Memory

Question 1

What is the multi store model and who discovered it?

Answer 1

It suggests that memory but a system of different things and which have many stores that process memory in a different way. It was discovered by Atkinson and Shiffren in 1789.

Question 2

What is the meaning of short term memory?

Answer 2

The limited capacity memory store.coding is mainly acoustic (sounds) capacity is between 5 and 9 items on average, duration is between about 18 and 30 seconds.

Question 3

What is coding In memory?

Answer 3

The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

Question 4

Define long term memory

Answer 4

The permanent memory store.coding is mainly semantic (meaning) , it has unlimited capacity and can store memories for up to a lifetime.

Question 5

What is capacity?

Answer 5

The amount of information that can be held in a memory store?

Question 6

What is duration?

Answer 6

The length of time information can be held in memory.

Question 7

Define multi store model

Answer 7

A representative of how memory works in terms of three stores called sensory register,short-term memory and long term memory.
it also describes how information is transferred from one store to another,how it is remembered and how it is forgotten.

Question 8

What is the sensory register?

Answer 8

The memory stores for each of our five senses such as vision (iconic store) and hearing (echoic store). Coding in the iconic sensory register it is acoustic.The capacity of sensory registers is huge (millions of receptors) and information lasts for a very short time (less than half a second).

Question 9

What is the difference between iconic store and echoic store?

Answer 9

Iconic store- visual information
Echoic store - oratory information

Question 10

What are evidence investigating the MSM concept that there are separate stores?

Answer 10

Glanzer and cunitz (1966) investigated how word position affects the recall of items from a list.
Method: ps were represented verbally with a list of 20 words at a rate of 1 per 2 seconds.They are then required to recall as many words as they can in order.
Results: the most commonly remembered words were those at the begging of the list and the End of the list.

Question 11

What is strength and weakness of a multi store model?

Answer 11

+ it has been found that people often have very good and detailed memories as they remember emotional experiences
- the mind would have been distracted by all sorts of other processing as we only have limited attentional capacity.

Question 12

Define memory

Answer 12

Memory refers to a mental process by which we register, store and retrieve information.

Question 13

What is the capacity of short term memory?

Answer 13

It is commonly found that people are able to recall around 7 bits and in 1887 Jacobs used memory span to investigate the capacity of short term memory. He defined memory span as the longest sequence of items Able to be recalled.

Question 14

What strategies are used to increase the capacity of the Short term memory?

Answer 14

Simple repetition, mnemonics and changing into a word.

Question 15

What is the capacity of long term memory?

Answer 15

It is a very difficult issue to investigate, if you can’t remember any new information then your capacity has been used up and only those with brain damage are unable to learn anything new.

Question 16

what is the study that Peterson and peterson made in 1959?

Answer 16

Participants were 24 university students .Recall was tested as follows as follows: The experimenter said a consonant nonsense trigram to the participant followed by a three-digit number.

Question 17

what is meant and what are the benefits of the repeated measure design in the Peterson and Peterson Study?

Answer 17

Each participant takes part in all conditions and it reduces the subject extraneous variables better reflection of the duration of the short term memory.

Question 18

who investigated the short term memory and what was the procedure?

Answer 18

Conrad investigated the coding used by short term memory.
He showed participants a sequence of 6 consonants by flashing them briefly on a screen. Immediately after presentation participant were required to write the letters down in the correct order.

Question 19

what does short term memory use?

Answer 19

if a store is coding information by its sound qualities then at this stage it is only the sound of a word that we are paying attention to.

Question 20

define acoustically

Answer 20

refers to sounds or the sense of hearing.

Question 21

define semantic memory

Answer 21

a long term memory store for our knowledge of the world. This includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean. it needs to recalled deliberately.

Question 22

the evaluation for the research of coding in memory

Answer 22

limitation: it used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material. The word list had no personal meaning to participants and that means we cannot generalise the findings to different kinds of memory task.

Question 23

the evaluation of the research on capacity

Answer 23

limitation: it was conducted a long time ago and it lacks adequate control as some participants may have been distracted while they were being tested so they did not perform as well as they might. This means the results might not be valid because there were confounding variables that were not controlled.

a limitation of the millers research is that he may have overestimated the capacity of short term memory.

Question 24

the evaluation of the duration of long term/short term memory

Answer 24

limitation; the stimulus material is artificial and it lacked external validity.
strength: higher external validity and real life memories were studied.

Question 25

what are two main stores of memory?

