Cognitive approach - Memory

Question 1

AO1 points on Multistore Model

Answer 1

• Developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin.
• Sometimes called the “Three Stage” memory model because it is a linear model of memory that proposes three distinct memory stores that have different characteristics: Sensory Memory, Short Term Memory (STM) and Long Term Memory (LTM).
• Memory is viewed as information which comes from our environment through the 5 senses. It is stored (briefly) in Sensory Memory, which lasts less than a second.
• If information is attended to, it flows into STM, which has a duration of up to 20 seconds. If it is rehearsed, it is encoded in LTM which has an unlimited duration.
• Information can be retrieved from LTM and brought back into STM. Information can be recalled from STM and brought into the conscious mind
• The rehearsal loop stores up to 9 items of information (7 +-2) and the more often information is “looped” through the STM, the more securely it is rehearsed.
• Atkinson & Shiffrin focused on two types of encoding: acoustic (sound) and semantic (meaning). They found the STM works mostly by acoustic encoding; LTM uses all types of encoding but favours semantic
• A lot of research into the Rehearsal Loop uses the Brown-Peterson Technique. This involves blocking rehearsal by getting participants to do an interference task like counting backwards in threes (eg 54, 51, 48…).
• Participants might learn meaningless information (like three-letter trigrams such as BHK) then perform the interference task for different durations. Participants forget most trigrams after 9 seconds of interference and almost all of them after 18 seconds. This tells us the duration of STM.
• Miller (1957) did an earlier study into “the Magic Number 7, plus or minus 2”. He found that STM has a capacity of 7 items (or “bits”) of information comfortably, but struggles to hold more than 9.
• Miller found that “bits” of information can be grouped together into “chunks”. STM can hold more information in chunks, but loses accuracy (eg recalling a whole face instead of remembering eye colour).
• Glanzer & Cunitz (1966) did another early study into forgetting. Asked to recall a list of words in any order, participants tended to recall more from the beginning/end of the list and fewer from the middle. This is the primacy/recency effect.
• It happens because primacy words are well-rehearsed and encoded in LTM, recency words are still in the Rehearsal Loop; middle words are displaced by recency words because of the limited capacity of STM. This is known as the Displacement Theory of forgetting.
• Atkinson & Shiffrin originally proposed that the Rehearsal Loop worked by repeating (looping) information over and over. This is Maintenance Rehearsal and it is similar to rote learning.
• Raaijmakers & Shiffrin (2003) later proposed another type of rehearsal – Elaborative Rehearsal. This involves semantic encoding by thinking about the meaning of information. This is similar to creating mind maps and is more effective for encoding information in LTM than Maintenance Rehearsal.

Question 2

AO2 application points on Multistore model

Answer 2

Eyewitnesses:-
- Eyewitnesses see events like crimes or accidents first hand but they are notoriously unreliable when they report on what they saw. There are many people in prison because they were falsely accused by eyewitnesses.
- Gary Wells (1996) reports the case of Ed Honacker who served 10 years for rape, after the victim identified him as her attacker. He was released in 1994 when DNA evidence proved his innocence.
- This might happen because of inattention. If eyewitnesses are distracted, key details might not reach STM. Other details might not reach LTM if they are not rehearsed. If the victim refuses to think about or talk about the crime because it was so traumatic, they won’t rehearse the information, at least not Elaborate Rehearsal.
- During a traumatic event, the eyewitness might not want to “chunk” the information, blotting out the “big picture” and focussing on individual details (eye colour, shape of nose); this makes misidentification more likely.
Clive Wearing and H.M:-
- Clive Wearing received brain damage to his hippocampus after a viral infection. Clive Wearing could still use his STM to remember things for about 20 seconds but then he would forget everything – he could not “make new memories”.
-The Multi Store Model can be applied to his case, because it suggests an inability to rehearse information into LTM.
- A similar case was H.M., a young man who had brain surgery in 1953 to cure his severe epilepsy. When the hippocampus was damaged, H.M. was left unable to make new memories.
- However, he still had a lot of memories from before his surgery, which suggests he still possessed LTM, but could no longer add to it.

