Essay on Memory: Hippocampus and Multi Store Model

Submitted By thehanneo
Words: 1280
Pages: 6
Open Document
IS MEMORY RELIABLE?

We are learning something new every day, and we have been doing that since the day we were born, but learning would be useless if we did not have a way to remember and store all that new information. Memory does exactly that. Before we can start to find out if memory is reliable or not, we need to define it. Memory is, according to The Free Dictionary: ”the mental faculty that enables one to retain and recall previously experienced sensations, impressions, information, and ideas. The ability of the brain to retain and to use knowledge gained from past experience is essential to the process of learning. Although the exact way in which the brain remembers is not completely understood, it is believed that a portion of the temporal lobe of the brain, lying in part under the temples, acts as a kind of memory center, drawing on memories stored in other parts of the brain.” "Memory (redirected from Memory (psychology))." TheFreeDictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.
How accurate are your memories, and are they actually reliable?

Memory allows us to process information, store information, and then access it later if, or when, we would need to. Atkinson and Shiffrin came up with a model, The Multi Store Model, in 1968. They said that memory consisted of three different stages, sensory store, short-term store and long-term store. The sensory store is the first stage, and the memory only stays there for a short period of time. For information to pass into the short-term store it has to be visual. You normally remember 7 +/- 2 items in chunks for around 15-30 seconds unless it is repeated several times and rehearsed. For memory to pass into the long-term store it has to be rehearsed a lot of times. The capacity of the long-term store is unlimited and memories may stay with you for a lifetime. However, information may be forgotten because memory can decay. "Multi Store Model of Memory - Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968." Atkinson and Shiffrin. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Eyewitness Testimony is a study done by Loftus and Palmer in 1974. Their aim was to see if misleading questions would affect the answers in eyewitness testimonies. They had participants watching a video of a car accident and asked questions afterwards. Two different questions were asked depending on what group they were in, they were asked how fast the cars were going when they hit each other or smashed into each other. There was a control group and they were not asked about speed at all. A week later all the three groups were asked if they had seen any broken glass.
The group that were asked about the speed when the cars “smashed” into each other estimated an average speed of 42mph and 32% said that there were broken glass, when in the actual video there was no broken glass at all. The group that were asked about the speed when they “hit” each other said an average speed of 34mph and 14% said that there had been broken glass. In the control group there were only 12% that said they had seen broken glass.
The study showed that misleading questions affect eyewitness testimonies and therefore how unreliable they can be. The word smash were part of a more brutal and violent schema than the word hit, and that was reflected in the results. "Loftus and Palmer." - Simply Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Loftus and Ketcham thought that it would be interesting to see if they could make people have a memory of an event that did not happen, and they tested their theory on a few individuals. Loftus and her student Jacqueline Pickrell were the first to use the theory in a formal study, and they did so in 1995. The study was called Lost In a Shopping Mall. They had 24 participants and they were given four short narratives describing childhood events. Then they were asked to tell as much as they remembered about the four events. But what they did not know was that one of the narratives was false, it never happened to them.
Show More

Related Documents: Essay on Memory: Hippocampus and Multi Store Model

Memory Formation Research Paper

Memory Formation The structure of the brain In order to see what the effects of ethanol on memory are, one needs to fist look at how memories are stored in a normal, sober state. To begin with, one must first look at the brain as a whole to see what different areas of the brain are responsible for. Figure 1 shows the different regions of the brain. The cerebrum is divided into four sections called lobes, these are: the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe (as illustrated…

Words 1398 - Pages 6

Essay on Discuss the Interaction Between Cognition and Physiology in Terms of Behavior

• Introduction: cognition, physiology, relation • Amnesia: retrograde, anterograde • Memory: multi-store, division, *amnesic patients, ways of distinguishing types of memory (KC, spiers maguire and burgess, vargha and khadem) • HM • Clive Wearing • Conclusion: cognition, physiology Cognition, as defined by Neisser, is all the processes by which the brain transforms, reduces, elaborates, stores, retrieves, and uses information. Physiology refers to the structures of the human body and…

Words 949 - Pages 4

The Multi Store Model Essay Psychology

The Multi Story Model The Multi Story Model is a theoretical explanation of how the human memory works. The model was first proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968. The theory suggests that the memory works in a sequence of three stages; the Sensory Memory, Short Term Memory, and Long Term Memory. Each stage must be completed to move onto the next one in a fixed sequence. The first stage of the memory is called the Sensory Memory (SM) but is also known as the present…

Words 449 - Pages 2

Essay about Sensory Memory

Outline and evaluate the Multi-store memory. The multi-store memory as proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin is composed of 3 main stores, all varying in capacity, duration, encoding and how they can be forgotten. These components are known as the sensory memory, short term memory and Long term memory, information flows in a linear direction. The sensory memory begins with stimuli coming into the memory (this can be visual, auditory or tactile). It has a duration of about a fraction of a second…

Words 522 - Pages 3

Essay on Cognitive Flashcards

senses (input) then encoded in the brain where it is processed; this processing is followed by an output. Define memory Memory is the encoding, storage and retrieval of information. Describe the Multi-Store Model of memory It is structural linear model. 3 stores: Sensory memory (SM): capacity: duration: encoding: Information is passed to the STM if we pay attention Short-term memory(STM): capacity: 7 + or – 2 items (can be extended by chunking) duration: 10-20 seconds (can be extended by maintenance…

Words 1863 - Pages 8

Cognitive Psychology Essay

scientific and reliable as you can have greater control over variables in lab. But this type of research doesn’t tell us much about the real world – had low ecological validity. 2. Field Experiments: Take place in natural situation (e.g. studies of memory or attention in a school environment), have more ecological validity, but less control over other variables. 3. Natural Experiments: Involve making observations of a naturally occurring situation. Experimenter has little control of the variables,…

Words 1341 - Pages 6

Intro. Cognitive Neuroscience Essays

Brain waves Alpha Beta Theta Delta 3/27 Tape recordings 29/30 4/1 Tape recordings 36/37 4/3 Tape recordings 38 4/8 Tape 39/40 4/10 Tape 41 4/15 Tape 42/43 4/17 Tape 44 4/24 Tape 45 4/29 Tape 46 5/2 Tape 47 Chapter 9 Learning & Memory Attention has one function allows us to do something in that assimilated world and then we do it in the real world learning helps to…

Words 3626 - Pages 15

Essay on Psychology: Child and Wedding Irreversibility Child

health status (chronic illness) 2. Describe changes in eating habits during the preschool years. How many calories does the average preschooler need? * How to cope with picky eating? 1) let them help pick out fruits & vegetables at the store 2) kids like to try food they help make 3) try to make meals at stress free time 4) offer choices/ varieties (broccoli or string beans?) 3. Describe the development of the prefrontal cortex during the play years and its role in impulse control…

Words 1811 - Pages 8

Olfaction and Schizophrenia Essay

online 13 August 2010 Keywords: α7-nACh Odor discrimination Olfaction Behavior α-bungarotoxin MLPEST AB S T R A C T Previous studies have shown that schizophrenics have decreased expression of α7-nicotinic acetylcholine (α7) receptors in the hippocampus and other brain regions, paranoid delusions, disorganized speech, deficits in auditory gating (i.e., inability to inhibit neuronal responses to repetitive auditory stimuli), and difficulties in odor discrimination and detection. Here we use mice…

Words 9473 - Pages 38