memory

Question 1

coding

Answer 1

• the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores
• the process of converting information from one form to another is called coding
• Baddely experiment

Question 2

Baddely (not incl. results)

Answer 2

(1966, coding)
- gave different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember
- group 1 - acoustically similar words eg. cat, cab, can
- group 2 - acoustically dissimilar words eg. pit, few, cow
- group 3 - semantically similar words eg. great, large, big
- group 4 - semantically dissimilar words eg. good, huge, hot
Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order.

Question 3

Baddely experiment result

Answer 3

When they had to recall the words immediately remembering (testing STM recall) participants performed worse with acoustically similar words.
If participant were asked to recall the word list after a time interval of 20 mins (testing LTM recall), participants did worse with the semantically similar words.
This suggests that information is coded acoustically in the STM and semantically in the LTM.
(because they were remembered the same way, it was harder to recall their order)

Question 4

evaluation of the Baddely experiment

Answer 4

• lacks mundane realism because in real life you don’t recall a set of words with no purpose (artificial word lists)
• participant variables

Question 5

capacity

Answer 5

• capacity is the amount of information that can be held in a memory store
• we measure the capacity of memory using ‘number of items’
• Jacobs
• Miller

Question 6

Jacobs experiment

Answer 6

(1887 - capacity - digit span technique)
- he developed a technique to measure digit span (recalling numbers in the right order)
- the researcher gives eg. 4 digits and then the participant is asked to recall these in the correct order out loud
- if this is correct the researcher then reads out five digits and so on until the participant cannot recall the order correctly
- Jacobs found that the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3 items and the mean span for letters was 7.3

Question 7

evaluation of Jacobs experiment

Answer 7

• lacks mundane realism again, artificial tasks
• lacks temporal validity (1887) - research methods used were less rigorous and controlled

Question 8

Miller

Answer 8

(1956) - main researcher for capacity, cite him
- digit span test with every letter and number but ‘7’ and ‘W’ because they have more than one syllable
- Miller found that most adults can store 7+-2 items in their STM
- He suggested that this is because it only has a certain number of “slots” in which items could be stored
- Miller also found that people can recall 5 words as well as they can recall 5 letters. They do this by chunking individual units of information (chunking can improve the capacity of STM)

Question 9

chunking

Answer 9

• the process of grouping large amounts of information into smaller units of information to help us to retain it more easily

Question 10

duration

Answer 10

• the length of time information can be held in memory
• Peterson and Peterson (STM)
• Bahrick (LTM)

Question 11

Peterson and Peterson

Answer 11

(1959 - duration)
- tested 24 undergraduate students and each student took part in 8 trials
- on each trial each student was given a trigram (eg. YCG) to remember and was also given a 3 digit number
- the student was asked to count backwards in threes from their three digit number until told to stop
- this counting was intended to prevent rehearsal of the trigram
- on each trial they were told to stop after a different amount of time - the retention interval
- their findings suggested that the duration of STM is about 18 seconds unless we repeat something over and over again (rehearsal)

Question 12

general duration of STM

Answer 12

up to 30 seconds

Question 13

how many items can adults store in their STM

Answer 13

7 +/- 2

Question 14

Bahrick

Answer 14

(1975)
- LTM
- studied 392 participants from Ohio between 17-74
- high school year books were obtained from the participants schools
- recall was tested via:
- photo recognition, some from the year book
- free recall test, recalling names
- participants who were tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in photo recognition
- after 15 years this was about 60% accuracy
- after 48 years this dropped to 30% accuracy
- demonstrates that LTM may last a lifetime for certain material

Question 15

evaluation of Bahrick

Answer 15

+ age range
+ mundane realism
- higher participant variables
- extraneous variables (reunions, communication, etc.)

Question 16

what is the multi-store model for memory (MSM)

Answer 16

• representation of how memory works in terms of 3 stores (sensory register, STM, LTM)
• and how information is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and how it is forgotten
• Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968, 1971)

Question 17

the diagram for the MSM

Answer 17

stimuli from environment —>sensory register (coding=modality specific)
SR–>memory decay
SR–attention–> STM —rehearsal–> LTM —retrieval—> STM
STM—->memory decay (duration=up to 30secs)
STM —->memory displacement (7+/-2 items)

Question 18

sensory register: capacity, duration, coding

Answer 18

• coding is modality specific
• The capacity of sensory registers is huge (millions of receptors)
• information lasts for a very short time (less than half a second).
• Very little of what goes into the sensory register passes further into the memory system. But it will if you pay attention to it. So the key process is attention.