Question 3

AO3 Evaluation points on Multistore Model (credibility)

Answer 3

• There’s a lot of research in support of the Multi Store Model, particularly into the primacy/recency effect and rehearsal.
• Studies like Glanzer & Cuntiz (1966) show how memories are displaced from STM when they exceed its capacity, which Miller (1957) shows to be 7 ±2 “bits” or “chunks”.
• There’s also a lot of support from case studies of unusual individuals like H.M. or Clive Wearing. The Multi Store Model explains their disability as a failure to rehearse information, preventing them from encoding information in LTM.
• The theory also has credibility on a commonsense level (face validity): it describes quite well what memory feels like, with some things being remembered for years but other things disappearing from your memory moments after they happen.

Question 4

AO3 Evaluation points on Multistore Model (Objections)

Answer 4

• Although H.M. and Clive Wearing seem to back up the Multi Store Model, other evidence contradicts it. Shallice & Warrington (1970) report a victim of a motorbike accident (K.F.) who could still add memories to LTM even though his STM was so damaged he couldn’t repeat back more than 2 digits. MSM cannot explain this but K.F.’s unusual condition does support the Working Memory Model.
• The model is based on lab experiments involving tasks like the Brown-Peterson Technique. These are quite artificial, often involving meaningless trigrams. In real life, you use your memory to recall information that is important to you and there are usually consequences if you forget.
• If the experiments into MSM lack ecological validity, then the model won’t explain how memory works in real life situations.

Question 5

AO3 Evaluation points on Multistore Model (Differences)

Answer 5

• The Multi Store Model can be compared to Working Memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Working Memory replaces STM in the model and provides a more detailed explanation of rehearsal and retrieval from LTM.
• Most psychologists consider Working Memory to be an improvement and a refinement on the (rather simplistic) Multi Store Model.
• Reconstructive Memory is a different approach to memory involving schemas. This theory explain why we mis-remember things (false memories), which the Multi Store Model doesn’t explain.
• However, in Working Memory it is the Central Executive that creates and retrieves schemas to help the slave systems do their jobs. This is another example of Working Memory incorporating and improving on the Multi Store Model.
• A different theory of memory is Levels of Processing Framework (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). This theory ignores separate stores altogether. It suggests that encoding a memory is about the “depth” of processing. Semantic encoding is much “deeper” than acoustic or visual encoding, making this information easier to remember.
• We also have much more capacity when we try to store meaningful things: most people can only store up to 9 numbers or trigrams but they can store up to 20 words. Richard Shiffrin used this idea when he introduced Elaborative Rehearsal to the MSM in 2002.

Question 6

AO3 Evaluation points on Multistore Model (Applications)

Answer 6

• The Multi Store Model of Memory tells us how to improve our memory in some situations. If you are an eyewitness then you need to pay close attention to encode information in STM. You then need to rehearse it. Repeating the information over and over works, but Elaborative
• Rehearsal is better because it encodes information semantically. For example, students should make mind maps or use colour coding to focus on meaning.
• The model may have application to helping people with dementia or brain damage. If patients struggle to rehearse new information, then writing things down and putting labels on things will help. Colour coding buttons on phones or remotes will also help because it brings in Elaborative Rehearsal.

