the last lot of info, forgetting the middle bit. This is known as the primacy effect and the recency effect. First items are possibly called from LTM and last items from STM. Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed this theory further and suggested that STM was not only a stop gap between perception and LTM, but an integral and active part of both the intake and retrieval of new memories, and renamed STM 'working memory'.

There are several ways to study memory: lab experiments, quasi-experiments, field experiments, diary studies and cross sectioanl studies, computational models and neuropsychology such as brain imaging.

Craik and Lockhart (1972) developed the levels of processing theory which proposed that remembering things is dependant on how deeply it was processed at an earlier stage-the deeper it is processed (or the more it was revised, for example) the more likely it is to be remembered. Deep processing takes place when things are encoded it terms of it's meaning and this is known as semantic processing. It involves elaborative rehearsal (linking meaning of something to other associated stored material), whereas more 'shallow' rehearsal, known as maintenance rehearsal, involves merely repeating something over and over until it is learned. This is known as the generation effect (see page 121).

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) proposed that spacing out learning (ie having revising sessions spread over two days instead of cramming, a particular skill of mine lol) lead to the spacing effect, whereby memory is enhanced by repeatedly returning to something, thereby strengthening the memory of that topic.

Bousfield (1953) suggested that participants in a study tended to group together items that were not presented that was and found that although they could free recall the items (recall them in any order) they tended to cluster the items (remember them in groups according to category). Bower, Clark, Lesgold and Winzenz (1969) also found that info presented in a hierarchical manner can assist memory recall.

I have to leave that there, for no other reason than I'm far too lazy to carry on lol. I will complete this tommorrow!!

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