Psychology Blog » Memory

Singing along with models of memory

Cara Flanagan — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:41:32 +0000

Heather Henry alerted me to these fantastic youtube clips – the multi-store model and the working memory model set to Rudolf the Rednose Reindeer and Jingle Bells. Just in time for Christmas.

AS exam companion – small error

Cara Flanagan — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:42:34 +0000

Catherine Harries of Coopers Coborn School has already spotted an error in the just released Exam Companion. On page 16, question 5 Alice’s answer says that STM has unlimited capacity and duration whereas LTM is limited. It should be the other way round. However, it may be worth pointing out that an examiner would still give her credit for this answer but not full marks.

Please do let us know if you spot any other errors.

BBC radio – The man who couldn’t remember

Cara Flanagan — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:11:15 +0000

The excellent BBC radio series about case studies in psychology is returning this week and is about Henry Molaison (HM) – on Wednesday 11 August at 11 am. You can find details here. The blurb in the Radio Times says ‘In 1953, after a brain operation to cure his epilepsy, Henry Molaison was left unable to form new memories. But he was happy that others would benefit from the research conducted into his condition; he was happy every time he was told about it because it was always news to him. Recordings of Molaison made before he died in 2008 make this a particularly poignant programme. Claudia Hammond talks to the scientists who studied him and got to know him, though, sadly, he never got to know them.’

The programme also covers the story of HM’s brain after his death – which you can read about here. Provokes some interesting ethical questions about a person who couldn’t give informed consent.

The previous case studies series covered Kitty Genovese, The Wild Boy of Aveyron, The Man with the Hole in his Head and Little Hans. Some of these can be downloaded from Psychexchange, see here.

Binge Drink Now … what about later?

Evie Bentley — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:27:27 +0000

University students in north-east England have been taking part in a study to see the effects of binge drinking on memory. So what counted as binge drinking? Imbibing 6 units of alcohol in a drinking session twice a week or more was the criterion, and those students with other habits such as smoking and drug taking were screened out. Anxiety, age and depression had no effect on the results of both the binge drinkers and the control non-binging group.

The experimental task was to watch a 10-minute video clip of a Scarborough shopping district , and participants had to remember a series of instructions which they then had to carry out when they saw specified locations.

So what happened? The binge drinkers did far worse than the non-binging students, recalling significantly fewer combinations of location-action/items. This form of recall linking an action to a point in the future is known as prospective memory, for example remembering to go to a doctor’s appointment.

Research team leader Heffernan points out that so far there is no known “safe” level for teenagers’ drinking, and that possibly excessive drinking might interfere with the neuro-cognitive development of the teenage brain. This research adds to the evidence which is mounting up that because teenage brains are still maturing and undergoing significant development in terms of structure and function they could be seriously affected by environmental factors such as alcohol binges. However, one fact which has come out of this research is that self-reports showed that binging participants did not think their own memory functioned poorly, suggesting that they are unaware of the damage being caused.

You may never use powerpoint again….

Adrian Frost — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:49:19 +0000

There’s a useful presentation on experimental design to be found here

But equally interesting is the software that has been used to produce it – you can have a play here – it’s really easy to use, and you have to agree the presentations look pretty slick..

I was wondering – this could be used for a quick class experiment: Ask one group to present information using powerpoint (i.e. in a linear fashion), ask another to present the same info using the more hierarchical prezi software, to see if the way in which information is organised affects recall in independent groups of subjects?

False memories

Cara Flanagan — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:19:17 +0000

The online magazine Slate has been running a series about memory distortions and false memories (see here) There are 8 articles all together – at the top of the web page there are links to previous articles.

The first article describes a recent mass experiment conducted by Slate where they used some of Elizabeth Loftus’ techniques to plant false political memories.

Something to Bragg about……

Adrian Frost — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:39:45 +0000

Dreams, drugs, intelligence, memory, infant brains, psychoanalysis, human evolution and many more – Loads of online broadcasts from Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ Radio 4 series to be found here – all free – it makes one proud to be a licence payer….

The working memory model

Cara Flanagan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:03:08 +0000

I am again grateful to an enquiry from a teacher about an apparent contradiction – this time between our AS Complete Companion and another AS book. Logie (1995) proposed that the visuo-spatial sketchpad (a component of the working memory model) could be further divided into a visual cache and inner scribe. In the Complete Companion we have said that the cache is a store and the scribe deals with spatial relations, whereas another AS book says that the cache is a store and the scribe is a rehearsal mechanism. Both versions are correct and both lack detail.The visual cache is a passive store. It holds information about form and colour. However some research evidence (e.g. Coleman and LeFevre, 2002) has found that information is actively rehearsed.The inner scribe is an active rehearsal component. It is proposed to deal with spatial and movement information. There also may be some storage component.Any further comments welcome!

Capacity of working memory

Cara Flanagan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:34:52 +0000

I was recently asked by a teacher to explain an apparent contradiction in the text on working memory. On page 12 of the AS Complete Companion the text says that the central executive component of the Working Memory Model has a ‘very limited capacity’ but later, on the same page the text says the central executive has ‘no storage capacity’. Sounds like a contradiction! But on closer inspection there isn’t a contradiction – of course the the central executive has to have some capacity to direct attention but it has no extra storage capacity. I did double check this with Professor Alan Baddeley, who says ‘I assume that the executive has limited attentional capacity, but does not act as a store. Central storage in working memory is now assumed to depend on the episodic buffer’.

Keep your queries coming in!

Mind Changers

Cara Flanagan — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:42:13 +0000

Many of you will be familiar with the excellent BBC radio series called Mind Changers which has included programmes on Milgram, Piaget, Ainsworth, Bartlett, Kohlberg, Zimbardo, Harlow, Asch. Some of these are currently available as podcasts here or you can go to PsychBLOG where Jamie has downloaded some and there are also some available on Spokenword (free subscription for teachers).

If anyone finds copies elsehwere, let us know!