Question 7

AO1 points on Long Term Memory

Answer 7

• This theory was proposed by Tulving.
• It is based on the Multi-Store Model idea of LTM, but it suggests there is a difference between episodic memory (eg remembering a family holiday in Disneyland) and more general memory (eg knowing that Disneyland is in Florida).
• Tulving makes a distinction between different types of LTM: procedural memory and declarative memory.
• Procedural memory is the memory of how to do things. It includes tying shoelaces, writing, tapping in your banking PIN and using a knife and fork. You may retain procedural memories even after you have forgotten being taught to do these things in the first place.
• Declarative memory is the memory of meaningful events. You might remember being taught to play the guitar, even if you’ve forgotten how to do it.
• Tulving splits declarative memory into two sub-types: Episodic and Semantic memory.
• Episodic memory is the memory of particular events and specific information: events, names and dates. It includes memories of things that have happened to you and information like a person’s address.
• Episodic memories seem to be perceptually encoded – they are linked to the 5 senses which is why they can be triggered (“cued”) by a sight or a sound or a smell.
• Tulving gives examples like remembering he has an appointment with a student the next day or recalling words from a list studied earlier as well as autobiographical memories (remembering details from your own past).
• Semantic memory involves the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language. It is the memory of relationships and how things fit together. It includes the memory that you have brothers or sisters, where things are located and what they do.
• ​Semantic memory is needed for language because words have meaning. Learning words in the first place involves episodic memory but once they are learned they go into the semantic store. Tulving gives examples like knowing that summers are hot in Kathmandu and knowing that July is the month after June.
• Clive Wearing is a musician who suffered brain damage from a viral infection. He suffered almost complete amnesia. He also lost the ability to encode new long term memories. Clive Wearing forgets everything within 30 seconds and is always “coming into consciousness”, feeling he is waking up for the first time.
• However, although Clive Wearing has lost his episodic memory, he still has semantic memory. When his wife Deborah enters the room he greets her joyously, believing he hasn’t seen her for years or even that they are meeting for the first time (even if she has only been gone for a minute). Although he has no episodic memories of Deborah, he has semantic knowledge of her: he remembers that he loves her.
• Clive Wearing also has intact procedural memory. He can still play piano and conduct a choir – although he cannot remember his musical education and as soon as the music stops he forgets he was performing and suffers a shaking fit.
• Blakemore discovered that damage to Clive Wearing’s brain had been to the hippocampus, which seems to be the part of the brain where the Short Term Memory (STM) rehearses information to encode it into LTM.

Question 8

AO2 application points on Long Term Memory

Answer 8

Jogging your memory:
- Tulving argues that episodic memory is encoded based on how it was experienced (the encoding specificity principle). This means that when a memory is stored details of time and space (when and where) are stored with it.
- This is why people can normally answer the question “When did that happen?” or “Where were you with that happened?” Even if they cannot give exact dates or places, they can reply, “Before the summer holidays,” or “At my old school.”
- This means that episodic memory can be “jogged” by context cues i.e. things that remind you of when/where the original memory was encoded.
- Godden & Baddeley (1974) tested this and found that divers who learned words underwater recalled them better underwater than back on dry land.
- Semantic memory doesn’t seem to be organised this way. Instead, it seems to work by using rules. For example, you might remember how to spell “receipt” by applying the rule “’i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.”
Dementia and Alzheimer’s:
- The most common symptom of dementia is difficulty to make new memories. STM (which rehearses information) is the first type of memory to go. Episodic memory is the next to go, as sufferers begin to forget autobiographical events. Usually, recent episodes are lost first, but sufferers still remember episodes from their young adulthood and youth.
- Semantic memory is lost later, when sufferers struggle with language and no longer recognise family members. As the disease advances, parts of memory which were previously intact also become impaired. Eventually all reasoning and language abilities are disrupted.
- Patients tend to display a loss of knowledge of semantic categories. Initially, they lose the ability to distinguish fine categories, such as species of animals or types of objects, but, over time, this lack of discrimination becomes more general.
- For e.g. At first, a patient with advanced dementia may see a spaniel and say, “That is a dog.” Later, they may just say, “That is an animal”.

