memory

Question 1

sensory memory

Answer 1

•initial contact for stimuli, it’s only capable of retaining information for a very short time.

Question 2

short term memory

Answer 2

•the information we are currently aware of or thinking about. the information found in short term memory comes from paying attention to sensory memory.

Question 3

long term memory

Answer 3

•continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness, but can be called into working memory to be used when needed.

Question 4

capacity

Answer 4

indicates the amount of information that can be stored in memory. It is represented in terms of “bits” of information.

Question 5

duration

Answer 5

refers to how long a memory trace can last, LTM potentially last forever but STM doesn’t last very long.

Question 6

coding

Answer 6

information has to be input in memory in some form. It is the form in which a memory trace is created.
Can be stored in different forms:
-visually
-acoustically
-semantically

Question 7

jacobs (1887) digit span - research into capacity of STM

Answer 7

conducted an experiment using a digit span test, to examine the capacity of short-term memory for numbers and letters.
Participants had to repeat back a string of numbers or letters in the same order and the number of digits was gradually increased, until the participants could no longer recall the sequence.
Jacobs found that the student had an average span of 7.3 letters

Question 8

Miller (1986) - research into capacity

Answer 8

he reviewed existing research into short-term memory. He said that we can hold 7 +/- ‘items’ in short-term memory.
our short-term memory stores ‘chunks’ of information rather than individual numbers or letters.

Question 9

Capacity of stm

Answer 9

7 +/- 2

Question 10

Capacity of LTM

Answer 10

Unlimited

Question 11

Peterson & Peterson (1959) - research into duration of STM

Answer 11

• participants were given a consonant syllable and a three digit number ( eg THX 512). They were asked to recall the consonant syllable after intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds. To prevent rehearsal p’s we’re asked to count backwards from their 3 digit numbers.
• after 3s ps were on average 90% correct at 18s only 2%.
• suggests the duration of STM is less than 18s, if rehearsal isn’t interrupted.

Question 12

Bahrick et al ( 1978) - research into duration of LTM

Answer 12

• tested photo recognition and free name recall from the p’s high school year book.
• P’s tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate, after 48 years recall declined to 70%.
• free name recall was not as good as photo recognition after 15 years this was 60% accurate dropping to 30% after 48 years.
• suggests that the duration of LTM can last a very long time.

Question 13

Duration of STM

Answer 13

18-30s

Question 14

Duration of LTM

Answer 14

Unlimited

Question 15

Baddeley (1966) - research into coding

Answer 15

• Participants were shown a list of words and had to recall them in the correct order.
• To test STM ps recalled the words immediately after hearing them, whereas a time interval of 20 minutes was given for LTM recall.
• found participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM, semantically similar words got confused in LTM.
• suggests information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM.

Question 16

Coding in STM

Answer 16

acoustically

Question 17

Coding in LTM

Answer 17

Semantic

Question 18

Central executive

Answer 18

• directs attention to tasks, decides what working memory pays attention to.
  -controls the ‘slave systems’ ( other 3 components)

Question 19

phonological loop

Answer 19

• limited capacity holds 2 seconds worth of information
  •deals with auditory information
  •codes acoustically
  •further subdivided into phonological store(words heard) and articulating loop (holds words seen)

Question 20

viso-spacial sketch pad

Answer 20

•visual and spacial information is stored here
•visual - what things look like
•spacial- relationships between things
•limited capacity
•subdivided into visual-cache (stores info about visual items) and inner scribe (for spacial relations and which stores the arrangement of objects)

Question 21

baddeley and hitch (1974) phonological loop and viso-spacial sketchpad

Answer 21

Aim : to investigate if participants can use different parts of working memory at the same time.
Method : p’s were asked to perform two tasks at the same time - a digit span task which required them to repeat a list of numbers, and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false questions.
Results: As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions.
Conclusion : the verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive the digit span took made use of phonological loop.

Question 22

episodic buffer

Answer 22

•baddeley later added the episodic buffer as he realised the model needed a more general store.
•slave systems deal with specific types of info.
•buffer extra storage system but with limited capacity.
•maintains a sense of time sequences- recording events that are happening.

Question 23

types of long term memory

Answer 23

•episodic
•semantic
•procedural

Question 24

episodic memory

Answer 24

part of the LTM responsible for storing information about events that we have experienced in our lives. It involves conscious thought and is declarative.
• They are associated with the hippocampus and right prefrontal cortex
found by tulving (1994).

Question 25

semantic memory

Answer 25

•responsible for storing information about the world. this includes knowledge about the meaning of words, as well as general knowledge.
• It involves conscious thought and is declarative - This means it has to be consciously recalled.
•They often start as episodic memories but they are not time stamped.

Question 26

procedural memory

Answer 26

•responsible for knowing how to do things/ carry out complex tasks ie memory of motor skills.
•it does not involve conscious thought and is non-declarative.

