Memory

Question 1

what research was conducted on coding? (converting information between different forms) and findings

Answer 1

Alan Baddeley:
-gave different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember
-GROUP 1) acoustically similar- words that sound similar- e.g. cat, cab
-GROUP 2) acoustically dissimilar- words that sound different- e.g. dog, run
-GROUP 3) semantically similar- words that mean similar things- e.g. big, large
-GROUP 4) semantically dissimilar- words that mean different things- e.g. big, hot
Participants were shown the lists and asked to recall them in the correct order. Immediately (STM) tended to do worse with acoustically similar
after a 20 min interval (LTM) they did worse with semantically similar words.
so- ACOUSTIC coding in the STM and SEMANTIC coding in the LTM.

Question 2

what research and findings on capacity?

Answer 2

Jacobs digit span- (STM) e.g. the researcher reads out four digits, participant recalls them out loud in the correct order. If they recall correctly the researcher then calls out five etc. until they get it wrong. mean for digits- 9.3. mean for letters- 7.3

span of memory and chunking:
Miller realized things come in 7’s, 7 music notes etc.
Miller thought the span i.e. capacity = 7 items plus or minus 2
He also realized that we can recall five words as easily as letters. We do this by chunking- grouping sets of digits or letters into chunks

Question 3

research and findings on duration STM

Answer 3

STM- Margret Lloyd and Peterson

• tested 24 students in 8 trials each
• each trial student was given a consonant syllable e.g. YGC and a 3 digit number to remember
• they were then asked to count back from the number to prevent any mental rehearsal (which could increase the STM)
• on each trial they were told to stop after varying periods of time: 3,6,9, 12, 15, 18
• 3 secs, average recall was about 80%. 18 secs- 3%
• suggest STM duration is around18 seconds unless we repeat the information over and over

Question 4

research and findings on duration LTM

Answer 4

Bahrick:
392 Americans aged 17 and 74
high school year books were obtained
tests: 1) photo recognition test of 50 photos, some from year book. 2) free recall test, participants recalled names from their graduating class
photo recognition= 90% accurate for participants within 15 years of their graduation. 48 years, 70%
free recall= 60% 15 years, 30% 48
shows that LTM may last up to a life time for some material

Question 5

what is the STM?

Answer 5

limited capacity store.
coding is mainly acoustic
duration of 18 seconds approx.
capacity is between 5 to 9 items on average

Question 6

what is the LTM?

Answer 6

permanant memory store
mainly semantic coding
unlimited store

Question 7

describe the multistore memory model

Answer 7

stimulus from the environment -> sensory register –(attention)->STM–(prolonged rehearsal)-> LTM

response (remembering) is from the STM
retrieval from LTM to STM
maintenance rehearsal (loop)(prolonged rehearsal to STM)
MSM describes how information flows through the memory system

Question 8

What is the sensory register (MSM)

Answer 8

The memory stores for each of our five senses
coding for each store is moderately specific, e.g. echoic memory codes sounds, and iconic memory codes visual memory
duration is less than half a second
high capacity, for example the over 100 million cells in the eye all store data.
information passes further into the memory system only if we pay attention to it

Question 9

what are the types of LTM?

Answer 9

episodic, semantic, and procedural

Question 10

what is the episodic memory?

Answer 10

• our ability to recall events/ episodes from our minds.
• they are time stamped, you remember when they happened as well as what happened
• memory of a single episode will contain several elements such as people, places, objects and behavior. They are all interwoven to produce a single memory
• a quick conscious effort is made to recall episodic memories

Question 11

what is a semantic memory? LTM

Answer 11

contains our shared knowledge of the world
not time stamped
contains knowledge of a number of concepts, for example the meaning of words
less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than the episodic memory according to Tulving

Question 12

what is Procedural memory? LTM

Answer 12

• memory for actions or skills and how we do them
  -we recall these without conscious awareness or much effort eventually. Example, driving a car.

- eventually we can recall these memories without effort or conscious awareness e.g. driving a car

Question 13

what is the working memory model? (Baddeley and Hitch)

Answer 13

a representation of STM that suggests that STM is a dynamic processor of different subunits that are coordinated by a central decision making system.

Question 14

what is the central executive?

Answer 14

The component of the WMM that co-ordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory
It also allocated the processing resources to those activities

Question 15

what is the phonological loop?