Question 9

AO3 Evaluation points on Long Term Memory (Credibility)

Answer 9

• There’s a lot of research in support of Tulving’s distinctions. Some of this is case studies of amnesia patients like Clive Wearing who have lost episodic memory but still have semantic memory.
• The deterioration of dementia patients also suggests that episodic and semantic memory are separate because episodic memory is lost first and semantic memory last.
• The Classic Cognitive Study by Baddeley (1966b) also supports the existence of semantic memory. Baddeley found that participants struggled with word lists linked by a common theme, which suggests the semantic similarity confused LTM. Unrelated word lists were not confusing. This suggests at least part of LTM works semantically.
• The Contemporary Study by Schmolck et al. (2002) also supports the idea of long term memory being located in a specific part of the brain i.e. the temporal cortex.
• Tulving carried out a case study of Kent Cochrane (K.C.) who suffered brain damage in a motor accident in 1981. Like Clive Wearing. K.C.’s hippocampus was destroyed in the injury and he lost all episodic memory.
• However, K.C. could still remember things he had learned in books, like dates or definitions (such as the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite) - in other words, his semantic memory was still intact. This is evidence for a difference between episodic and semantic memory.
• An example of this is the case study of K.F. who suffered brain damage in a motorbike accident. Like Clive Wearing and K.C., K.F. suffered damage to the temporal lobe which made it almost impossible for him to rehearse new memories.
• However, Shallice & Warrington (1970) report that K.F. could still remember episodes. This is a problem for the multi store model (on which Tulving’s ideas are based) but it does suggest that episodic memory is a special type of LTM.

Question 10

AO3 Evaluation points on Long Term Memory (Objections)

Answer 10

• It seems as if semantic and episodic memory both rely on each other and might not be all that separate.
• Damage to the temporal cortex of the brain seems to cause problems with both types of memory, as does dementia. This suggests declarative and non-declarative memory are located in the same place and may turn out to be the same thing working in different ways.
• Squire & Zola (1998) put this to the test. They examined children with amnesia (who never got a chance to acquire a semantic store in the first place) and adults with amnesia (who had semantic and episodic memories from before suffering brain damage).
• The participants’ episodic and semantic memories seem to be equally impaired which supports the idea that the two memory functions are linked or even the same thing.
• Squire & Zola propose that K.C.’s problems were due to damage to his frontal lobe - in other words, not a problem with his memories as such, more a problem with his ability to understand and make sense of his own memories.
• This leads ton the final criticism of Tulving’s ideas - that it’s really hard to define episodic and semantic memory in a measurable way. This means that Tulving’s concepts are not operationalisable.

Question 11

AO3 Evaluation points on Long Term Memory (Differences)

Answer 11

• Tulving’s ideas tie in closely with Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Multi Store Model of Memory, which proposes that LTM is a separate memory store from STM and that LTM is created through rehearsal.
• Tulving would agree, but argues there are different types of encoding, episodic and semantic. Shiffrin seems to have come round to this view and added Elaborative Rehearsal to his model in 2003.
• These ideas also link to the theory of Reconstructive Memory and Bartlett’s ideas about schemas. Schemas are meaningful patterns of information: they can be stereotypes, but they are also categories (“farm animals”, “kitchen appliances”) which might differ from person to person and culture to culture.
• In other words, they are separate semantic stores. If Tulving’s ideas are true, this makes Reconstructive Memory more plausible. If Reconstructive Memory is true, then semantic memory might have much more influence over episodic memory than Tulving imagined, because schemas influence how we reconstruct our memories.

Question 12

AO3 Evaluation points on Long Term Memory (Applications)

Answer 12

• The distinction between semantic memory and episodic memory helps us understand patients with memory loss like Clive Wearing, K.C. or people in the early stages of dementia.
• Though they may be confused by their amnesia, they might still remember relationships and meanings and this could be used to calm and focus them. Showing these patients meaningful things and getting them to talk about the meaning can be a type of Cognitive Stimulation Therapy such as getting them to talk about how familiar songs or activities make them feel.
• The distinction should help you with your revision. No matter how charming or colourful your teacher’s explanations are, those are episodic memories that are specific to the time and place you encoded them i.e. your Psychology lesson, not the exam hall.
• Semantic knowledge can be recalled anywhere, without needing “cues”, but to encode things semantically you have to understand them. This means revising by creating your own mind maps, category lists and charts.