Question 27

interference

Answer 27

when two pieces of information conflict with each other, this can be a result in forgetting one of or both pieces of information or a distortion of memory

Question 28

types of interference

Answer 28

• retroactive
• proactive

Question 29

retroactive interference

Answer 29

happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one.

Question 30

proactive interference

Answer 30

occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one

Question 31

Retrieval failure

Answer 31

Failure to find an item of information because you have insufficient cues

Question 32

Context-dependent memory

Answer 32

refers to improved recall of specific episodes or information when contextual cues relating to the environment are the same during encoding and retrieval.

Question 33

State-dependent memory

Answer 33

refers to improved recall of specific episodes or information when cues relating to emotional and physical state are the same during encoding and retrieval.

Question 34

types of misleading information

Answer 34

• leading question
• post event discussion

Question 35

Loftus and palmer (1974) - leading questions

Answer 35

-P’s watched a video of a car crash and asked a specific question about the speed of the cars, but changed the verb in the question.
-They found the estimated speed was effected by the verb eg smashed = 40.5mph contacted = 31.8mph.
-Shows the accuracy of EWT is affected by leading questions, a single word can significantly affect accuracy of judgements.

Question 36

Gabbert et al (2003) - post event discussion

Answer 36

• consisted 60 students and 60 other adults
• p’s watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet, either tested individually (control) or in pairs (co-witness). P’s in the the co-witness group were told they had watched the same video but they had seen different perspectives of the same crime and only one person actually witnessed the girl stealing. P’s in the co-witness group discussed the crime together.
• 71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled info they had not actually seen and 60% said that the girl was guilty, despite the fact they had not seen her commit a crime.
• these results highlight the issue of post-event discussion and the powerful effect this can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Question 37

Anxiety

Answer 37

has a curvilinear relationship between stress and performance ( inverted u theory) if too high or too low it leads to poor performance/recall

Question 38

Yerkes and Dodsen - inverted U theory

Answer 38

•the inverted U theory states that performance will increase with stress, but only to a certain point where it decreases drastically.
• this means that anxiety can have both a positive and negative effect on someone’s ability to accurately recall EWT

Question 39

weapon focus effect

Answer 39

in violent crimes arousal may focus the witness on more central details (such as a weapon) of the attack than the more peripheral details.

Question 40

Johnson and Scott (1976) - anxiety has a negative affect

Answer 40

•p’s thought they were taking part in a lab study. while in waiting room p’s heard an argument in the next room, the low anxiety condition had a man walk through with a pen and grease on his hands whereas the high anxiety condition the man walks through holding a knife that was covered in knife.

• p’s picked out the man from 50 photos; 49% of the low-anxiety identified him. whereas only 33% had accurate EWT in the high anxiety condition.

Question 41

Yuille and Cutshall - anxiety has a positive affect

Answer 41

• studied a real life shooting, the shop owner shot a thief dead, 13 took part in this study. interviews took place 4-5 months after and were compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shootings. Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each interview. P’s were also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time on a 7 point scale, and if they had any emotional problems since the event.

•p’s we’re very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in EWT after 5 months. P’s who reported highest levels of stress were most accurate.

Question 42

stages of the cognitive interview

Answer 42

•report everything
•Reinstate the context
•Reverse the order
•change perspective

Question 43

report everything

Answer 43

•take notes on everything.
•details act as cues which may trigger important memories.

Question 44

reinstate the context

Answer 44

• taken back to the scene to trigger memory
• based on context-dependent memory, triggers a route into memory

Question 45

reverse the order

Answer 45

•chronological shift (disrupts schema)
•this breaks up the natural flow of memory, checking it’s right

Question 46

change perspective

Answer 46

• someone else’s point of view
• disrupts the effect of expectations and schemas on recall

Question 47

leading questions

Answer 47

a question in which the wording can distort the memory or influence the answer.

Question 48

post event discussion

Answer 48

when the event is discussed afterwards and it could distort memory.

Question 49

Godden & Baddeley

Answer 49

• deep sea divers learnt a list of instructions and later recalled:
- water,water
- water, land
- land, water
- land, land
• accurate reacall was 40% lower in conditions 2 and 3 than in 1 and 4
• due to lack to context cues at time of recall

Question 50

Carter & Cassaday

Answer 50

• ps learnt list of words and later recalled :
- on drugs, on drugs
- on drugs, sober
- sober, on drugs
- sober,sober
• recall was significantly worse in conditions 2 and 3 compared to 1 and 4
• when the cues at encoding are absent at retrieval then there is more forgetting

Question 51

mcGeoch and mcdonald - retroactive interference

Answer 51

• Studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials which p’s had to recall. Participants had to learn a list of words until they could remember it with 100% accuracy.
• They then learned a new list of either synonyms, nonsense syllables or numbers.
• Results:
Synonyms = 12% recall
Syllables = 26% recall
Numbers = 37% recall