MEMORY

How does your

memory work?

GCSE Psychology
Paper 1
What do you need to
know?
Memory and information processing

Encoding
• Via senses • Behaviour
• Sight, hearing, • Turning sensory info into a produced
touch, taste, form that can be used and • Retrieval of stored
stored in the brain
smell • Acoustic – sound
information
• Visual – images
• Semantic - meaning
Information
Output
input
 Short term and long- term memory
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
Short term
memory

Long term
memory
 Short term and long- term memory
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
Short term
memory Around seven bits of
Information.

Long term
memory Potentially limitless.
 Short term and long- term memory
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
Short term
memory Around seven bits of
Information.
Around 18 seconds
without rehearsal

Long term
memory Potentially limitless. A Few minutes to a
Lifetime
 Short term and long- term memory
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
Short term
memory Around seven bits of
Information.
Around 18 seconds
without rehearsal Acoustic (Hearing)

Long term
memory Potentially limitless. A Few minutes to a
Lifetime Semantic ( Meaning)
 Short term and long- term memory
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
Short term
memory Around seven bits of
Information.
Around 18 seconds
without rehearsal Acoustic (Hearing)
Displacement
Decay

Long term
memory Potentially limitless. A Few minutes to a
Lifetime Semantic ( Meaning)
Decay
Interference
Retrieval failure
What do you need to
know?
Let’s practice ( 5 marks = 6 minutes!)
Understanding amnesia
Amnesia refers to forgetting or memory loss, particularly after a brain
trauma/injury.
Extension Case Study- H.M
• Henry Molaison (often referred to as H.M.) is a famous case of anterograde
and retrograde amnesia in psychology. Henry Molaison underwent brain
surgery to relieve him from seizures associated with epilepsy.
• Unfortunately, a brain structure called the hippocampus was damage during
the operation. This resulted in him suffering from anterograde amnesia, so
he could not lay down new memories. The surgery also caused retrograde
amnesia as he was able to recall childhood events but lost the ability to recall
experiences a few years before his surgery.
• He was studied over a long period of time. Since his death Henry’s brain has
been used to further research memory and understand the causes of
amnesia. His case is widely documented on the internet for you to read
about.
 Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968): Multistore
Model of Memory
The sensory register receives all of
the sensory information and holds it
very briefly.
Sensory information that is paid
attention to is transferred into short
term memory.
Sensory information that is not paid
attention to decays and is forgotten.
There are separate sensory registers
for each of the senses:
• Iconic (visual) sensory register
(lasts about 1 second before decay)
• Echoic (auditory/sound sensory
register (lasts for a few seconds
before decay)
• Gustatory (taste) sensory register
• Olfactory (smell) sensory register
• Tactile (touch) sensory register
 Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968): Multistore
Model of Memory
Information that is paid attention to and If information in short term
transferred into the short- term memory memory is rehearsed enough it is
can be stored for 15-20 seconds.
transferred to long term memory.
Information which is rehearsed (repeating
out loud/mentally) can be maintained for Long term memory can hold
longer in short term memory. information indefinitely and has
potentially limitless capacity.
Miller (1956) found that the average
short-term memory can hold between 5
and 9 chunks of information. Long term memories are organised
semantically (by meaning).
 Evaluation of Multistore Model
 There is a great deal of evidence to support the
idea of separate memory stores. Cases of amnesia
show how brain injury can damage long term
memory but leave short term memory intact.

 Murdock (1962) demonstrated the serial position

effect which is the tendency to recall more words
at the beginning (primacy) and end (recency) of a
word list.
 Primacy occurs because words at the beginning
are rehearsed and transferred into long term
memory
 Recency occurs because the words are still held in
short term memory
 Words in the middle are forgotten because there
is not enough time to rehearse them before they
are displaced from short term memory.
 Evaluation of Multistore Model
The multistore model has been criticised for
overemphasising the role of rehearsal in
transferring information to long term memory. We
don’t need to repeat everything over and over to
remember it – some things we remember just
because they are more meaningful/distinctive.

It is unlikely that there is only one type of long term

memory. Some amnesia patients have specific
types of memory damaged while other types are
intact. For example Clive Wearing suffered damage
to his episodic long term memory (personal events)
but still had procedural long term memory as he
could still play the piano. There is also semantic
long term memory (facts).