COGNITIVE - Memory Flashcards
what is the short term memory’s duration?
limited duration
what study offers support for the short term memory having a limited duration?
Peterson & Peterson 1959
nonsense trigrams study
what is the short term memory’s capacity?
limited capacity
what study offers support for the short term memory having a limited capacity?
Jacobs 1887
recalling strings of digits/letters
Who developed the 7 plus of minus 2 theory?
What does this theory explain?
Miller 1956
most people can recall only 7 plus or minus 2 digits/letters from the STM.
what is the short term memory’s way of encoding?
mostly acoustic encoding
what study offers support for the short term memory encoding acoustically?
Baddeley 1966
acoustically similar and dissimilar words & semantically similar and dissimilar words
what is the duration of the long term memory?
long duration
what study supports the idea that the long term memory has a long duration?
Bahrick 1975
recalling ex classmates using a free recall test, photo recognition and name recognition
how does the long term memory encode?
semantically
what study supports the idea that the long term memory encodes semantically?
Baddeley 1966
acoustically similar and dissimilar words & semantically similar and dissimilar words
Who developed the multistore model of memory?
Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968
What are the 3 types of memory in the MSM?
Sensory
Short tern
Long term
What is the role of the sensory memory in the MSM?
Stores info in a mostly unprocessed form for fractions of a second
What is the role of the short term memory in the MSM?
A system that stores info for a brief period of time
What is the role of the long term memory in the MSM?
Stores complex and diverse info for an unlimited amount of time
What is the capacity, duration and way of encoding for the sensory memory in the MSM?
Capacity: As much as the senses can reigster and one time
Duration: Fraction of a second
Encoding: Different stores for the different senses
What is the capacity, duration and way of encoding for the short term memory in the MSM?
Capacity:Limited capacity
Duration: A temporary store of around 10 - 15 seconds
Encoding: Arrives in raw but is stored acoustically
What is the capacity, duration and way of encoding for the long term memory in the MSM?
Capacity: Unknown but there seems to be no upper limit
Duration: Almost an entire lifetime
Encoding: Semantically- the meaning and importance of stimuli
What 3 studies support the MSM?
The recency effect
The primary effect
Korsakoff’s syndrome
What are 2 limitations of the the MSM?
In real life people do not always have to rehearse info in order for it to pass to the LTM
Simplified - Assumes that there is only 1 long term store and 1 short term store
How is information lost from the sensory memory in the MSM?
Through decay
How is information lost from the short term memory in the MSM?
Through decay and displacement
How is information lost from the long term memory in the MSM?
Failure to recall
Decay
Interference
Who developed the working memory model?
Baddeley & Hitch
What is the role of the central executive in the WMM?
Controls the two slave systems by directing attention and allocating them to tasks.
What is the role of the visuospatial scratchpad in the WMM?
Deals with temporary storage of visual and spatial information. It is known as the ‘‘inner eye’’
What is the role of the phonological loop in the WMM?
The sytem is comprised of the articulatory system the ‘‘inner voice’’ and the phonological store the ‘‘inner ear’’. Together these handle auditory material.
What is the role of the episodic buffer in the WMM?
Acts as a temporary store for combining diverse information.
What type of studies did Baddeley use to support the WMM?
Interference studies
What is meant by weapon focus?
The witness of a crime’s attention is drawn to the weapon in the crime. This results in reduction of ability to recall other details in the crime scene.
What was Loftus’ 1979 study?
Two conditions; man with greasy hands and man with blood stained knife in his hands.
What were the results of the 1979 study by Loftus?
49% in pen condition correctly identified the man.
33% in knife condition correctly identified the man.
What two studies can be used to support Loftus 1979?
Loftus & Messot 1987:
Two conditions; Pictures of man holding gun at cashier + pictures of man handing cashier cheque
Loftus & Burns 1982: Non-violent + violent films
What study can be used to criticise Loftus’ studies?
Christianson & Hubbinette 1993
In a real life crime setting people acurately remembered details despite the presence of a weapon, even months later.
The validity is increased through the long delay between event and recall.
What is meant by interference in the context of EWT?
Conflict between current and stored information.
Memories can become altered/modified/contaminated.
What is retro-active interference?
old information becomes difficult to recall because of current information.
Give an example of retro-active interference
During questioning the interviewer accidentally adds some incorrect information
What study acts as support for the interference theory?
Loftus & Zanni 1975
What criticisms can be made of Loftus & Zanni 1975
Artificial situation
Participants could not give fully conformed consent
The study may simply reflect ‘demand characteristics’ however, Loftus & Palmer 1975 disproves this.
How might being a child affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony? (3 reasons)
-Lack of schemas e.g. sexual abuse supported by Ceci & Bruck 1993 -Poorer retention/storage as time between encoding and retrieval increases. This occurs in adults but more severely in children supported by Flin et al 1992 -More suggestible supported by Leichtman and Ceci 1995
How might elderly people be affected by age and ability to correctly recall information?
Much more likely to make mistakes
Studies such as Yarmey 1984 found that elderly people had less confidence in their testimonies.
Faulker & Cohen found that elderly people were much more susceptible to the effects of misleading information
Memon et al replicated the Flin et al study older groups (6-33) and (60 to 82). Questioned 35 minutes after an event age had little effect on accuracy of recall, however, a week later the older age group had declined significantly in their accuracy.
What are 2 organisational strategies for memory improvement?
conceptual hierarchies
mnemonics
Give 3 examples of visual mnemonics
Peg word method
Stories
Method of loci
How do stories work as a form of visual mnemonic?
Placing a list of items into story format. Each item forms a visual part of a story line.
How does method of loci work as a form of visual mnemonic?
identifying a set of familiar places with the items
What is the peg-word method?
retrieval cues e.g numbers 1-20 acts as learned ‘pegs’
What are the 4 stages of the cognitive interview?
Report everything
Context reinstatement
Recall in reverse order
Recall from different perspectives
How does ‘report everything’ help recall in the cognitive interview?
It encourages witnesses to report all details. It gets the witness to mentally revisit the scene and reconstruct it in their mind.
How does ‘context reinstatement’ hep recall in the cognitive interview?
It recreates the scene of the incident in the witness’ mind. It includes the sights, sounds and smells but importantly it attempts to model the emotions and feelings of the person at the time. This is based on the concept of cue dependent memory we are more likely to recall information if it is in a similar context to when it was first experienced or learned
How does ‘recall in reverse order’ help recall in the cognitive interview?
once a memory has been stored there is more than one way of getting at it or retrieving it.when finding it challenging to access a memory to accessing the memory by approaching it from a different angle it may be easier.
How does ‘recall from different perspectives’ help in the cognitive interview?
when finding it challenging to access a memory to accessing the memory by approaching it from a different angle it may be easier.
Which study supports the cues and context theory?
Godden & Baddeley 1975
divers on land and in the sea
What is the encoding specificity principle?
Tulving (1979), found that the closer the cue to the target word the better our recall.