Question 19

maintenance rehearsal (MSM)

Answer 19

Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat (rehearse) material to ourselves over and over again. We can keep the information in our STMs as long as we rehearse it. If we rehearse it long enough, it passes into LTM.

Question 20

retrieval (MSM)

Answer 20

• when we want to recall material, it has to be transferred back into STM by a process called retrieval.
• According to the MSM, this is true of all our memories. None of them are recalled directly from LTM.

Question 21

memory decay

Answer 21

• to do with duration
• from sensory register if you don’t pay attention to the information (d=up to 0.5secs)
• from STM without rehearsal (d=up to 30secs)

Question 22

memory displacement

Answer 22

• to do with capacity
• from STM when more than 7+/-2 items are stored

Question 23

modality specific

Answer 23

• sensory register coding
• specific to mode of information coming in

Question 24

writing about the MSM

Answer 24

• information flows through model in a linear fashion
• MSM is a representation of memory via boxes as stores linked by processes

Question 25

how would you answer: “outline the multi-store model of memory [6 marks]”

Answer 25

• can draw it as long as you say the points too
• CAN ONLY DRAW for an ‘outline’ question that is 6 marks or less

Question 26

MSM supporting research

Answer 26

• Murdock (1962)
• serial position effect

Question 27

murdock (1962)

Answer 27

• serial position effect
• recall of the first and last words are best, whereas recall for the middle is poor
• this is because the first words have been transferred into the LTM because they have been rehearsed
• the last words are still being rehearsed in the STM
• the words in the middle are less well recalled because you were too busy rehearsing the first ones to remember them well

Question 28

evaluation of Murdock’s research

Answer 28

• could be confounding variables (chunking, etc) and demand characteristics
• artificial word lists so low mundane realism

Question 29

evaluation of the MSM for memory

Answer 29

• model is easy to understand and research
• model is reductionist, may be over-simplified
• supporting research (Murdock, Baddely, Bahrick, etc.)
• there may be more than one type of STM (Shallice and Warrington)
• failure to acknowledge more than one type of rehearsal (Craik and Watkins)

Question 30

Shallice and Warrington

Answer 30

They studied a patient with amnesia known as KF and found that KF’s memory for digits was poor when they read them out lout to him but his recall was much better when he was able to read the digits to himself.

Question 31

craik and watkins

Answer 31

found that what it is important to remember information is the type of rehearsal conducted. They found two types of rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal which maintains the information within the STM and elaborative rehearsal which is needed for long term storage.

Question 32

‘MSM is too simple…’

Answer 32

‘MSM is too simple and inflexible to explain human memory.’ - Tulving, (1985)

Question 33

Tulving

Answer 33

‘MSM is too simple and inflexible to explain human memory.’ - (1985)
Proposed 3 long-term memory stores, contain different types of information:
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural

Question 34

the types of long-term memory stores according to Tulving

Answer 34

Episodic
Semantic
Procedural

Question 35

episodic memory

Answer 35

• ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives
• like a diary, a record of daily happenings
• complex: they are ‘time-stamped’ and include several elements such as people, places, objects, and behaviours - all of which are interwoven to produce one memory
• have to make a conscious effort to recall these memories, you may be able to do so quickly but you will be aware that you are searching for that memory
  eg. your friends’ wedding, your first day of school

Question 36

semantic memory

Answer 36

• knowledge of the world (facts in the broadest sense, concepts, words, etc)
• like a combination of an encyclopedia and a dictionary
• not time-stamped, we don’t usually remember when we learned about the Eiffel tower for example
• less personal and more about the facts we all share
• constantly being added to
• usually need to be recalled deliberately
  eg. your address, where the Eiffel tower is

