Memory

Question 1

The multi-store model of memory (definition)

Answer 1

Atkinson and Sherif (1968) developed the multi-store model of memory (MSM), which describes flow between 3 permanent storage systems of memory: the sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory

Question 2

Multi-store model of memory
-sensory register

Answer 2

Duration: 0.5 seconds
Encoding: 5 senses
Capacity: Unlimited

Question 3

Multi-store model of memory
-Short-term memory

Answer 3

Duration: 18-30 seconds
Encoding: Acoustic
Capacity: 5-9 things (rule of 7)

Question 4

Multi-store model of memory
-Long-term memory

Answer 4

Duration: Unlimited
Encoding: Semantic
Capacity: Unlimited

Question 5

The working model of memory

Answer 5

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed the working memory model as a new approach to understand how short-term memory works
The WMM includes the central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer

Question 6

WMM components

Answer 6

Phonological loop
-Consists of 2 parts; phonological store= holds the words you hear for 1.5 to 2 seconds, articulatory process= to rehearse verbal information from the phonological store -> these delay in 1-2 seconds
-Auditory processes
-Capacity: Limited

Visuo-spatial sketchpad
-Splits into 2 parts; visual cache= stores information about visual items, inner scribe= stores arrangements of objects in the visual field
-Acoustic, spatial and verbal information
-Capacity: Limited

Central executive
-Supervises and co-ordinates a number of subsidiary systems or ‘slave systems’
-Capacity: Limited
-Encoding: Modality free

Episodic buffer
-Added to the WMM in 2000 by Baddeley
-Capacity: Limited
-Combines into one single memory

Question 7

Long term memory - Procedural memory

Answer 7

-Is a part of the long-term memory that is responsible for knowing how to do things i.e. memory of motor skills
-It is unconscious (automatic)
-Examples: riding a bike, tying a shoe lace

Question 8

Long term memory - Semantic memory

Answer 8

-Is a part of the long-term memory responsible for storing information about the world (factual information)
-Examples: ‘Knowing’ that London is the capital of England

Question 9

Long term memory - Episodic memory

Answer 9

-A part of the long-term memory responsible for storing information about events (episodes) that we have experienced in our lives
-These are ‘time stamped events’
-Examples: Attending a friends birthday or first day at school

Question 10

Types of LTM
-Implicit and explicit LTM

Answer 10

-Implicit LTM -> Previous experiences aid the performance of a task without conscious awareness of these previous experiences
-Explicit LTM -> Information that you have to consciously think about

Question 11

Improving the accuracy of eye witness testimony
(description)

Answer 11

The cognitive interview, created by Fischer and Gielsman (1985-1992), is a thorough police interview that establishes accurate EWT recollections

Question 12

Improving the accuracy of EWT
-Report everything

Answer 12

The individual has to detail every single thing that they remember. It is hoped that if they remember one memory, then more will be remembered

Question 13

Improving the accuracy of EWT
-Mental reinstatement of context

Answer 13

Asking the individual to recall the environmental/ emotional aspects of the event

Question 14

Improving the accuracy of EWT
-A change of narrative order

Answer 14

Witnesses are encouraged to detail and recall backwards. from the end to the beginning of the main events which occured

Question 15

Improving the accuracy of EWT
-A change of perspective

Answer 15

Witnesses are asked to report the incident from different perspectives, describing what they think other witnesses might have seen

Question 16

Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT
-Misleading information (through leading questions)

Answer 16

-Information that is said that changes the memory in our heads without us recognising. This can be done through leading questions
-Leading questions leads or persuades a person towards giving a particular response
-Evidence: Loftus + Palmer (1974), Loftus + Zanni (1975), Yuille + Cutshall (1986)

Question 17

Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT
-Misleading information (through post-event discussion)

Answer 17

-When witnesses to a crime discuss the events with others, their memories can become contaminated
-Factors that could damage EWT: Media coverage, conformity and repeat interviewing
-Evidence: Gabbert et al (2003)