Answer 15

processes information in terms of sounds, both written and spoken material.
Divided in the phonological store (words you hear) and the articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal - keeping words or sounds in a loop in order to maintain them in the WMM while they are needed)

Question 16

what is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 16

stores visual and/or spatial information
e.g. work out how many windows are in your house by visualizing it.
limited capacity, according to badly 3-4 objects
Robert Logie divided it into the visual cache (stores visual data) and the inner scribe (records arrangements of objects in visual field)

Question 17

what is the episodic buffer

Answer 17

-temporary store for information
-integrates the visual spatial, verbal information processed by other stores and maintains a sense of time sequencing,
recording events that happen
-seen as the storage component for the CE
-has a limited capacity to around 4 chunks
-LINKS WMM to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception

Question 18

describe interference as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 18

interference is forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten
two types of interference include:
proactive- occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one. For example, a teacher learned so many names in the past she struggles to learn new ones
retroactive- occurs when a newer memory interferes with an older one. For example, the teacher learned so many names this year she forgets the old ones.

Question 19

how was interference studies (McGeoch and McDonald)

Answer 19

participants learned a list of words until they were at 100% accuracy, they then learned a new list.

group1) synonyms
2) antonyms
3) words unrelated to the OG ones
4) consonant syllables
5) 3 digit numbers
7) control group (no new list) participants just rested

finding showed that participants struggled to remember the original list when given a new list of synonyms, meaning interferance is stronger when the memories are similar.

Question 20

describe retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 20

retrieval failure occurs when we don’t have necessary cues to access memory
ENCODING SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE
Tulving reviewed retrieval failure and found a consistent pattern in what he called encoding specificity principle: a cue has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) and retrieval (when we recall the material) if cues are different or no present at retrieval this can therefore lead to forgetting
some cues are used in a meaningful way e.g. STM may lead to you remember multiple things
some cues are learned in a non meaningful way:
context dependent forgetting- recall depends on external cue e.g. weather
state dependent forgetting- recall depends on an internal cue e.g. being upset

Question 21

what research was done on CD forgetting? (Godden and Baddeley)

Answer 21

procedure:
- studied deep sea divers to see if training on land hindered there under water work
- divers were given a list under water/on land and were asked to recall it in underwater/on land (four condition)
findings: 40% lower average recall in not matching conditions- external cues that ere then not available lead to retrieval failure

Question 22

What research was done on SD forgetting? (Carter and Cassiday)

Answer 22

-gave hay fever drugs that make you slightly drowsy to participants
-creates internal psychological state
-tested lists of words to participants in four conditions: e.g. on drugs- recall not on drugs
findings:
-mismatching conditions showed a huge negative toll on forgetting

Question 23

what is the eye witness testimony?

Answer 23

the ability of people to remember details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed

Question 24

what research was conducted on leading questions (mis leading information research in EWT) Palmer and Loftus

Answer 24

procedure:
-arranged 45 participants to watch film clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about it
-each participant was asked a leading questions ‘how fast were the cars going when they contacted/bumped/collided/smashed into each other?
findings:
-participants who were asked ‘contacted’ average was 31.8mph
-‘smashed’ gave an average of 40.5mph

Question 25

what is a leading question?

Answer 25

a leading question is a question that suggests a certain answer because of the way it is phrased.

Question 26

why do leading question effect EWT?

Answer 26

when a participant gets a leading question using the word smashed, it doesn’t influence their memory but it does influence the way they wasn’t to answer it. (in this case the participant chose a higher speed)
However, Loftus and Palmer conducted a second experiment on substitution explanations
-proposes that a word change in a leading question can alter the participants memory.
-participants that heard ‘smashed’ were more likely to report seeing broken glass, when there was none, than those who heard ‘hit’
-critical verb altered their memory of the experience

Question 27

what is post event discussion?

Answer 27

this occurs when there was more than one witness to the event, and the witnesses discuss what they have seen with other co witnesses which can alter the accuracy of each witnesses recall.

Question 28

what research was conducted on post event discussion?

Answer 28

procedure-

• put participants in pairs
• the pairs both watched a crime but from different points of views
• both participants then discussed what they had seen individually before completing a test on recall

findings: The researchers found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they did not see in their video but had picked up from discussion
corresponding figure in a control group that has no discussion was 0%
This was evidence of memory conformity

Question 29

why does post event discussion effect EWT?

Answer 29

• memory contamination - they combine witnesses mis information with their own memories forming them to become distorted
• memory conformity- actual memory is un changes, they go along with what co-witnesses have said because they think they are right or they want to be liked

Question 30

why does anxiety have a negative effect on recall?

