Memory Flashcards
Working Memory Model (WMM)
Central Executive - Has a supervisory role. Monitors incoming data and divides our limited attention and allocates systems to the tasks.
- Limited capacity.
- Does not store information.
Visio-spacial sketch pad - Stores any spacial information.
- Capacity of three/four objects.
Episodic Buffer - A temporary store for information, integrating the knowledge from other stores and maintaining a series of time sequencing - recording events that are happening. Seen as the storage component for the central executive.
- Capacity of about 4 chunks.
- Works in the Long Term Memory and wider cognitive processes such as perception.
Phonological Loop - The phonological store, the articulatory process allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating words in a loop to keep them in the memory).
- Capacity of 2 seconds worth of what you can say.
Coding, capacity, duration of the WMM
CE - Encodes in any modality
- Limited capacity
VSS - Encodes visual and spacial information
- 3/4 bits of information
EB - Maintains a sense of time and sequencing
- 4 bits of information
PL - Encodes acoustically
- 2 seconds
Multi- Store Model of Memory (MSM)
Sensory Register - Gains information from the stimulus in the environment.
Short Term Memory - Gains information by paying attention.
- Forgetting by not rehearsing information.
Long Term Memory - Gains information through rehearsal.
- Can gain forgotten information through retrieval from the STM.
Coding, capacity, duration of the MSM
SR - All of them
- 4-10 bits of information
- 50 milliseconds
STM - Acoustically
- 7 +- 2 bits of information
- 18-30 seconds
LTM - Semantically
- Unlimited
- Forever
Types of LTM
Episodic - A LTM store for personal events. It includes memories of when the events occurred and the people, objects, places and behaviors involved. Memories from this store have to be retrieved consciously and with effort.
Semantic - A LTM store for our knowledge of the world. This includes facts and our knowledge of what worlds and concepts mean. These memories usually also need to be recalled deliberately.
Procedural - A LTM 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.
Explanations for forgetting - types of Interference
Proactive interference - Forgetting occurs when older memories disrupt the recall of newer memories already stored.
Retroactive interference - 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.
Explanations for forgetting - Retrieval failure
Context dependent forgetting - Recall depends on an external cue (weather or place).
State- dependent forgetting - Recall depends on an internal cue (feeling upset or being drunk).
Research on state dependent forgetting
Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Gave antihistamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to their participants. The antihistamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy. This creates an internal state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert. The participants had to learn a list f words and passages of prose and then recall the information again, creating four conditions:
- Lean on drug - recall on drug
- Learn on drug - recall when not on drug
- Learn when not on drug - recall on drug
- Learn when not on drug - recall when not on drug
They found that in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, the performance was significantly worse. So when cues are absent, then there is more forgetting.
Research for context dependent forgetting
Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Studied deep-sea divers who work underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater. The divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land:
- Learn on land - recall on land
- Learn on land - recall underwater
- Learn underwater - recall on land
- Learn underwater - recall underwater
They found that in two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other two they did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. They concluded that the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure.
Factors affecting eye witness testimony - Research on misleading information
Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Conducted an experiment that supported the substitution explanation, which proposes that the wording of a leading question changes the participants’ memory of the event. This was shown because participants who originally heard smashed were alter more likely to report seeing broken glass (there as none) than those who head hit. The critical verb altered their memory of the incident.
Factors affecting eye witness testimony - Research on Anxiety (negative effect)
Johnson and Scott (1976) - Their participants believed they were taking part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room participants in the low-anxiety condition heard a casual conversation in the next room and then saw a man walk past them carrying a pen with grease on his hands. Other participants overheard a heated argument, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out of the room, covered in blood, this was the high anxiety condition.
They found that out of 50 photos, 49% were able to identify the man who they saw carrying the pen. The corresponding figure for the participants who had seen the man holding the blood covered knife was 33%. The tunnel theory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events. Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect.
Factors affecting eye witness testimony - Research on Anxiety (positive effect)
Yuille and Cutshall (1986) - Conducted a study of an actual shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver, Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead. There were 21 witnesses - 13 took part in the study. They were interviewed four to five months after the incident and these were compared with the original police interviews of the time of the shooting. Accuracy were also asked to rate on how stressed they said they had felt at the time of the incident (on a 7 point scale) and whether they had any emotional problems since the event.
The witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount recalled or the accuracy after 5 months. Though some details were less accurate such as recollection of the colour of items and age/height/weight estimates. Those who reported the highest level of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less stressed group). This suggests that anxiety does not have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of eyewitness memory in a real life context and may even enhance it.
Factors affecting eye witness testimony - Cognitive Interview
- Report everything
- Reinstate the context
- Reverse the order
- Change perspective
Factors affecting eye witness testimony - Research on post-event discussion
Fiona Gabbert et al. (2003) - Studied participants in pairs. Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. This meant that each participant could see the elements of an event that the other could not. For example, only one of the participants could see the title of a book being carried by a young women. Both participants then discussed what they could see before individually completing a test of recall.
They found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of he event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion. The corresponding figure in a control group, where there was no discussion, was 0%. This was evidence of memory conformity.