Question 18

Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT
-Anxiety

Answer 18

-Witnesses may be in a state of high arousal; especially if there is a threat/ danger
-The Yerkes-Dodson model of performance suggests that memory operates best at a moderate level of anxiety. If too high, it can lead to a lower level of recall
-Evidence: Johnson + Scott (1979), Deffenbacher (2004), Yuille + Cutshall (1982)

Question 19

Explanations for forgetting (p+r)

Answer 19

Proactive interference= When previous information interferes with recent information
Retroactive interference= When recent information interferes with previous information

Proactive-> Older affects newer-> Retroactive-> Newer affects older

Question 20

Explanations for forgetting - cues

Answer 20

Context- Environmental cues which aid in accessing memories in a certain context
State- Having to be in the same physical/emotional state to access the memory
Organisational- Cues which are given to help the listener understand the order and sequence of the memory

Question 21

Retrieval failure due to absence of cues

Answer 21

-Theory states that forgetting arises as the cues are not available for recall that were present during encoding
-Forgetting is an accessibility issue

Question 22

Short-term memory - Research Evidence
-Jacobs

Answer 22

-Research suggest that STM has a capacity for between 5 and 9 ( 7+/- 2) items
-For example, Jacobs (1887) tested ppt’s ability to remember strings of letters and numbers. On average, the ppt’s could remember 7 letters before reaching capacity and 9 numbers.
-However, capacity can be increased by ‘chunking’ items into semantically similar groups. For example, a 11-digit phone number can be chunked into smaller groups

Question 23

Absence of cues for forgetting - Research Evidence
-Darley et at (1973)

Answer 23

-State-dependent failure is when the internal environment during recall is different from the internal environment when the memory was coded
-Darley et al. observed that participants who forgot where they hid money while high on cannabis were more likely to remember where they hid that money once they got high again compared to when they were sober

Question 24

Misleading information - Research Evidence
-Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 24

-Loftus and Palmer conducted a study to test the effects of leading questions
-45 ppt’s were shown the same video clip for a car crash. After they watched the video, they were asked questions about the video clip.
-The ppt’s were divided into 5 groups and asked to complete the question, ‘how fast were the care going when they x into each other. They had to complete the sentence with; contacted, hit, bumped, collided and smashed
-Asking the question using a more intense verb, such as smashed, rather than a less intense verb, such as bumped, influenced the participant to estimate a higher speed

Question 25

Components of the WMM - Central executive
-Research evidence - Baddeley

Answer 25

-Baddeley - Keyboard experiment
-Asked participants to generate random strings of of digits on a keyboard
-The task was carried out on its own, or with 1 of 3 tasks;
1.Reciting the alphabet, 2.Counting from 1, 3.Alternating between letters and numbers e.g. A1, B2, C3
-The generated digit string became increasingly less random in condition 3
-Baddeley concluded that both the random number generator task and the alteration task were competing for the same central executive resources

Question 26

Components of the WMM - VSS
-Research evidence - Gathercole and Baddeley (1993)

Answer 26

-Participants were given a visual tracing task. At the same time they were given 1 of 2 tasks;
1.Describe the angles on the letter F
2.Perform a verbal task
-Ppt’s found task 1 difficult, but not task 2, presumably because the 2nd task involved 2 ‘slave systems’
-This is also evidence related to the effects of doing 2 tasks, using the same or different components

Question 27

Components of the WMM - Phonological loop
-Research evidence - Baddeley (1995)

Answer 27

-Participants were given lists of long and short words to recall
-They recalled more short than long words
-This shows that the phonological loop can hold the number of items that can be said in about 2 seconds
-Since more short than long words can be said quicker, more short words are recalled

Question 28

Components of the WMM - Episodic buffer
-Research evidence - Baddeley

Answer 28

-Used MRI scans to see which areas of the brain were most active during particular tasks
-For tasks that involved a combination of verbal and spatial information there was greater activity in the right frontal area of the brain
-For tasks that involved single sources of information, there was greater activity in the posterior area of the brain
-These results provided neurological evidence that the episodic buffer provides temporary storage for combined/integrated information

Question 29

Factors affecting accuracy of EWT - Research evidence
-Loftus and Zanni (1975) (leading questions)