Answer 25

iconic memory: the sensory register that stores visual information
Echoic memory: The sensory register that stores auditory information.

Question 26

what happens in the long term memory?

Answer 26

-the capacity is unlimited and can last vey many years.
-it is coded semantically
- when we want to store it it is transferred to our short term memory by a process of retrieval.

Question 27

what is maintenance rehearsal?

Answer 27

occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over and over again. we can keep the information in our short term memory as long as we rehearse it.

Question 28

evaluation of the multi store model

Answer 28

-strength: it shows the coding of the short term memory is acoustic and in the long term memory it is semantic.
limitation: Research shows that at the very least there must be more than one type of short term memory as from people suffering from a clinical condition called Amnesia shows this cannot be true. AS Shaliice and Warrington studied a patient with Amnesia known as KF. His short term recall was he able to read digits to himself. Kf’s study and others with Amnesia showed that there could be another short term store for non- verbal sounds. This is a limitation as research shows that at the very least there must be one- short term store to process visual information and another one to process auditory information

Question 29

define episodic memory

Answer 29

a long term memory store for personal events. It includes memories of when the events happened and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories from this store have to be retrieved consciously and with effort.

Question 30

define semantic memory

Answer 30

a long term memory store for our knowledge of the world. this includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean. These memories need to be recalled deliberately.

Question 31

define procedural memory

Answer 31

a long term memory store for our knowledge of how to do things. This includes our memories of learned skills. We usually recall these memories without making a conscious or deliberate effort.

Question 32

what is the difference between the three types of memory?

Answer 32

episodic refers to our ability to recall events from our lives. This has been likened to a diary or recording of daily
events. These memories are complex as you remember when they happen recently or last week and you have to make a conscious effort to recall episodic memories and you might this quickly but you are aware of your searching of the memory.
semantic it shows our knowledge of the world. this includes facts, but like broadcaster sense. So it would include knowledge of applying to university or the taste of an orange. It is not time stamped so we do not remember when these memories occurred as it less personal and more about facts we share.
procedural memory= These are our memories for actions of how do things. We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort like driving a car to do this we need our procedural memory as we change gear without knowing how.

Question 33

what is the evaluation for long term memory?

Answer 33

strength= clinical evdience as hm and clive wearing are revelant here. Episodic memory were impaired as a consequence of Amnesia. They had a difficulty recaling events from the past but their semantic memories were not affected as they still understood the meanings of words. Hm were not able to recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier or even owning a dog. However, they both knew how to do the basic things like tying your shoe laces and speaking Clive was able to read music, sing and play piano it shows the types they are different types of memory but they are stored in different parts of the brain not affecting on another.
strength= there is evidence supporting that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. The Tulving got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using PET scanner. AS the episodic memory is recalled from the area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. This is divided into two sections and one side has sematic memories and the right side has episodic memory . This is a strength as there is a physically different types of memory and it shows the validity of the study.

Question 34

define working memory model

Answer 34

it represents short term memory. IT suggests that it is dynamic processor of different types of information using sub-units coordinated by a central descion- making system.

Question 35

define central executive

Answer 35

the component of working memory model that co-ordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory. It allocates processing resources to those activities.

Question 36

define the phonological loop

Answer 36

a component of the working memory and it processes sound. it includes written and spoken material. It is divided into the phonological store and the articulatory process.

Question 37

define visuo- spatial sketchpad

Answer 37

the component of the working memory model that processes visual and spatial information in a mental space often called our inner eye.

Question 38

define episodic buffer

Answer 38

the component of working memory model that brings together material from other subsystems into a single memory rather than separate strands and it provides a bridge between working memory model and long- term memory.

Question 39

describe the working memory model and its key components?

Answer 39

wwm is an explanation of how one aspect of memory is organised and how its functions and it is concerned with the part of the mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information.
central executive - attentional process that monitors incoming data information and makes descion and allocates slave systems to tasks- the slave system to tasks and it has very limited storage capacity.
phonological loop= it deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrive slave systems are described below. It has a limited storage capacity.
the phonological store= which stores the words you hear and the articular process which allows maintenance rehearsal or words in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed. the capacity of this loop is believed to be two seconds worth what you can say.
visuo- spatial sketchpad= stores visual and/or spatial information when required. For example, if you are asked to work out how many windows there are on your house you visualise it. it has a limited capacity which Baddeley is about three objects or four objects. Logie is subdivided into vss into: the visual cashes which stores visual data and inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.]
Episodic Buffer
it was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000. It is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing recording events that are happening. it is a storage component of the central executive and has a limited capacity about four chunks.