Question 37

procedural memory

Answer 37

• memory for actions, or skills, basically how we do things
• can recall these without conscious awareness or much effort
• eg. driving a car - our ability to do this (eventually) depends on procedural memory and we can change gear without recalling how
• might find these skills hard to explain to someone else as it requires recall and if you try to describe what you are doing as you do it, you may find the task becomes difficult
  eg. how to ride a bike, how to juggle

Question 38

memory for recalling events

Answer 38

episodic memory

Question 39

memory for knowledge of the world

Answer 39

semantic memory

Question 40

memory for actions/skills

Answer 40

procedural memory

Question 41

evaluation points for types of long term memory

Answer 41

• supporting research (Clive Wearing and Henry Molaison case studies)
• conflicting neuroimaging evidence (Buckner and Petersen 1996 vs Tulving et al. 1994)
• allows psychologists to help people with memory problems, practical applications, Sylvie Belleville et al. (2006)

Question 42

supporting research for long term memory

Answer 42

the case of Clive Wearing
- intact procedural memory (can still play the piano brilliantly after being a world-class musician)
- episodic memory is damaged so can’t remember events like a conversation
- less than 30s memory
- semantic memory is relatively intact, doesn’t need the concept of ‘doctor’ explained to him

Question 43

problems with clive wearing research

Answer 43

• not generalisable (he has an atypical memory), reduces validity of types of LTM
• can’t compare to before the injury

Question 44

buckner and petersen

Answer 44

(1996)
- reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory
- concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right

Question 45

tulving et al 1994

Answer 45

(1994)
- linked the left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval
- this challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type may be located

Question 46

practical applications of understanding LTM

Answer 46

• allows psychologists to help people with memory problems
• as people age they experience memory loss, research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory
• Sylvie Belleville et al. (2006) devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people
• the participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group

Question 47

Tulving 2002

Answer 47

• has taken the view that episodic memory is a ‘specialised subcategory’ of semantic memory (so essentially the same store)
• his research showed that some people with amnesia have a functioning semantic memory alongside a damaged episodic memory
• but he also concluded it is not possible to have a functioning episodic memory with a damaged semantic memory
  However, John Hodges and Karalyn Patterson (2007) found that some people with Alzheimer’s disease could form new episodic memories but not semantic memories.

Question 48

John Hodges and Karalyn Patterson

Answer 48

(2007) found that some people with Alzheimer’s disease could form new episodic memories but not semantic memories.

Question 49

the working memory model (info not diagram)

Answer 49

• The Working Memory Model (WMM) is an explanation of how short-term memory is organised and how it functions
• The WWM is concerned with the part of the mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information eg. completing problem solving tasks
• The WWM consists of four main components each of which is different in terms of their capacity and coding
• it is comprised of the central executive and three sub-systems: phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer

Question 50

central executive main purpose

Answer 50

• To receive information from the sub-systems and from long-term memory and then sift, sort, and combine this information until decisions are reached.
• Reasoning and decision making.

Question 51

central executive capacity

Answer 51

Limited

Question 52

central executive coding

Answer 52

Modality free (not limited to any one sense since it needs to manipulate all manner of information)

Question 53

phonological loop main purpose

Answer 53

(internal voice)
- To hold words and rehearse any words that are currently being considered (by talking to yourself)
- phonological store (stores words you hear)
- articulatory process or loop (allows maintenance rehearsal of words to keep them in working memory until needed)

Question 54

phonological loop capacity

Answer 54

2 seconds’ worth of information

Question 55

phonological loop coding

Answer 55

acoustic

Question 56

visuospatial sketchpad main purpose

Answer 56

(inner eye)
- To hold static images and to manipulate them
- visual cache (stores visual data)
- inner scribe (records arrangement of objects in visual field)

Question 57

visuospatial sketchpad capacity

Answer 57

3-4 objects

Question 58

visuospatial sketchpad coding

Answer 58

visual

Question 59

episodic buffer main purpose

Answer 59

(an addition to the model later, like an assistant)
- To provide a temporary store for information received by the central executive and maintain a sense of time frequency
- to link LTM to wider cognitive processes such as perception

Question 60

episodic buffer capacity

Answer 60

Limited - about 4 chunks

Question 61

episodic buffer coding

Answer 61

Modality free (like the central executive)

Question 62

the working memory model (WMM)

