Ltm Jan 8 Test

Question 1

What are the 3 LTM types?

Answer 1

Procedural
Semantic
Episodic

Question 2

Procedural LTM - memories for actions or skills; how to do something.

Give 2 of 3 points:

Answer 2

Usually recalled without conscious effort.
Not time-stamped
May be taught to us

Question 3

Semantic LTM - knowledge of facts about the world and meanings of words and concepts, rather like a combined encyclopaedia and dictionary.

Give 2 of 3 points:

Answer 3

Doesn’t require effort to recall
Not time-stamped
May be taught to us

Question 4

Episodic LTM - Memories of events in our everyday lives, rather like a diary.

Give 2 of 3 points:

Answer 4

Recalled with conscious effort
Time-stamped
Not taught to us
Made up of several events interwoven

Question 5

Give supporting evidence for the different types of LTM:

Answer 5

• Clive Wearing and HM shown distinctions between LTM types.
• Procedural memories intact with CW and HM, so different brain areas
• Brain scans shows they are physically separate… episodic = right side of prefrontal cortex, semantic = left side

Question 6

Give contradictory evidence for the different LTM types:

Answer 6

Episodic and semantic part of a single, declarative memory (can be consciously recalled) store. Due to significant degree of interdependence -> irl, recalling events requires semantic.

Question 7

Theories of Forgetting: What are the two types of interference?

Answer 7

Proactive (old interferes with similar new)
Retroactive (new interferes with similar old)

Question 8

Theories of Forgetting: What study supports the two types of interference?

Answer 8

McGeoch and McDonald studied the effect of similarity on retroactive interference.

Participants learned a 10 word list until 100% accurate.
Learned another list of 10 words and tested again on the original list.

Those whose second list were synonyms to the first did worst.
Those whose second list of words were numbers (not similar) did best.
Shows retroactive interference is greatest with more similar memories.

Question 9

Theories of Forgetting: What study contradicts the two types of interference?

Answer 9

Tulving and Psotka -> interference is temporary and can be overcome using cues.

Gave word lists organised into categories, one list at a time.
Recall became worse as they learned more lists (proactive interference).

At the end, participants were given a cues recall test, where they were told the names of the categories.
Recall increased back to original accuracy again.

Showed that interference only causes a temporary loss of access to the LTM, and this can be overcome with cues.

Question 10

Theories of Forgetting: General Evaluation for the two types of interference?

Answer 10

Baddeley and Hitch -> rugby players.

Asked rugby players to recall the teams they played against that season.
Recall for games a few weeks ago was better if players had missed one or more games since then.
Suggests interference is the reason that more players performed worse on recall.

Strength: interference can explain irl forgetting not just in Lab environments.
Weakness: confounding variables.

Question 11

Theories of Forgetting: what are the different cues?

Answer 11

Context dependent forgetting -> try and fail to recall information in a different environment to the one in which the information was learned in.
State dependent forgetting-> try and fail to recall information on a different internal state to that in which we learned the information in.

Question 12

Theories of Forgetting: Give the study that supports context dependent forgetting.
Then give its weakness.

Answer 12

Godden and Baddeley -> context (divers)
Divers learned word lists underwater/ on beach. Half of each group were tested on land or underwater (ABBA) for recall…

Divers who learned and tested in same environment recalled better due to less retrieval failure.

Weakness // huge environment change unlikely irl

Question 13

Theories of forgetting: Give the study that supports state dependent forgetting.
Then give its weakness.

Answer 13

Cather and Cassady -> sedative

Similar design to divers… Participants took a sedative or not (drowsy or not), then learned words.

Those tested in different states did worse, those tested in same did better due to more retrieval cues.

Weakness // Highly controlled

Question 14

Theories of Forgetting: General evaluation of retrieval failure cues:

Answer 14

WEAKNESS)) Two studies (divers and sedatives) may mean the difference must be great to lead t forgetting.

STRENGTH)) Cognitive interview success -> recreates context.

Question 15

What is an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 15

Refers to the description given by people of an event they experienced.

Question 16

Why is an eyewitness testimony important?

Answer 16

It includes events of crime, where people must be identified and details given for trials.

Question 17

What is misleading information?

Answer 17

Leading questions and post-event discussion can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies.

Question 18

Who studied the effect of leading questions on EWT?

Answer 18

Loftus and Palmer -> Ps shown a tape of colliding cars.
5 groups of 9 (45 altogether) asked questions with a different intensity of verb used.

Plus, a week later, they were asked if they saw broken glass when there wasn’t.

The average estimated speed increased as verb strength increased.

‘Smashed’ was almost 10mph higher than ‘contacted’.

Question 19

Who studied the effect of post-event discussion on EWT?

Answer 19

Gabert et Al asked participant pairs to watch videos of the same crime from different perspectives, revealing slightly different details.

71% of participants recalled events they had not seen in their video but picked up during post-event discussion.

Question 20

What are the four distinct components of The Cognitive Interview?