Question 40

what is the evaluation of working memory model?

Answer 40

strength= Shallice and Warrington’s case study of patient KF who had suffered brain damage. After this damage happened KF who had poor short term memory ability for verbal information normally presented visually. He had a difficulty with sounds but could recall letters and digits. This suggests that only his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact. This supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store.

limitation= lack of clarity over the central executive a cognitive psychologists suggests that this component of WMM is unsatisfactory and doesn’t really explain anything. Baddeley himself recognised this when he said ‘ the central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory as it needs be more specified than just attention as psychologists believe it may consist of separate components so it has not fully explained.

Question 41

define interference

Answer 41

forgetting because one memory blocks another causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten.

Question 42

define proactive interference

Answer 42

forgetting occurs when older memories already stored disrupt the recall of newer memories. The degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar.

Question 43

define retroactive interference

Answer 43

forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories already stored. The degree of forgetting is again greater when the memories are similar.

Question 44

when does interference occur and what was the case study for it?

Answer 44

it occurs when two pieces of information conflict each other results in forgetting in long term memory. Interference was proposed by an explanation for forgetting in long term memory as interference makes it harder to locate those memories.
effects of similarity
interference is worse when the memories are similar which was discovered by MCgeoch and McDonald.
they both studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials. Participants had to learn a lost of words until they could remember with 100% accuracy. they then learned a new list there were six groups of participants who had to learn different types of lists:
Group 1: synonyms = words with the same meanings as the originals.
group 2= antonyms= words with the opposite meanings to the originals.
group 3= words unrelated to the original ones.
group 4= nonsense syllables
group 5=three-digit numbers
group 6= no new list-these participants just rested.
findings= when the participants then recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list. The most similar material produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is stronger when the memories are similiar. The results are shown in the graph on the left.

Question 45

what is the evaluation for interference?

Answer 45

strength= interference in memory is one of the most constituently demonstrated findings in whole of psychology. Thousands of lab experiments have been carried out into this explanation for forgetting such as McGeoch and McDonald’s research on the facing page. Most of these studies show that both types of interference are very likely to be common ways we forget information from LTM. This is a strength as lab experiments control the effects of irrelevant influences and thus give us confidence that interference is a valid explanation for at least some forgetting.
limitation= there is a much greater chance that interference will been demonstrated in the lab environment than a real life situation. The stimulus materials used in most studies are list of words. The task facing participants is to learn these lists. Learning lists of actual words is definitely more realistic than learning lists of consonant syllables. There is a distance between from the things we learn and try to remember in everyday life- people’s faces and their birthdays. This is limitation as the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab. Interference may not be as likely an explanation for forgetting everyday life as it is the lab.

Question 46

define Retrieval failure

Answer 46

a form of forgetting. It occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.

Question 47

define cues

Answer 47

a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory. Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning. For example, cues may be external or internal.

Question 48

what happens in Retrieval failure theory?

Answer 48

Reasons people forget information may be due to insufficient cues when information is placed in the memory cues that are associated with it are not available at the time to recall that specific information. So retrieval failure does not allow you to access memories that are there.
Encoding specificity principle
Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern to the findings. He summarised this pattern in what he called the encoding specificity principle. T his states that if a cue is to help us to recall information it has to be present at encoding and at retrieval. It follows from this that if the cues available at encoding and retrieval different they will be some forgetting . Some cues are used in many mnemonic techniques other cu

Question 49

what are the two different types of retrieval failure?

Answer 49

context -depending forgetting
Godden and Baddeley carried out a study of sea drivers underwater.
procedure= The drivers learned a list of words either underwater or then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land.
findings: in two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and matched whereas in the other two they did not.
state depended forgetting
carter and Cassady gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants.
finding= in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state leaning and recall performance on the memory test was significantly worse.

Question 50

Content-repent forgetting Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 50

Godden and Baddeley carried out a study of deep-sea divers. In this study the divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then we’re asked to recall the words either underwater or in land therefore creating 4 conditions. In two of the conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matches, whereas the other two they did not.

