Memory Flashcards

Question

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

Answer 1

-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

Answer 2

-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

Answer 3

-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

Answer 4

-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

Answer 5

-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

Answer 6

-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

Answer 7

-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

Answer 8

-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

Answer 9

-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

Answer 10

-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

Answer 11

-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