Answer 30

the psychological arousal in our body prevents us from paying attention to details

Question 31

what research has been done on negative effects of anxiety on recall? (weapon focus)

Answer 31

Johnson and Scott

• two conditions, one low anxiety and one high anxiety
• low anxiety heard a casual conversation in the room next door then saw a man walk in holding a pen with grease
• high anxiety heard a heated argument then saw a man with a knife and blood
• after they were tested with photos of 50 men and the participants were asked to choose who they saw holding the ‘weapon’

findings:
-49% in low anxiety condition recognized the correct man
-33% in high and anxiety
the tunnel theory suggests that in high anxiety situations attention is drawn onto one aspect of a scene, eaming you wont be able to recall much else

Question 32

how does anxiety have a positive affect on recall?

Answer 32

the psychological arousal in the body produces the fight or flight response, which increases alertness

Question 33

what research was conducted that explained how anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 33

-conducted study of an actual shooting involving a shop owner shooting a thief dead.
-21 witnesses, 13 which took part in the study
-interviewed four/five months after the study, and these interviews were compared to the original
police interviews
-accuracy was reported on number of details reported
-witnesses also rated how stressed they were at the incident (on a seven point scale) and whether they has emotional porblems after the event
findings showed accuracy was 88% for those with he highest level of stress, compared to 75% for the less stressed group
-indicates that anxiety can have a positive effect on recall in a real world context

Question 34

what contradicting evidence was found regarding the effect of anxiety on EWT (U theory)

Answer 34

Yerkes and Dodson- relations ship between arousal and performance looks like an inverted U

• performance/ recall can be good regarding arousal but only to an optimum level
• low arousal and high arousal produces negative affects

Question 35

What’s the cognitive interview?

Answer 35

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories.
-uses four main techniques: report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order, change perspective

Question 36

describe the first stage of the cognitive interview (improving the accuracy in EWT)

Answer 36

Report everything-

• witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even if its ‘irrelevant’ or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it
• may be important, and may trigger other memories

Question 37

describe the second stage of the cognitive interview (improving the accuracy in EWT)

Answer 37

reinstate context-

• witness must imagine the crime scene in their mind and picture the even e.g. the weather, what they could see, emotions
• relates to context dependent forgetting

Question 38

describe the third stage of the cognitive interview (improving the accuracy in EWT)

Answer 38

reverse the order-

• events should be recalled in a different order, e.g. final point to beginning
• prevents dishonesty
• prevents people reporting their expectations rather than their reality

Question 39

describe the forth stage of the cognitive interview (improving the accuracy in EWT)

Answer 39

change perspective- recall it from other peoples perspectives e.g. other witnesses or perpetrator
-eliminates schema (e.g. if the crime happened at the shops you may describe the expectations of what have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than the actual events
-

Question 40

What’s the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 40

Fischer came up with a strategy to enhance CI. making sure the interviewer knew when to sustain eye contact, and also how to reduce anxiety for the witness, minimizing distractions, using open ended questions and asking the witness to speak slowly.

Question 41

research on coding evaluation

Answer 41

+identified clear difference between the two memory stores. later research differed slightly, but idea that STM uses mostly acoustic coding and LTM uses semantic has stood the test of time. This was an important step in understanding and led to MSM
-artificial stimuli: world lists had no personal meaning to Ps so findings may not tell us about coding in diff memory tasks, especially in everyday life. This suggests that the findings from this study have limited application

Question 42

research on capacity evaluation

Answer 42

+high reliability- replicated. Old study may suggest there were some confounding variables, however his findings have been confirmed by other better controlled studies, suggests it is a valid test of digit span in STM
-may have over estimated stm capacity. Cowan reviewed other research and concluded that capacity of STM is only about 4 chunks. Suggests that the lower end of Millers estimate (5 items) is more appropriate than 7.

Question 43

research on duration evaluation

Answer 43

-Stimulus material was artificial. Study is not completely irrelevant as we do sometimes remember meaningless material, but recalling consonant syllables does not reflect most everyday memory activities where we are trying to remember meaningful things. Lacks external validity
+high external validity: LTM study conducted investigated meaningful memories, with meaningless pictures being less recalled. this suggests his findings reflect a more real estimate of the LTM duration

Question 44

what is maintenance rehearsal STM

Answer 44

occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over an over again. We can keep info in STMs as long as we rehearse it. If we rehearse it long enough, it passes onto our LTM

Question 45

strength of MSM

Answer 45

+research support showing LTM and STM are different. Baddeley found we tend to mix up words that have sound similar when we are using STM. But similar meanings with LTM. Plus studies on capacity and duration. Studies clearly show STM and LTM are separate stores as claimed by MSM