Question 51

Findings of Godden and Baddley (1975) context-dependent forgetting

Answer 51

accurate recall was 49% lower in the non-matching conditions. The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and the lead to retrieval failure

Question 52

Tulvings (1983) encoding specificity principle(ESP)

Answer 52

from research Tulving summaried the consist pattern he found In what he called the ESP which states that if a cue is to help us to recall information it has to be present at encoding and at retrieval. If the cues are available at encoding and retrieval are different.
if the cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting.

some cues are linked to the material-to-be-remembered In a meaningful way. Others are encoded at the time of encoding but not in a meaningful way e.g. context-dependent forgetting (external cues) and state-dependent forgetting(internal cues)

Question 53

State- dependent forgetting. Carter and Cassaday(1998)

Answer 53

Carter and Cassaday (1998) gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants. The anti-histamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slight drowsy creating a internal physiological state different from the ‘normal’ state.the participants had to learn a list of words and passages of prose and then recall the informations creating 4 conditions.

Question 54

Findings of Carter and Cassaday(1998). State-dependent forgetting

Answer 54

in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So when cues are absent then there is more forgetting.

Question 55

Strengths of retrieval failure

Answer 55

supporting evidence. An impressive range of studies supports retrieval studies. E.g Godden and Baddeley and carter and Cassaday.The supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation . Especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in highly controlled conditions of the lab.
real life application. Such as in cognitive interviews. So is useful

Question 56

Limitations of retrieval failure

Answer 56

Baddley (1997) argues that context effects are not very strong in real life as the contexts face to be very different before an effect is seen. E.g. it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, learning something one room and recalling in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough. Limitation because it means that real- life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting.

the context effect may be related to the type of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test not recall. participants were asked if they recognised a word from a list as opposed to retrieving the information off their own accord. when recognition was tested there was no context dependent effect- the performance of memory was the same for all 4 conditons. limitations - it shows that the lack/ prescense of cues only affects memory when you test in a certain way.

Question 57

Leading questions

Answer 57

A question which, because of the it is phrased, suggests a certain answer. For example: ;the knife in the accused’s left hand?’. This suggests the answer is ‘left hand’

Question 58

Misleading information

Answer 58

Incorrect information given to
› the eyewitness usually after the event (hence often called the ‘post-event information’). It can take many forms, such as leading questions and post-event discussion between co-witnesses and/or other people.

Question 59

Post-event discussion

Answer 59

occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss they have seen co-witnesses or other people.This may influence the accuracy of each witness’s recall of the event.

Question 60

procedure of loftus and palmer

Answer 60

Loftus and Palmer (1974) arranged for students to watch film clips of car accidents and then have them questions about the accident. In the leading question participants were asked ‘about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ There were 5 groups each were given a different verb in the critical/leading question. One group had the Verb hit, the others had contacted,bumped,collided,smashed.

Question 61

findings of Loftus and palmer

Answer 61

the mean estimated speed for the Verb ‘contacted’ was 31.8mph and for the verb ‘smashed’ the mean was 40.5mph. The leading question biased the eyewitness recall on an event.

Question 62

Explanations of why leading question affect EWT?

Answer 62

the response-bias explanation- suggest the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants memories,but just influences how they decide to answer. When a participant gets a leading question using the word ‘smashed’ this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate.

Substitution explanation- the wording of a leading question actually changes the participants memory of the film clip. Loftus and palmer (1974) conducted a second experiment supporting this. Demonstrated because participants who originally heard ‘smashed’ later were more likely to report seeing broken glass when there was none that those who heard ‘hit’. The critical Verb altered their memory of the incident.

Question 63

Procedure of Gabbert and her colleagues(2003) post-event discussion study

Answer 63

the researcher found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the events they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussing. The corresponding figures in a control group were there was no discussion 0%. Gabbert et al concluded that witnesses often go along with each, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong this is called memory conformity.
post-event discussion contaminates the eyewitness testimony because it combines misinformation from other witness with their own memories.

Question 64

Strengths of research into misleading information affecting EWT

Answer 64

useful real-life application.has hugely important practical uses in the real world, where the consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious. E.g. Loftus (1975) believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses.research into EWT can have a positive difference to the lives of people such as improving the way the legal system works.