Question 13

AO1 points on Working Memory Model

Answer 13

• Developed by Baddeley and Hitch after Baddeley’s realisation that memory was in fact more complicated than the Multi Store Model made out, in particular the role of Short Term Memory (STM).
• Baddeley proposes Working Memory as something the carries out the functions of STM and some of the work of LTM as well.
• Baddeley noticed in many earlier memory experiments that participants who were asked to listen to two things at the same time or look at two things at the same time became confused.
• However participants were quite able to listen to something while looking at something else. This suggests that sound and vision are processed separately by memory (this idea is the dual test paradigm)
• Working Memory is a temporary storage system under attentional control that underpins
• Within Working Memory, one memory system handles sound (the Phonological Loop or “inner ear”) and another handles vision (the Visuo Spatial Sketchpad or “inner eye”).
• These two “slave systems” are managed by the Central Executive. The CE itself doesn’t handle memories but it allocates them to the slave systems. It retrieves information the 5 senses or from LTM and assigns it to the Loop or the VSSP for processing. It has non-specific modality – it can process sight, sound or any of the 5 senses.
• The Phonological Loop seems to be split into two sub-systems: an Articulatory Loop (inner voice) which voices information you are rehearsing and a Primary Acoustic Store which just holds on to the memory of sounds.
• The Articulatory Loop (or Process) engages in something called “subvocalising” which is that mental “talking to yourself” that goes on in your head. It’s similar to the Rehearsal Loop in the MSM.
• Baddeley published a new version of Working Memory with a new, third slave system: the Episodic Buffer. This system works between the Loop and the VSSP and specialises in episodic LTM, bringing elements of information together into patterns or stories.
• The Episodic Buffer is multi-modal - it’s not limited to one sense only, like the other two slave systems. It’s job seems to be to “bind” memories together, weaving visual memories and phonological memories into single episodes, which then get stored in Episodic LTM.
• It is a temporary storage system that is able to combine information from the loop, the sketchpad, long-term memory, or indeed from perceptual input, into a coherent episode
• The Central Executive picks and chooses the information from the Phonological Loop and the VSSP that go into the Episodic Buffer to form an episode of memory.
• The Episodic Buffer also seems to “download” episodes from LTM, sending them on to the Central Executive to be analysed and maybe recalled to conscious memory.
• Participants in tests get confused by lists of items that sound similar but not by items with similar meaning. This suggests that the Phonological Loop codes acoustically and gets over-loaded.
• For example, Baddeley found that similar-sounding letters (eg V, B, G, T, P, C) are not recalled as well as dissimilar sounding letters (eg W, X, K, R, Y).
• Memory recall of words is ruined if participants are asked to recite irrelevant words aloud at the same time. This also seems to block the Phonological Loop.
• Nelson Cowan suggests that Working Memory can be more efficient if it “chunks” information together; his experiments show that Working Memory in humans only handles 4 “chunks” at a time.
• The Phonological Loop seems to be located in the left hemisphere, specifically in the temporal lobe.
• The VSSP is in the right hemisphere, with simple tasks in the occipital lobe and complicated ones in the parietal lobe.
• The Episodic Buffer seems to be in both hemispheres (bilateral) but particularly in the hippocampus (which links to the Schmolck et al study)
• The Central Executive seems to be linked to the frontal lobes

Question 14

AO2 Application points on Working Memory Model

Answer 14

The cocktail party effect:
- The “Cocktail Party Effect” is the confusion you experience when you are trying to listen to two conversations at once. It’s an example of the Dual Task Paradigm. Working Memory explains why we experience this. - The Loop and the VSSP are supposed to work together but if you have two sources of information that must be processed by the same slave system (two sets of sounds or two sets of images) then the slave system gets overloaded.
- This doesn’t happen when you are processing two different sources of information – which is why you can play on your Xbox and listen to your mother at the same time (despite her telling you that you can’t).
Dementia and Alzheimer’s:
- Dementia sufferers have particular trouble with dual tasks. Baddeley & Erses adapted tasks for Alzheimer’s sufferers and found they still struggled with this, Baddeley suggests this is a fault with the Central Executive which may explain a lot of dementia symptoms.
- The dual load can be reduced by creating a quiet environment for dementia sufferers without background noise (turn off the TV/radio etc).
- The Episodic Buffer was introduced to the model to explain why brain-damaged patients can still recall stories or lists without the use of LTM. It may explain why Cognitive Stimulation works for dementia patients.
- Cognitive Stimulation uses prompts and activities to reawaken early memories and get patients to talk about their lives. Pulling memories together into a story is the job of the Episodic Buffer which can “pick up the slack” from the other two slave systems.