Question 46

Limits of msm

Answer 46

COUNTERPOINT to research strength:
-many of the studies that supported MSM used none of everyday materials (faces, places) but instead used digits and words, consonant syllables that have no meaning. Means MSM may not be a valid model of real world
-evidence of more than one STM store. Shallice and Warrington studies client KF who had amnesia. STM for digits was very poor when they were read outloud to him but recall was better when digits were read to himself. Further studies with KF showed there could be STM for non verbal sounds. This suggests MSM is wrong in claiming there is one STM store.
-prolonged rehearsal is not needed for transfer to LTM. Researchers found type of rehearsal is more important than the amount. elaborative rehearsal is needed for long term storing. This means linking to existing knowledge, or think about what it means. This suggests MSM does not fully explain how long term storage is achieved

Question 47

LTM types strengths

Answer 47

+Clinical evidence- Clive Wearing and HM- both had brain damage due to infection, semantic memories unaffected: Understood meaning of words such as dog but could not remember stroking it (HM). Procedural memories were also intact: could walk and speak and Wearing knew how to read music and play piano. This evidence supports Tulvings view that there are different memory stores in LTM
+Real world application- help in understanding for people with memory problems. Age memory loss- research has shown that episodic memory is affected in recent memories but old ones stay intact. Belleville made intervention to improve episodic memories in older people. Trained Ps performed better than control group. This shows distinguishing between types of LTM enables treatments to be developed

Question 48

LTM types weaknesses

Answer 48

-COUNTERPOINT to Hm and wearing: lack control variables. Brain injuries received were usually unexpected. researcher had no control over what happened before injury. Without this, it is difficult to judge how much worse memory got if they didn’t know before. This limits what clinical studies can tell us about LTM.
-conflicting neuroimaging evidence: Buckner and Petersen concluded semantic memory is located in elf prefrontal cortex and episodic on the right after research. But other research links LPC with encoding of episodic memories and right with episodic retrieval. This challenges the neurophysiological evidence as there is poor agreement on where each type may be located

Question 49

evaluation points for working memory model - strengths

Answer 49

+clinical evidence of Shallice and Elizabeth: KF brain injury- had poor STM ability for auditory sound but could process visual. REcall of digits was better when he read them than listened to them. KFs phonological loop was damaged but visuo-spatial sketch pad was intact. This finding supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores.
+dual task performance studies supporting existence of visuo-spatial sketchpad: Baddeley carried out visual and verbal at the same time, performance on each was similar, but when both were e.g. visual performance declined. This is due to visual tasks competing for the same subsystem (VSS) but there is no competition when visual and verbal are performed together. Shows that there must be seperate subsystems that process visual input and different for verbal

Question 50

evaluation points for working memory model- weaknesses

Answer 50

-COUNTERPOINT TO KF: unclear whether KF may have had cognitive impairments which may have affected his performance on the tasks. E.g.: his injury was caused by a motorcycle accident. Trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance. This challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected diff systems.
-lack of clarity over CE: Baddeley recognized when he said the CE was least understood component of WMM. The CE needs to be more clearly specified than simply being ‘attention’ E.g. some psychologists believe CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the WMM

Question 51

strengths of interference as an explanation for forgetting:

Answer 51

+RW: Baddeley and hitch asked rugby team to recall names of teams they had played against in season. Players who played most games compared to others had worst recall (most interference of memory) This shows interferance can operate in atleast some real world situations, increasing validity of the theory
+support from drug studies: retrograde facilitation: Researchers gave Ps list of words to later recall, assuming interference would occur. Found that when list of words was learned under drug diazepam, recall one week later was poor. But when list was learned before drug was taken, later recall was better. Wixted suggests drug prevents new info reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories, so it cannot interfere retroactively with already stored info. This shows forgetting can be due to interference

Question 52

interference as an explanation for forgetting evaluation limits

Answer 52

counterpoint to RW application: Conditions for interference are rare. This is very unlike lab studies, where the high degree of control means a researcher can create ideal conditions. This suggests most forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure due to lack of cues
-Interference is temporary and can be overcome using cues. Tulving and Psotka gave Ps lists of words organized into categories. recall averaged 70% on first list, but became worse as they learned each additional list. Cues recall test after, where they were told the names of the categories. recall rose again to 70%. this shows interference causes temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM, not predicted by interference theory.

Question 53

what is context dependent forgetting?

