Main Ideas Flashcards
What is the capacity of the stm
7 +- 2
What is the capacity of the ltm
Unlimited
What is the duration of the stm
Up to 18 seconds (MAX)
What is the duration of the ltm
Potentially infinite
How is stm coded
acoustically
How is ltm coded
Semantically
What was the Joseph Jacobs Study
1887 he used a digit span test to see the capacity of the short term memory. He found the average span was 9.3 for numbers and 7.3 for letters
What did George Miller do
1956 he wrote ‘the magic number seven plus or minus two’ which states that the stm can hold 7 +- 2 items. He notes people can count 7 dots flashed on a screen but not many more.
What was the Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson study
1959 24 participants were studied for stm. They were given a 3 consonant syllable (TGJ) and then a 3 digit number. They had to count down from the 3 digit number then recall the syllable after retention intervals. 90% correct after 3 seconds, 20% after 9 seconds, and 2% after 18
What did Harry Bahrick do
1975 he studied the duration of the ltm. Using 400 participants age 17-74 he tested them on their memory of their classmates. The photo recognition test had 50 photos, some people not being in their class some being and a free recall of names.
What were the results of bahricks tests
For the photo recognition test after 15 years it was 90% accurate and 70% after 48 years. For the free recall it was 60% accurate after 15 and 30% after 48
What was the Alan Baddeley study
1966a and 1966b he tested effects of acoustic and semantic similarity on stm and ltm. Participants had difficulty remember acoustically similar words in stm but not ltm, they found it hard to remember semantically similar words in ltm but not stm.
What is the sensory register
The place were info is held at the senses
What is the name of each store for each sense
Echoic - Audio
Iconic - visual
Haptic - tactile info
Gustatory - taste
Olfactory - smell
What does attention do
Attention retains the information at the sensory register - if you attend to one of the stores then the info is transferred to stm
What is maintenance rehearsal
The repetition of information to transfer it from STM to LTM - first proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin
What is retrieval
The process of information being transferred from the LTM into the STM so it is available for use.
What is the working memory model
A model of the memory used when doing tasks that require short term memory, each store is qualitatively different
What does the central executive do
Directs attention to particular tasks determining how the brains resources are allocated to the task
What is the capacity of the central executive
No capacity for storing data and cannot attend to too many things at once
What does the phonological loop do ?
Deals with auditory information and preserves the order of information
What can the phonological loop be divided into
The phonological store which holds sounds you hear like an inner ear
And the articulatory process which silently loops words you hear as a form of maintenance rehearsal
What does the Visio special sketch pad do
Processes visual information and temporarily stores it
What can the Visio special sketch pad be divided into
The visual cashe which stores information about objects such as size and colour
And the inner scribe which store the arrangement of objects
What does the episodic buffer do ?
The episodic buffer is an extra storage system that integrates information from the central executive, phonological loop and the Visio special sketch pad into an episode - maintains chronology and then sends information to the ltm
How does the similarity of materials effect interference
McGeoch and McDonald - test the similarity of materials. Gave participants list of 10 adjectives (A) and once learned, after a during a 10 min interval learned list B. If B was synonyms of A then recall was poor (12%) if B was numbers then recall was better (37%). Interference is strongest with similar material
Describe a real world study on interference
Baddeley and hitch rugby players study
who suggested that memory is more effective when information that was present during memorisation is also present during retreival
Tulving and thompson
What is the encoding specificity principle?
The idea that memory is better if information during memorisation is also present during retreival
Name and explain a study on the encoding specificity principle
Tulving and Pearlstone - participants had to memorise 48 words belonging to 12 catagories. each word was presented with its catagory, eg ‘orange…fruit’. when tested for free recall the recall was 40% but when cued-recall (naming the catagory) then recall was 60%
what is context dependant forgetting
when you are more likely to forget somthing due to being in a different context to when it was learned
name and explain a study on context dependant forgetting
abernathy - arranged for students to be tested before a course began. they were then tested each week. Some by the same teacher and same room, same teacher different room, different teacher same room, and different teacher different room. Those who had the same teacher and same room performed best. Superior students were also least effected and the opposite for inferior students
what is state dependant forgetting
the idea that one is more likely to remember something if they are in the same state when recalling - drunk vs sober
name and explain a study on state-dependent forgetting
goodwin et al - asked male participants to remember words when either drunk or sober. (when drunk 3x the UK driving limit). the results were that the recall from both sides was better when in the same state when the word lists were memories
why can eyewitness testimonies be unreliable?
misleading information - leading questions and post-event discussions
who did a study into leading questions?
Loftus and palmer
Describe the Loftus and palmer leading questions study (2 experiments)
exp 1 :
45 students were shown videos of traffic accidents and then were given a questionnaire to describe the accident. The critical question was ‘How fast did the cars hit each other’ but the verb would be changed to different levels of intensity which might change the answer that the participants give.
the students who got the verb smashed answered 40.8 mph while the students who got contacted answered 31.8 mph
furthermore, they did a leading study where they were shown the video and asked the speed then a week later they came back and were asked if they saw broken glass. those who got the high intensity verbs answered yes and those who got the lower intensity verbs said no
during a post event discussion what effect may appear
the conformity effect
what is a conformity effect during a post-event discussion?
When the group reaches a general consensus about the events that happened even if some members of the group may not have seen parts that others saw.
who did a study on the conformity effect during post-event discussions?
Gabbert et al :
participants were paired up and watched different videos on the same event so they saw the same thing but with slight differences. some pairs were encouraged to discuss before individually recalling the event. out of the pairs who had a discussion 71% mistakenly recalled the event.
what is the issue with repeat interviewing
interviewer comments may become incorporated into the recalling of events
how does anxiety affect memory in EWT
memory and general cognitive tasks are negativly effected by anxiety and stress
who did a study on the effects of anxiety on recall
Johnson and scott
explain the johnson and scott study
looked into the Weapon Focus Effect
had participants sit in a waiting room where they would hear an argument in the other room and a man would run through the room carrying a weapon
the weapon would range from a pen to a knife covered in blood and the participants were later asked to identify the man from photos.
in the pen condition the correct identification was 49% and with the 33% with the knife. This is due to the weapon focus effect where if a weapon is seen theyre more drawn to that than other details such as the looks of the person.
explain a possible positive effect of anxiety on memory accuracy
the alternative point could be that anxiety/high arousal creates more enduring memories.
who did a study on the positive effects of anxiety on memory
Christianson and hubinette
descibe the chrisitanson and hubinette study
they got 58 real witnesses from a bank robbery in Sweden - the bank teller (high arousal) and the bystanders (low arousal)
they conducted interviews 4-15 months after the robbery.
they found that the victims with high arousal had good recollection of events (75% <) showing anxiety may not reduce accuracy in memory recollection
what is the Yerkes-Dodson effect
The observation that arousal has negative effects on memory when very low or very high. However moderate levels of arousal are beneficial to memory.
What are the 4 techniques in the cognitive interview?
- Mental reinstatement of original context
- mentally recreating both the physical and psychological environment of the original context - report everything
- report every single detail of the events without leaving anything out. Memories are interconnected and may act as cues for each other - change the order
- changing the order of the events may help recall events due to our schemas. Our schemas influence our recollection of memories and changing the order could remove them - change perspective
- recalling the events from different perspectives may do the same that changing the order does - removes schemas.