Question 15

AO3 Evaluation points for Working Memory Model (Credibility)

Answer 15

• There’s a lot of research in support of Working Memory, particularly into the dual task paradigm. These show that some dual tasks are more difficult than others (for example, ones where there are two sources of information with the same encoding) and Working Memory explains why this should be.
• The idea of the “inner ear” and the “inner eye” are quite easy to understand and match up with what it feels like when we remember things (face validity).
• The model has also been backed up by brain scanning which shows acoustic and visual encoding going on in different parts of the brain.
• The KF Case Study supports Working Memory. KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory.
• KF struggled to process verbal information but his visual memory was unaffected. This shows that visual information (VSSP) is processed separately from verbal information (phonological loop).

Question 16

AO3 Evaluation points for Working Memory Model (Objections)

Answer 16

• New data has emerged which the original (1974) model couldn’t explain, such as the brain-damaged patients who could repeat complex stories. However, the addition of the Episodic Buffer (2000) does improve the model.
• More research needs to be done on the Episodic Buffer because, unless the other two slave systems, it isn’t completely clear what it does.
• The model is based on lab experiments involving dual tasks. These are quite artificial. In real life, even at cocktail parties, you use your other senses (such as paying attention to body language or lip-reading when someone speaks).
• If the experiments into Working Memory lack ecological validity, then the model won’t explain how memory works in real life situations.
• Lieberman (1980) criticises working memory by pointing out out that blind people have spatial memory (they can remember where things are and not bump into them) even though they have never had any visual information. Lieberman argues that the VSSP should have two different components: visual memory and spatial memory.

Question 17

AO3 Evaluation points for Working Memory Model (Differences)

Answer 17

• Working Memory is similar to the Multi Store Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin). In fact, you might say Working Memory is a development of the MSM, with Working Memory replacing the STM Store.
• It’s still a linear model of memory, with the idea of information coming from the senses to the Sensory Store, being processed in Working Memory then encoded into LTM, from which is can be retrieved by the Central Executive.
• Working Memory is regarded as the most successful memory model at the moment because it is supported by evidence about the structure of the brain and the Working Memory model gets updated in the light of new discoveries in neuroscience.
• It is a model that is still developing (such as the addition of the Episodic Buffer in 2000) whereas the MSM is “fixed” and has not developed much since the ‘70s.
• Reconstructive Memory is a different approach to memory involving schemas.
• However, in Working Memory it is the Central Executive that creates and retrieves schemas to help the slave systems do their jobs. This is another example of Working Memory incorporating and improving on other theories.

Question 18

AO3 Evaluation points for Working Memory Model (Applications)

Answer 18

• Working Memory tells us how to improve our memory in some situations. If you have to encode something in one particular way (like listening to a radio broadcast) then remove competing information (by muting the TV).
• However, it suggests you can concentrate on two differently coded sources at once – so you can do revision by copying a mind map while listening to a podcast.
• The model may have application to helping people with dementia. Using the Episodic Buffer seems to help people who cannot encoded memories in LTM or have trouble retrieving LTM. This means using Cognitive Stimulation: playing an old song and asking the patient to tell the story of how they first heard it.

