Psychology Questions

1. Multi Store Memory

It is believed that there are three stages of administering information into

the brain. The first stage is sensory memory; in this stage of the brain you
remember lots of information for about five seconds.

The second memory is Short Term Memory in which we remember from

five to nine different things at once up to thirty seconds.

The third stage of memory is Long Term Memory, which is where you
remember all of the most important things. It has an unlimited storage
capacity and you’ll remember things for up to a month, or sometimes your
whole life.

Strengths of the multi-store memory Weakness of the multi-store memory

Atkinson and Shiffrin used a scientific
approach to carry out their research.
There is research to support the idea of
separate memory stores.
The multi-store model provides a
simple description of the memory
process.
It has been criticised for its focus on
memory for new facts, such as word
lists and numbers. This is why the
model seems to explain how we
remember a telephone number until we
dial it, but cannot explain many of our
everyday experiences of memory.

2. Levels of memory

The research conducted on memory levels, was designed to test the

awareness, reaction and perception of the participants. The method used
was to split the participants into three groups and tell them a word, in the
three groups each group was given a title; they were Structural, Phonetic
and Semantic.

Level of processing Question asked Words recognised later

required
Structural (appearance) Is the word in upper- 18%
case letters?
Phonetic (Sound) Does the word rhyme 59%
with…?
Semantic (Meaning) Does the word go in 80%
this sentence?
 In conclusion of this research, it says that more people remember words
better, if they are given a semantic meaning.

3. Reconstructive Memory

The idea was to test the participants to use existing knowledge to

remember new information.

The participants were given an extract from the book ‘the war of the
ghosts.’ Once they had read it, they were asked to remember as much as
they could at random intervals. These intervals ranged from hours later to
months later.

The results show the participants had added their own meaning to the
story and reconstructed their own memories of the story to help them
understand the new information.

In particular it was noted that that the participants had:

• Missed out details and added their own details.

• Added and changed the emphasis to different parts of the story

• Changed the order of the incidents

4. Memory recall and leading questions

The research was to test the effect of leading questions on a person’s

recall of an event.

A group of participants were split into three groups, (one of these was a
control group.) They all watched a film of a traffic accident. Afterwards they were
asked a number of questions about the film, all the same except about the speed
of the cars when the accident happened. The variable in this case was a verb
that was used in the question.

The verbs used

Hit

Smashed

Mean estimated Hit Smashe

speed d
 34m 41 mph
ph
The results show that those who had said smashed claimed that the cars
were going faster.

A week later, the participants were asked some more questions this time it
was if they had seen any broken glass. The results are as follows

Smashed Hit Control group

32% 14% 12%
In conclusion the participants who were asked about the cars smashing
were more likely to report having seen broken glass.