Answer 62

central executive
visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop
long-term memory

Question 63

dual task performance studies

Answer 63

Studies where participants are given two tasks to complete simultaneously.
- if the two tasks use different stores (eg. repeating a phone number and answering true or false - phonological loop and central executive), it will be manageable because the two tasks are using different systems of working memory. Therefore, there is no competition between the two components for resources and therefore little interference between the two tasks
- If the two tasks use the same store, it will be much harder because the two components are competing for resources and so there is interference between the tasks

Question 64

strengths of the working memory model

Answer 64

+ easy to understand as a model
+ practical applications (understanding amnesia, dementia, etc.)
+ supporting research: Shallice and Warrington (1970), studied a patient with amnesia known as KF and found that his memory for digits was poor when they read them out loud to him but his recall was much better when he was able to read the digits to himself - multiple STM memory stores (phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad)
+ supporting research: Baddeley et al (1975) showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks than doing both a visual and verbal task at the same time - dual task performance study
+ supporting research: brain scan studies like Braver et al. (1997), gave ppts tasks that involved the central executive while they were having a brain scan, they found greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex and found that as the task got harder activity increased

Question 65

limitations of the working memory model

Answer 65

• reductionist
• lack of clarity over the role of the central executive (‘the central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory’ - Baddeley (one of the two who came up with the WMM), 2003

Question 66

interference

Answer 66

• at least some forgetting takes place due to interference
• interference is when two pieces of information conflict with each other, resulting in the forgetting of one or both pieces of information
• interference may also cause distortion of memory
• proactive and retroactive

Question 67

interference and LTM

Answer 67

Interference has been proposed mainly as an explanation for forgetting in the LTM. Once information has reached the LTM it is presumed permanent. Therefore, any forgetting of LTMs is most likely because we can’t access them even though they are there. Therefore, interference between memories makes it harder for us to locate them and this is experienced as ‘forgetting’.

Question 68

two types of interference

Answer 68

Proactive Interference:
- when older memories disrupt the recall of newer memories
- eg. a teacher has learnt many names in the past, so has difficulty remembering the names of his new/current class

Retroactive Interference:
- when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories
- Eg. a teacher has learnt so many new names this year that she has difficulty remembering the names of her past students

Question 69

McGeoch and McDonald

Answer 69

(1931)
- studied retroactive interference by changing the level of similarity between two sets of materials.
- Participants ha to learn a list of 10 new words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then had to learn a new list. There were six different groups.

Question 70

groups in the McGeoch and McDonald study

Answer 70

Group 1 - synonyms (new words had the same meaning as the originals)
Group 2 - antonyms (new words had opposite meanings to the old)
Group 3 - unrelated words
Group 4 - nonsense syllables (suedowords)
Group 5 - three-digit numbers
Group 6 - no new list

Question 71

findings of the McGeoch and McDonald study

Answer 71

• when the participants recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list.
• The most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.
  (1931)

Question 72

study that researched how interference worsened when memories were similar

Answer 72

McGeoch and McDonald (1931):
Participants had to learn a list of 10 new words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then had to learn a new list. There were six different groups.

Question 73

evaluation points for interference

Answer 73

+ McGeoch and McDonald study on how interference is worse when memories are similar
+ supporting research on interference in everyday life: Baddeley and Hitch (1977) - rugby players
+ supporting research on retrograde facilitation: Coenen and van Luijtelaar (1997) and Wixted (2004) interpretation
- interference in everyday life is unusual due to lack of ideal conditions (so experiments lack ecological validity)
- opposing research has shown that interference is temporary - Tulving and Psotka (1971) - which could decrease the validity of interference to explain forgetting in the LTM

Question 74

Baddeley and Hitch (1977)

Answer 74

• asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during the season
• the players all played for the same time interval (one season) but the number of intervening games vaqried due to injuries
• players who played the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall

Question 75

Tulving and Psotka (1971)

Answer 75

• gave participants lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time (ppts were not informed of the categories)
• recall averaged around 70% for the first list but became progressively worse as participants learned each additional list (proactive interference)
• at the end of the procedure, participants were given a cued recall test (they were told the names of the categories) - recall rose again to about 70%