Answer 29

-Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the speed of cars
-In one questionnaire, the questions began with; ‘did you see the?’ (the ‘the’ being definite)
-In the other, the question remained the same
-The results showed that 15% of participants ‘yes’ when the definite article was used, compared to 7% with the indefinite article

Question 30

Factors affecting accuracy of EWT - Research evidence
-Loftus and Burns (1982) (anxiety)

Answer 30

-The study had 2 conditions; one violent and one non-violent. In both conditions Pt’s sae a video of a bank robbery
-One group of participants a film of a crime with no violence
-Another group were shown the same film but with a violent incident (a boy was shot in the face)
-Those who saw the violent incident recalled significantly less than those who saw the film without the violent incident: suggesting that the anxiety caused by the violence negatively affected recall

Question 31

Factors affecting EWT - Research evidence
-Gabbert et al (2003) (post-event discussion)

Answer 31

-The sample consisted of 60 students from the University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults recruited from a local community
-Participants watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet. The ppts were either tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group)
-The participants in the co-witness group were told they had watched the same video, however they had watched different perspectives of the same crime and only 1 person actually witnessed the girl stealing
-The participants in the co-witness group discussed what they had seen and then completed a questionnaire
-Gabbert found that 71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled information they had not actually seen and 60% said the girl was guilty

Question 32

Improving the accuracy of EWT - Research evidence
-Fischer et al. (1990)

Answer 32

-Fischer trained detectives from the Miami Police Department to use the cognitive interview. Police interviews with eyewitnesses and victims were videotaped and the total number of statements were scored
-A second eyewitness was then asked to confirm whether these were true or false
-Compared to the standard procedure used, the cognitive interview produced 46% increase in recall and 90% accuracy
-The findings suggested that the cognitive interview is more effective than the standard interview, producing higher recall and reducing errors

Question 33

Describing the MSM - Research evidence
-Sensory store (Walsh and Thompson 1978, Milter 1956, Sperling 1960)

Answer 33

-Duration -> Walsh and Thompson 1978: found that the sensory store has an average duration of 500 milliseconds, which decreases as individuals get older - suggesting the duration is limited on age
-Encoding -> Milter 1956: ‘the magical number 7, plus or minus 2’. The research suggested that organising stimulus into chunks, enables the STM to cope
-Capacity -> Sperling 1960: asked subjects to recall as many letters as they could from a grid of 12 symbols that he displayed on a screen for just 50 milliseconds, and found that they could only recall about 4 items

Question 34

Describing the MSM - Research evidence
-STM (Peterson and Peterson, Baddeley, Jacobs)

Answer 34

-Duration -> Peterson and Peterson (1959): read nonsense trigrams to ppt’s and then got them to count backwards in 3’s from a large random 3 digit number for varying periods of time. After 3 seconds, there was 80% recall compared to 10% after 18 seconds
-Coding -> Baddeley (1966): Gave ppt’s 4 sets of words
1. Similar sounds e.g. cat, map, cap
2. Different sounds e.g. dog, bin, cup
3. Similar meanings e.g. bin, large, huge
4. Different meanings e.g. huge, good, light
When asked to recall immediately, ppt’s made more mistakes on words that sounded alike
-Capacity -> Jacobs (1887): tested STM capacity with the serial digit span method where participants are presented with increasingly long lists of numbers or letters and have to recall them in the right order. He found the capacity for numbers = 9.3 items and letters = 7.3 items

Question 35

Describing the MSM - Research evidence
-LTM (Bahrick et al, Baddeley, Wagenaar)

Answer 35

-Duration -> Bahrick et al. (1975): used a sample of American ex-high school students between ages of 17 and 74. PPt’s were tested in several ways including free recall and a photo recognition test. The ppt’s were asked to identify their classmates from a set of 50 photos. Results showed the recognition group was 90% accurate after 14 years and 60% after 47 years
-Coding -> Baddeley (1966): same as STM coding evidence
-Capacity -> Wagenaar (1986): created a diary of 2400 events over 6 years and tested himself on recall of events rather than dates, finding he too had excellent recall, again suggesting the capacity of LTM is extremely large