Answer 53

recall depends on external cue (e.g. weather or place)

Question 54

what is state dependent forgetting?

Answer 54

recall depends on internal cue e.g. feeling upset or being drunk

Question 55

strengths of retrieval failure:

Answer 55

real world application:
+can help forgetting in everyday situations. Baddelely suggests it is still important even if not effective. E.g. going into a room and forgetting what you needed, then going back into the other room etc. This shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in RW to improve our recall.
+research support. Godden and Baddeley, carter and cassedy. Show lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context and state dependent forgetting. Eysneck and keane argue it is the main reason forgetting in LTM. This shows it occurs in RW aswell as in a lab

Question 56

limits of retrieval failure:

Answer 56

-counterpoint to research support: Baddeley argues that context effects are not very strong, especially in everyday life. Different contexts have to be very different in order for effects to be seen. E.g. hard to find environment as different as land from water. Learning something in one room and forgetting it in another is not likely to result in forgetting as they are too similar. This means retrieval failure due to lack of cues may not actually explain everyday forgetting
-context effects may depend on type of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall. There was no context dependent effects, performance was the same in all condition. This suggests retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting as it applies when a person has to recall, not recognise

Question 57

misleading information as a factor effecting ewt: strength

Answer 57

+real world application: practical uses in criminal justice system. Loftus believes leading questions can have a huge affect so officers have to be careful how they phrase questions in EWT. Psychologist are asked sometimes to act as an expert witness to explain limits of EWT to juries. This shows psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works, by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions due to unreliable EWT.

Question 58

misleading information as a factor effecting ewt: limits

Answer 58

-Counterpoint to RWA: issues in Loftus and Palmers research- watching films is different to witnessing it in real life. Research participants were also less likely to be motivated to be accurate as they knew the EWT did not mean anything. This suggests EWT may be more dependable than many studies suggest
-substitution explanation limit: Sutherland and Hayne showed Ps a video clip. When they were later asked misleading questions their recall was more accurate for central details than peripheral ones. This suggests original memories for central details survived and were not distorted, outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
-memory conformity limit due to evidence that PED alters EWT.
Researchers showed Ps film clips with two different appearances for the mugger. After post event discussion, most reported what they discussed rather than what they saw. This suggests memory itself is distorted through contamination by PED, rather than memory conformity

Question 59

strengths for anxiety as a factor that affects accuracy of EWT

Answer 59

+evidence support: Weapon focus study supports it. Researchers used an objective measure of HR to divide Ps into low and high anxiety groups. The anxiety clearly affected recall ability. This suggests a high level of anxiety has an negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event.
+evidence that shows anxiety can have positive impact on accuracy of recall. - 58 witnesses of bank robbery in Sweden reviewed. Some witnesses were directly involved and some indirectly. Recall was more 75% accurate across all witnesses, and those in direct were even more accurate. Real world evidence that it may not reduce but enhance.

Question 60

limits for anxiety as a factor that affects accuracy of EWT

Answer 60

-Scott and Johnson test may have not tested anxiety. Weapon focus may be due to what they saw rather than anxiety. Experiment with scissors, raw chicken leg, wallet and hand gun in hair salon showed recall was worse in raw chicken and hand gun. This suggests weapon focus is due to unusualness therefore does not tell us about the effects of anxiety on EWT
-COUNTERPOINT to Sweden study: up to 15 months after event is when the interview took place therefore researchers had no control over factors such as post even discussion that may have overwhelmed the anxiety factor reducing validity due to lack of control over confounding variables

Question 61

strength of cognitive interview as a way of improving the accuracy of EWT

Answer 61

+evidence it works: meta analysis combined data from 50 studies comparing CI with standard interview. CI gave an average 41 increase in accurate information compared. Only four studies showed no difference. This shows CI is an effective technique helping witnesses access memories.

Question 62

limits of cognitive interview as a way of improving the accuracy of EWT

Answer 62

-COUNTERPOINT to strength: a researcher also found an increase in inaccurate information produced. Particularly in ECI. Cog interviews may sacrifice quality of EWT i.e accuracy in favour of quantity.
-not all of its elements together may be useful. Researcher found that each of the four used alone produced more info than the standard interview. Also found a combo of report everything and reinstate context produced better recall than any other elements alone or combo of them. This casts some doubt on the overall credibility of the CI.
-Time consuming: takes more time and training than the standard police interview: e.g. allow them to relax etc takes more time. It also requires specialist training and many forces do not have more than a few hours to provide. This suggests overall CI may not be appropriate for officers and only a few may be.