Question 76

Coenen and van Luijtelaar (1997)

Answer 76

• gave participants a list of words and later asked them to recall the list, assuming the intervening experience would act as interference
• they found that, when a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam, recall was poor compared to a placebo control group
• but when a list was learned before the drug was taken, later recall was better than placebo
• so the drug actually improved recall of material learned beforehand
• John Wixted (2004):
  
  • suggests that the drug prevents new information (i.e. experienced after taking the drug) reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories so it cannot interfere retroactively with information already stored

Question 77

retrieval failure

Answer 77

• A form of forgetting (in the LTM). It suggests that the memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.
• Therefore, if forgetting occurs due to retrieval failure it means we don’t have the necessary cues to access the memory.
• context-dependent, state-dependent, meaningful link

Question 78

what is a cue? (retrieval failure)

Answer 78

a ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory. Such cues may meaningfully link to the material being remembered such as an acronym or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning.
- context-dependent
- state-dependent
- meaningful link

Question 79

encoding specificity principle

Answer 79

• if the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different or absent (at retrieval) there will be some forgetting
• it does acknowledge that a cue doesn’t have to be exactly right but the closer the cue is the more useful it will be to retrieving that memory

Question 80

carter and cassidy

Answer 80

(1998): Antihistamine
- state dependent forgetting
- gave antihistamine drugs to their participants, these drugs had a mild sedative effect
- this creates an internal physiological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert
- the participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information, there were 4 conditions:
1. learn on drug, recall on drug
2. learn on drug, recall not on drug
3. learn not on drug, recall on drug
4. learn not on drug, recall not on drug
- findings - in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the test was significantly worse. So when the cues are absent then there is more forgetting.

Question 81

abernathy study

Answer 81

(1940): course teaching
- context dependent forgetting
- arranged for a group of students to be tested before a certain course began, they were then tested each week
- they were four experimental conditions for the study:
1. usual teaching room by their normal instructor
2. usual teaching room but by a different instructor
3. different room but normal instructor
4. different room and a different instructor
- those tested by the same instructor in the same room performed best, presumably familiar things (room and instructor) acted as memory cues
- they also found that superior students were less effected by the changes than inferior students

Question 82

evaluation of retrieval failure

Answer 82

+ supporting evidence, increased INTERNAL validity and explanatory power - eg. Abernathy showed that retrieval failure occurs in real-life scenarios
+ practical applications (retrieval cues can help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations)

• artificial word lists so the theory lacks external validity
• rarely are the contexts so extremely different as for example the Deep Sea Divers study (Godden and Baddeley)
• only offers a partial explanation, context effects may depend on the TYPE of memory being tested eg. Godden and Baddeley adapted their experiment to use a recognition test instead of recall (there was no context dependent effect)
• is it possible to independently establish whether a cue has been encoded or not? We just assume that if a cue doesn’t produce recall it wasn’t encoded at the same time… so the ESP is not scientifically testable and its validity is limited

Question 83

leading questions

Answer 83

questions that either by their content or how they are asked suggest the desired answer
- Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Question 84

Loftus and Palmer study

Answer 84

(1974) - AO1:
- demonstrated the effect that leading questions can have on eyewitness testimony

Participants (students) watched film clips of car accidents and then answered questions about the accident. In the critical question (a leading question), participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling: ‘About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ This is a leading question because the verb ‘hit’ suggests the speed the car was going. There were five groups of participants, each was given a different verb in the critical question:
1. ‘hit’
2. ‘contacted’
3. ‘bumped’
4. ‘collided’
5. ‘smashed’

Question 85

findings of the Loftus and Palmer study

Answer 85

The mean estimate speed was calculated for each participant group. The verb ‘contacted’ resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8mph. For the verb ‘smashed’, the mean was 40.8. The leading question biased the eyewitness recall of an event.
- there were two explanations for the results: the response-bias explanation and the substitution explanation

Question 86

the response-bias explanation

Answer 86

suggests that 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 give a higher speed estimate.