Answer 20

Report everything
Mental reinstatement
Change order
Change perspective

Question 21

What is Report Everything in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 21

The interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail, even those which may seem irrelevant.

Question 22

Why is Report Everything done in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 22

Seemingly trivial details may be important and could act as cues triggering recall of other important details.

Question 23

What is Mental Reinstatement of the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 23

The interviewer encourages the interviewer to mentally recreate the original crime scene in their mind.
Eg, senses, weather, their emotions.

Question 24

Why is Mental Reinstatement done for the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 24

May act as cues or triggers to reduce the risk of context dependent or state dependent forgetting.

Question 25

What is Changing the order for the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 25

The interviewer may try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident.
Eg. Reversing the order by recalling the end of the incident first, working backwards.

Question 26

Why is Changing the Order done for the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 26

To avoid the use of schemas (expectations of how the event must have happened) which may create inaccuracies based on what we think makes sense. It also prevents dishonesty as it’s harder to produce an untruthful account in reverse.

Question 27

What is Changing the Perspective in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 27

The interviewee is asked to recall the incident from different perspectives,
eg. Imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time

Question 28

Why is Changing the Perspective done in the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 28

It disrupts the effect of schema and expectations on recall as otherwise people may report their expectations of what would have happened rather than genuine memories.

Question 29

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 29

It was developed by Fisher in 1987 and includes some additional elements focusing on the social dynamics of the interview.

Question 30

What four elements are involved in the ENHANCED cognitive interview?

Answer 30

Use of eye contact
Reducing EW anxiety
Minimising distractions
Using open-ended questions

Question 31

Why was the Cognitive Interview developed?

Answer 31

It was developed by Fisher and Geiselman in response to research showing EWT inaccuracy.
It is a way of interviewing EWs to help them retrieve more accurate memories, using insights from cognitive psychology.

Question 32

Give a STRENGTH of the Cognitive Interview:

Answer 32

A meta-analysis of 53 studies by Kohnken et al (1999) found, on average, an increase of 81% in the amount of correct information generated in the Cognitive Interview compared with standard interviewing techniques.

This shows that CIs are indeed effective at promoting more accurate recall than a standard interview.

Question 33

Give a WEAKNESS of the Cognitive Interview:

Answer 33

Most of the studies tested volunteer witnesses (usually college students) in the laboratory and it is possible that this artificial situation doesn’t reflect what happens when participants know that they have actually witnessed a real crime.

Question 34

What is anxiety?

Answer 34

A state of emotional and physical arousal in response to stress, involving worry, tension, increased heart rate, etc.

Question 35

How might anxiety affect EWT?

Answer 35

It is unclear whether the effects of anxiety make EWT better or worse, as there is evidence for both

Question 36

What research is there to suggest anxiety reduces recall?

Answer 36

Valentine and Mesout (2009) -> London Dungeon

Wore a heart monitor. Those with high anxiety were less likely to identify an actor they had met during the visit.

Question 37

What research is there to suggest that high anxiety increases EWT accuracy?

Answer 37

Yuille and Cutshall (1986), Carrie’s out interviews to an attempted gun shop theft where the shopkeeper shot and liked the thief.
4 months later, the 13 witnesses were once again interviewed.

Those who reported higher stress were the most accurate.

Question 38

It has been suggested that the relationship between anxiety and EWT accuracy is like an inverted U-shape. This is known a the…

Answer 38

… Yerkes Dodson law and means that medium levels of emotional and physical arousal improve EWT accuracy, but very high or low levels of arousal make it worse.

Question 39

What is the study for Leading Questions?

Answer 39

Loftus and Palmer
- 45 Ps (5 groups of 9)
- Different verb intensities
- cars colliding tape
- asked estimated speed

-> A week later, asked if there was broken glass (there wasn’t).
‘Smashed’ condition nearly 10mph higher than ‘contacted’.
High very strength = more likely the participants believed there was broken glass.

Question 40

What is the study for Misleading Information (post-event discussion)?

Answer 40

Gabert et al
- Pairs of participants watched videos of the same crime but from different perspectives, revealing different details
- given discussion time before completing recall tests
-> 71% of participants recalled events from the discussion. In the control group, this was obviously 0% due to no discussion.

Question 41

What was the study for suggesting that anxiety ENHANCES EWT accuracy?

Answer 41

Yuille and Cutshall
- 13 EW interviewed on attempted gun shop theft, where the shopkeeper shot and killed the thief.
4 months later, accounts remained highly accurate compared to their original interviews.

Question 42

What was the study for suggesting that anxiety reduces EWT accuracy?

Answer 42

Johnson and Scott or Valentine and Mesout

J+S
- Waiting room
- two conditions (high and low anxiety)
- Participants shown 50 photos and asked to identify the person that came out of the laboratory.
-> participants in high anxiety condition were less accurate at identification (33% success) whereas low were 49% successful.
-> Explained by tunnel theory or unusualness rather than anxiety

V+M
- Heart monitors and questionnaires to measure anxiety
Higher) 17% correct lineup
Lower) 75% correct lineup