Question 19

AO1 points on Reconstructive Memory

Answer 19

• Developed by Bartlett.
• Bartlett’s central insight was that memory is not like a tape recorder: it doesn’t faithfully play back our experiences. Instead, it changes or “reconstructs” them imaginatively.
• Bartlett’s ideas were neglected for decades but were brought back into the mainstream again when they were supported by experimental research by Elizabeth Loftus.
• Loftus argued that Reconstructive Memory implies that eyewitnesses to crimes will often be unreliable.
• Bartlett’s main idea is that our memory is grouped into categories called “schemas”. We have schemas for all sorts of thing – for what a “criminal” is like, for what counts as “food” and how to behave at the service counter in a fast food restaurant.
• For example, in a Japanese sushi bar you might not know what behaviour is expected of you and it would be hard to make sense of what the other customers were doing and eating.
• But if you paid attention, you would figure it out: you would start to develop a new schema.
• Sometimes we assimilate new information, changing our schemas to fit what we have learned
• Sometimes we accommodate new information, changing our memories to keep our schemas intact and unchanged. Bartlett explains how we do this by levelling and sharpening.
• Levelling involves removing or downplaying details from the memory and sharpening involves adding or exaggerating details.
• Memory makes use of schemas to organise things. When we recall an event, our schemas tell us what is supposed to happen. The schemas might fill in the gaps in our memory (confabulation) and even put pressure on our mind to remember things in a way that fits in with the schema, removing or changing details.
• For example, you might remember the Japanese diners eating with chopsticks (because that’s part of your schema for Japanese meals) whereas in reality the Japanese use their fingers to eat sushi.
• Bartlett came up with the idea of “reconstructive memory” during a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’. He developed a study based on this game. Bartlett showed 20 students a Native American ghost story (The War of the Ghosts) which had unusual features.
• He asked them to read it then recall it on several occasions after a few hours, days, weeks or even years – a technique called serial reproduction (and a Repeated Measures design). Bartlett compared how the recalled versions of the story differed from the original.
• Participants shortened the story when they reproduced it, from 330 words to 180 words, with the shortest reproduction happening after the longest gap (two years).
• Participants also confabulated details, changing unfamiliar parts of the story to familiar ideas in line with their schemas: canoes and paddles became boats and oars, hunting seals became fishing.
• Participants rationalised the story, coming up with explanations for baffling parts of the story. For example, in later reproductions, participants missed out the “ghosts” and just described a battle between Native American tribes.
• Bartlett didn’t use many experimental controls, asking participants to reproduce the story whenever was convenient. He bumped into one student in the street two years later and asked her to reproduce The War of the Ghosts there and then. The changes in the stories were also down to his own subjective opinion.
• Allport & Postman showed participants a drawing of an argument on a subway train. They were asked to describe it to another participant through serial reproduction (like Chinese Whispers).
• The black character was better dressed and more respectable than the white character but, after serial reproduction, white participants tended to reverse their appearances. Some even described the black character as holding a knife.
• Loftus & Palmer (1974) showed students film clips of real car crashes and set them a questionnaire to answer. There was only one critical question which asked about the speed of the cars.
• Some students read a critical question with an intense verb (“How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”) but others read a less intense verb like “hit”.
• Participants exposed to the “smashed” verb recalled a higher speed (40.8mph on average) than participants exposed to “hit” (34mph).
• Loftus & Palmer tested participants again a week later, asking them if there was any broken glass in the film clip. In fact there had been no broken glass.
• This was falsely recalled by 12% of the Control group (who had never been asked about the speed of the cars) and 14% of the “hit” group; however, 32% of the “smashed” group falsely recalled broken glass.
• Loftus concludes that eyewitnesses are unreliable because they are influenced by leading questions. When we reconstruct memories, we change them by incorporating new information we learned after the incident.
• We also incorporate our schemas (expecting broken glass after a “smash” - this is sharpening the memory). We cannot tell which parts of a memory are original and which parts are later changes and there’s no way of going back to the original.

