Trace decay theory - Hebb

1. Trace decay theory - Hebb Cue-Dependency- Tulving Reconstructive - Bartlett Tulving suggested cues are extra pieces of information that help to locate an item in LTM. The cues must be encoded at he same time as memory. Context cues are the environment that can trigger memory: smell, sight, taste. State cues are internal triggers that may be cognitive, physiological or emotional. (1974) Bartlett maintained memory wasn’t like a tape recorder and the idea is that memory isn't perfectly formed, encoded and retrieved. Past experiences for individuals would affect memories for events. Input would be perception of an event, processing would be interpretation and perception. Interpretation includes previous experience and schemata. Schemata are idea sand concepts and scripts about the world, which tell you how to behave in certain situations . Memory of an event includes traces at the time, previous experience, retrieving knowledge that has been altered to fit with knowledge person has. (1932) Bartlett thought of the idea of reconstructive memory in a game of Chinese Whispers, where a story or phrase is passed around and by the end the story is different from the original story. He used an Native American folk story called ‘War of Ghosts’ which was unfamiliar to participants and wasn’t from heir culture, so didn't fit in with existing schemata. When he asked them to recall the story it became shorter going from 330 to 180 words. Participants altered the story by filling in their own memories to make it make sense. They therefore reconstructed their memory. Criticisms of the Cue-Dependency theory is that context and state may not be different. It may be that particular contexts evoke corresponding states, so all affects are state dependant. It doesn't explain why emotionally charged memories remain vivid without the presence of context cues. It only really explains forgetting from long-term memory, suggesting it is not present in STM.

2. Levels of Processing – Craik& Lockhart -1972 & Craik &Tulving- 1975 In the original test that Craik and Tulving conducted in 1975, they presented participants with a list of words via a tachistoscope. The words had questions with yes and no answers and corresponded to one of the Levels of Processing. They were then asked later to recognise the words from the original lists. It was found that there were significantly better results from words processed semantically, and also if a question was answered yes, rather than no a word was recalled better.