Question 65

Limitations of research into misleading information

Answer 65

lacks ecological validity as the tasks are artificial. Loftus and palmers study is that their participants watched dim clips of car accidents which is very different to experiencing a real car accident, mainly because such clips lack the stress of the real accident. Limitation because studies of artificial task may tell us very little about how leading questions affect EWT in cases of real accidents or crimes. Cannot be generalised to real life situations.

ignores individual differences .There is evidence that old People are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports.e.g. Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) found that people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than people in the group 55-78years. However, all ages group were more accurate when identifying people of their own age(gender bias). Cannot be generalised to all age groups:entire population.
Contradictory real life research - Loftus’ research has led to more real-life research into EWT. Yuile and Cutshall studied a real life crime and suggested the important information in real-life crime is not easily distorted - additionally, there is a weapons focus effect where people to tend to focus on the weapon rather than the other details.

Question 66

anxiety

Answer 66

a stae of emotional and physical arousal. emotional would be worried thoughts/ feelings but phyical is more heart rate increasing and you may sweat. normal reaction to stressful situations but does indeed affect the eye witness testimonies of individuals.

Question 67

Anxiety has a negative effect on recall. Johnson and Scot’s (1974)

Answer 67

Procedure: participants were led to believe they were going to take part in a lab study . While seated in a waiting room participants heard arguments in the next room. In the ‘low anxiety’ condition a man then walked into a waiting area. Carrying a pen and with grease on his hands. Other participants in the ‘high anxiety’ condition heard the same heated arguments,but this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked off of the room, holding a paper knife that was covered in blood.the participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos
- 49 % of the participants who had seen the man carrying a pen were able to identify him. The corresponding was just 33%. The tunnel theory of memory argues the witnesses attention narrows to focus on a weapon, because it is the source of anxiety.

Question 68

Anxiety has a positive effect on recall. Yuille and cutshall (1986)

Answer 68

the stress of witnessing a crime or accident triggers the flight-or-flight response which increases our alertness and improves memory for the event as we are more aware of cues in the situation.
Procedure: Yuille and Cutshall(1986) conducted a study of a real-life shooting in a fun shop in Vancouver, Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead witnessed by 21 people. 13 which agreed to take part. The interviews were held 4-5 months after the incident and compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting. The witness were also asked to take how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident using a 7-point scale.
Findings:the witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount of accuracy after 5months- though some details such as age/height/weight estimates were less accurate. Those who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate about 88% compared to 75% of the less stress group.

Question 69

Yerkes-Dodson law applied to EWT by Deffenbacher

Answer 69

the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an ‘inverted U’.
lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy. But memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety experienced increases. However there comes a point where optimal level of anxiety is reached which is the point of maximum accuracy. If the eyewitness experiences anymore stress than this, then their recall of the event suffers a drastic decline.

Question 70

Limitations of anxiety affecting eyewitness testimonies

Answer 70

weapon focus may surprise rather than anxiety argues by Johnson and Scott. The reason participants focus on the weapon may be because they are surprised at what they see rather than because they are scared.pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors( low anxiety/low unusualness),an handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video. Eyewitness accuracy were significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions(chicken+ handgun) suggesting that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tell us nothing special about the effects of anxiety on EWT.
- field studies used sometimes lack control. Researchers, usually interview real-life eyewitnesses sometimes after the event. Lots of things will have happened to the participant in which the researcher have no control over E.g post-event discussion or read or seen something in the media. Limitation as it is possible that these extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall. The effect of anxiety may be overwhelmed by these other factors.
- demand characteristics. Most lab studies show participants a filmed (usually staged crime) most of these participants will be aware they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study most of them may have worked out they are going to be asked questions about what they have seen.

Question 71

The enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 71

Fisher= developed additional elements of the cognitive interview to focus on social dynamics of the interactions for example - when the researcher needs to make eye contacts, reducing eyewitnesses anxiety, minimising distractions etc .

Question 72

Limitations of cognitive interview

Answer 72

Time consuming =takes more time that a standard police interview. More time is needed to establish rapports with the witnesses and allow them to relax. The cl requires more training and focuses on not Being able to provide more than a few hours meaning that the proper version of the cl is used and police are hesitant to use CL .

Question 73

Strengths of cognitive interviews

Answer 73

Increaeses validity of the cl
Among those who use it. Milne and Bull found that each individual element was equally valuable. Each technique produces more info that standard one. Mine and Bull- found that using a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall that any of the other conditions. Confirming that aspects of the CL are more useful than others. This shows at least two elements should be used to improve the police interviewing and eye witness testimony.

Meta analysis by Kohnken et al combined data from 50 studies. The ECI provided more correct information than the standard info. There are real application benefits to the police interview of cognitive interview gives police a better chance of catching the criminal and this is beneficial to society as a whole.