Question 20

AO2 Application points on Reconstructive Memory

Answer 20

Unreliable Eyewitnesses:
- Eyewitnesses to crimes and accidents often have to reproduce their testimony many times to journalists, the police or a court – this is rather like the serial reproduction in Bartlett’s study. You would expect levelling and sharpening of memories to happen.
- Eyewitnesses are also exposed to leading questions. This may come from the police (who have their own suspects in mind) or lawyers (who are trying to show someone to be innocent or guilty).
- If Loftus is right, this should make eyewitness testimony very unreliable, since the memories change when we learn more information.
- Allport & Postman also shows how schemas distort memory, especially prejudices. We remember things the way we think they ought to be.
- The Devlin Report concluded that British juries should not convict someone where the only evidence is a single eyewitness.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s:
- Understanding schemas can help with supporting dementia sufferers. When memories are lost, the world becomes a frightening and confusing place. Schemas help us make sense of things if they can be applied.
- Carers may use familiar music from the past, old activities (gardening, playing games with children) or reminiscing about long ago events to activate schemas that sufferers are comfortable with.
- This can be seen in the “dementia village” at Hogeway. Residents choose to live and spend time in areas of the village themed around their schemas – classy and cultural, working class and rustic, urban and busy, quiet and religious. The idea that we should “go along” with dementia sufferers’ schemas is central to Validation Therapy.

Question 21

AO3 Evaluation of Reconstructive memory (Credibility)

Answer 21

• The idea of schemas has been supported in a lot of studies since the 1930s. Loftus carried out a range of lab experiments into reconstructive memory, all of which had tight experimental controls, standardised procedures and collected quantitative data, making them quite objective and reliable.
• Schemas also explains the puzzling phenomenon of false memories. In 2005, John Charles De Menezes was mistaken for a terrorist and shot by police after the 7/7 London Bombing.
• Many eyewitnesses saw the shooting but their recollections were widely different and often exaggerated. Their schemas about the appearance and behaviour of terrorists might have sharpened and levelled their memories.

Question 22

AO3 Evaluation of Reconstructive memory (Objections)

Answer 22

• The early study by Bartlett was not at all scientific. Bartlett did not follow standardised procedures, getting his students to reproduce the story as-and-when.
• He had no scoring system for measuring changes in recall other than counting the number of words. This makes his research conclusions subjective.
• Bartlett’s research was particularly unrealistic, getting Cambridge University students to recall Native American ghost stories. This strange task lacks ecological validity, although Bartlett claimed the task had to be strange so as to prompt the participants to level and sharpen the details in their memories.
• The Allport & Postman study is widely misreported. You will see many Psychology text books and websites claiming a picture was shown to participants and that white participants wrongly recalled the black man as holding the knife. But this was not in the original study. This seems to be a case of ‘Chinese Whispers’ happening to psychologists!

Question 23

AO3 Evaluation of Reconstructive memory (Differences)

Answer 23

• Reconstructive Memory has links to Tulving’s theories about Semantic Memory. Tulving argues our memory has semantic stores where we keep our understanding of relationships and rules which is very similar to schemas.
• If Reconstructive Memory is true, this makes Tulving’s ideas more plausible. Moreover, semantic memory might have much more influence over episodic memory than Tulving imagined, because schemes dictate how we reconstruct our memories.
• A criticism of Reconstructive Memory compared to the other theories is that it doesn’t explain how memory is reconstructed. The other cognitive theories of memory describe the processes at work in rehearsing, retrieving and recalling.
• These processes have been linked to specific parts of the brain thanks to brain scanning and research on patients with lesions in specific parts of the brain. Reconstructive Memory is much more vague about how schemas work and where they are located.

Question 24

AO3 Evaluation of Reconstructive memory (Applications)

Answer 24

• The idea of schemas helps us understand some things about patients with memory loss like Clive Wearing or people in the early stages of dementia. Though they may be confused by their amnesia, they might still remember important schemas and this could be used to calm and focus them.
• For example, Clive Wearing still loved his wife and loved music, which he could still play. Validation Therapy involves “going along” with delusional ideas so as not to cause distress when a patient’s schemas conflict with the real world.
• Elizabeth Loftus is often called to US courts as an “expert witness” to advise juries about how much trust they should put in eyewitnesses.
• Loftus has been involved in a number of “recovered memory” cases where someone receiving psychotherapy starts to recall sexual abuse from their childhood that they had not known about before.
• Loftus argues these are “false memories” based on leading questions from therapists and schemas about child abuse in the media.