Main Ideas

Question 1

What is the capacity of the stm

Answer 1

7 +- 2

Question 2

What is the capacity of the ltm

Answer 2

Unlimited

Question 3

What is the duration of the stm

Answer 3

Up to 18 seconds (MAX)

Question 4

What is the duration of the ltm

Answer 4

Potentially infinite

Question 5

How is stm coded

Answer 5

acoustically

Question 6

How is ltm coded

Answer 6

Semantically

Question 7

What was the Joseph Jacobs Study

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What did George Miller do

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

What was the Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson study

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What did Harry Bahrick do

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

What were the results of bahricks tests

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What was the Alan Baddeley study

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

What is the sensory register

Answer 13

The place were info is held at the senses

Question 14

What is the name of each store for each sense

Answer 14

Echoic - Audio
Iconic - visual
Haptic - tactile info
Gustatory - taste
Olfactory - smell

Question 15

What does attention do

Answer 15

Attention retains the information at the sensory register - if you attend to one of the stores then the info is transferred to stm

Question 16

What is maintenance rehearsal

Answer 16

The repetition of information to transfer it from STM to LTM - first proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 17

What is retrieval

Answer 17

The process of information being transferred from the LTM into the STM so it is available for use.

Question 18

What is the working memory model

Answer 18

A model of the memory used when doing tasks that require short term memory, each store is qualitatively different

Question 19

What does the central executive do

Answer 19

Directs attention to particular tasks determining how the brains resources are allocated to the task

Question 20

What is the capacity of the central executive

Answer 20

No capacity for storing data and cannot attend to too many things at once

Question 21

What does the phonological loop do ?

Answer 21

Deals with auditory information and preserves the order of information

Question 22

What can the phonological loop be divided into

Answer 22

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

Question 23

What does the Visio special sketch pad do

Answer 23

Processes visual information and temporarily stores it

Question 24

What can the Visio special sketch pad be divided into

Answer 24

The visual cashe which stores information about objects such as size and colour
And the inner scribe which store the arrangement of objects

Question 25

What does the episodic buffer do ?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

How does the similarity of materials effect interference

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Describe a real world study on interference

Answer 27

Baddeley and hitch rugby players study

Question 28

who suggested that memory is more effective when information that was present during memorisation is also present during retreival

Answer 28

Tulving and thompson

Question 29

What is the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 29

The idea that memory is better if information during memorisation is also present during retreival

Question 30

Name and explain a study on the encoding specificity principle

Answer 30

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%

Question 31

what is context dependant forgetting

Answer 31

when you are more likely to forget somthing due to being in a different context to when it was learned

Question 32

name and explain a study on context dependant forgetting

Answer 32

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

Question 33

what is state dependant forgetting

Answer 33

the idea that one is more likely to remember something if they are in the same state when recalling - drunk vs sober

Question 34

name and explain a study on state-dependent forgetting

Answer 34

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

Question 35

why can eyewitness testimonies be unreliable?

Answer 35

misleading information - leading questions and post-event discussions

Question 36

who did a study into leading questions?

Answer 36

Loftus and palmer

Question 37

Describe the Loftus and palmer leading questions study (2 experiments)

Answer 37

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

Question 38

during a post event discussion what effect may appear

Answer 38

the conformity effect

Question 39

what is a conformity effect during a post-event discussion?

Answer 39

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.

Question 40

who did a study on the conformity effect during post-event discussions?

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

what is the issue with repeat interviewing

Answer 41

interviewer comments may become incorporated into the recalling of events

Question 42

how does anxiety affect memory in EWT

Answer 42

memory and general cognitive tasks are negativly effected by anxiety and stress

Question 43

who did a study on the effects of anxiety on recall

Answer 43

Johnson and scott

Question 44

explain the johnson and scott study

Answer 44

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.

Question 45

explain a possible positive effect of anxiety on memory accuracy

Answer 45

the alternative point could be that anxiety/high arousal creates more enduring memories.

Question 46

who did a study on the positive effects of anxiety on memory

Answer 46

Christianson and hubinette

Question 47

descibe the chrisitanson and hubinette study

Answer 47

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

Question 48

what is the Yerkes-Dodson effect

Answer 48

The observation that arousal has negative effects on memory when very low or very high. However moderate levels of arousal are beneficial to memory.

Question 49

What are the 4 techniques in the cognitive interview?

Answer 49

1. Mental reinstatement of original context
   - mentally recreating both the physical and psychological environment of the original context
2. report everything
   - report every single detail of the events without leaving anything out. Memories are interconnected and may act as cues for each other
3. 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
4. change perspective
   - recalling the events from different perspectives may do the same that changing the order does - removes schemas.