Question 87

the substitution explanation

Answer 87

the wording of a leading questions actually changes the participant’s memory of the film clip
- Loftus and Palmer (1974) conducted a second experiment that supported this, the participants who originally heard ‘smashed’ were later more likely to report seeing broken glass (there was none) than those who heard ‘hit’

Question 88

post-event discussion

Answer 88

• the memory of an event may also be altered or contaminated through discussing events with others
• PED most likely occurs when there is more than one witness to an event and they each discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or other people. This can affect the accuracy of their eye-witness testimony
• Gabbert et al. (2003)
• conformity, contamination

Question 89

Gabbert et al. procedure

Answer 89

(2003)
Participants were put into pairs. Each participant watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view. This meant than each participant could see elements of the event that the other could not eg. only one of the participants could see the title of the book held by a young woman.
Both participants then discussed what they’d seen before individually completing a recall test. There was also a control group with no discussion. They compared the percentages of inaccuracies between these two groups.

Question 90

Gabbert et al. findings

Answer 90

(2003)
Gabbert found that 71% of the (experimental) participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but picked up from the discussion. The control results produced 0% inaccurate recall. This research does seem to demonstrate memory conformity.

Question 91

memory contamination

Answer 91

when co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their EWT may become altered or distorted this is because they combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memory

Question 92

memory conformity

Answer 92

when co-witnesses often go along with each other to win either social approval or because they believe the other witnesses to be correct when they are wrong. This is unlike memory contamination in that the actual memory is unchanged.

Question 93

evaluation of misleading information

Answer 93

+ practical applications (police officers are trained to investigate without using leading questions, measures to prevent witnesses discussing what they’ve seen)
+ supporting research [only use in an 8 marker] - Loftus and Palmer, Gabbert et al.

• lacks mundane realism in supporting research, artificial stimuli (watching a video is very different to witnessing a real crime, there are other factors)
• other factors are unaccounted for eg. anxiety won’t be present in the experiment, participants may act differently because their recall is less influential (not going to send someone to prison) - Foster et al.
• demand characteristics
• evidence against substitution (Sutherland and Hayne (2001) - recall was better for central parts of the video than peripheral, central details were not distorted)
• evidence against memory conformity (Skagerberg and Wright (2008) - often blended what they had seen and what others had, contamination not conformity)

Question 94

Sutherland and Hayne

Answer 94

(2001)
- showed participants a video clip and later asked them misleading questions
- recall was more accurate for central details of the event than peripheral ones
- presumably the participants were focused on the central details and therefore these elements were relatively resistant to misleading info
- substitution explanation does not explain this

Question 95

Skagerberg and Wright

Answer 95

(2008)
- showed participants film clips, there were two versions eg. the mugger had either light or dark brown hair
- participants discussed the clops in pairs having seen different versions
- they often did not report either but reported a ‘blend’ of the two (eg. ‘medium brown’)
- this suggests contamination by misleading discussion rather than conformity

Question 96

what is anxiety? What are the key symptoms?

Answer 96

Anxiety is an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, but can affect the accuracy of EWT.
Emotional symptoms:
- worried thoughts
- feelings of tension
Physiological symptoms:
- increased heart rate
- sweatiness
- rapid breathing

Question 97

what is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 97

Where a witness focuses their attention on the weapon being used in a crime, this causes a state of anxiety leading to difficulties in recalling other details accurately. Peripheral details of the event are therefore lost and recall of these is poorer. It is sometimes referred to as the tunnel theory of memory.
- Johnson and Scott (1976)

Question 98

Johnson and Scott

Answer 98

(1976 - anxiety has a negative effect on recall)
- led participants to believe they were taking part in a laboratory study
- while seated in a waiting room, they heard an argument taking place in the next room
- in the low anxiety condition a man then walked past carrying a pen with grease on his hands
- in the high anxiety condition, the argument (otherwise the same) was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, a man then left the room holding a knife covered in blood
- the participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos:
In the low anxiety condition, 49% were able to identify him
In the high anxiety condition, 33% identified him
- this demonstrates the weapon focus effect

Question 99

Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 99

(1986 - anxiety has a positive effect on recall)
- conducted a study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver, Canada where the owner shot a thief (who died), there were 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to be part of the study
- they were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident, these interviews were compared with the original police interviews at the time of the shooting
- the accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account
- they were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident (on a 7 point scale) and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event eg. insomnia
- the witnesses were very generally very accurate in their accounts and there was little change between the accounts, some details such as height estimates were were less accurate however
- the participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group)

Question 100

Why do we get conflicting results/inconsistency on whether anxiety has a positive or negative effect on recall?

Answer 100

• there is an optimal level of “performance” before recall is impaired by anxiety
• Yerkes and Dodson suggest the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U
• lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall
• but memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety experienced increases
• however, there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached, and any more anxiety dramatically decreases the accuracy of recall

Question 101

cognitive interview techniques

Answer 101

Fisher and Geiselman (1992) came up with four main techniques used in cognitive interviews:
1. report everything
2. reinstate the context
3. reverse the order
4. change the perspective

Question 102

‘report everything’ technique

Answer 102

(cognitive interviews)
- witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event whether they believe it to be relevant, trivial or not
- an example of this could be what they also did the day of the event
+ this is beneficial as seemingly trivial detail may be important to the investigation
+ any recollection of other detail may act as a cue and trigger other important memories

Question 103

‘reinstate the context’ technique

Answer 103

(cognitive interviews)
- the witnesses should return to the original scene in their mind and imagine the environment (eg. what the weather was like, what could they see, was it dark or light, the witness’ emotional state, etc)
+ based on the encoding specificity principle, designed to reduce context-dependent forgetting
+ helps the witness to recall information using cues that were present when learnt (the event)

Question 104

‘reverse the order’ technique

Answer 104

(cognitive interviews)
- witnesses are asked to recall in a different chronological order to the original sequence of events eg. end to beginning, middle to beginning
+ prevents witnesses recalling their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events
+ also prevents dishonesty (much more difficult to produce an untruthful account if asked to reverse the order)

Question 105

‘change the perspective’ technique

Answer 105

(cognitive interviews)
- witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives eg. how it would have appeared to other witnesses or from the perpetrators perspective
+ disrupts the effect of expectations and schema on recall

Question 106

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI)

Answer 106

Fisher et al. (1987) developed some additional elements of the Cognitive Interview to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction eg. the interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it.
The ECI also includes ideas such as reducing EW anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly, asking open ended questions, and offering comments to help clarify witness statements to improve the detail of the statement

Question 107

evaluation of the cognitive interview

Answer 107

+ supporting research - Milne and Bull (counters the time-consuming criticism), increases credibility
+ supporting research - Mello and Fisher (avoid possible age bias, more applications)
+ supporting research - Kohnken et al. (strong evidence, statistical data, supports its role, increased validity)

• time consuming, limits the benefits gained because it cannot be used in practice (it also requires specialist training which forces cannot find much time for, proper version may not be being used)
• opposing research - Kohnken (increase in inaccurate info too, weakens credibility)

Question 108

Milne and Bull to evaluate cognitive interviews

Answer 108

• even using one element of the cognitive interview on its own produced more information than the standard police interview
• however, out of all the conditions, a combination of ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ produced the best recall
• can be used to counter the “time consuming” criticism, increases its practical credibility

Question 109

Mello and Fisher to evaluate cognitive interviews

Answer 109

• compared older (mean age of 72 years) and younger (mean age of 22 years) adults’ memory of a filmed, simulated crime using either the cognitive or standard interview
• although the cognitive interview produced more info for all, the advantage was significantly greater for the older participants
• reduce age bias/impact of negative stereotypes which may make them overly cautious about reporting

Question 110

Kohnken et al. (+ study) to evaluate cognitive interviews

Answer 110

• combined 50 studies and consistently found that witnesses recalled more accurate info when interviewed using the enhanced cognitive interview (compared to standard interview)
• 34% increase in the amount of correct info generated compared to standard police interview
• strong evidence, statistical data so supports the role of cognitive interviews in increasing the accuracy of EWT, increased validity
• however there is conflicting evidence in the second Kohnken study

Question 111

Kohnken (- study) to evaluate cognitive interviews

Answer 111

• increase in the amount of incorrect info recalled using the CI compared to standard interview
• 81% increase of accurate, 61% increase in inaccurate
• contradicts the previous kohnken study, weakens the credibility of CI as a method of increasing accuracy of EWT