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A-Level Psychology > Memory > Flashcards

Memory Flashcards

1
Q

What is the ‘multi-store model of memory’?

A
  • There are 3 memory stores; Sensory register, Short term memory, Long term memory.
  • The model is linear and all three stores are unitary.
  • Information is transferred through attention and rehearsal.
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2
Q

What are the features of the sensory registers coding?

A
  • Information from our 5 senses goes there.
  • Everything in our environment.
  • External stimuli.
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3
Q

What are the features of the sensory registers capacity?

A
  • Unmeasurable capacity.
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4
Q

What are the features of the sensory registers duration?

A
  • Information is in our sensory register for seconds.
  • Information is transferred from the SR to the STM through attention.
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5
Q

What are the features of the short term memory’s coding?

A
  • It codes acoustically.
  • Supported by the research done by Baddeley.
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6
Q

What are the features of the short term memory’s capacity?

A
  • 5-9 items.
  • Supported by ‘Millers magic 7’ and ‘Peterson + Peterson’.
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7
Q

What are the features of the duration of the short term memory?

A
  • Information stays in the STM for up to 30 seconds without rehearsal.
  • Elaborative rehearsal transfers this information into the LTM, due to it being given meaning (semantic).
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8
Q

What are the features of the Long term memory’s coding?

A
  • The LTM codes semantically.
  • Supported by the research done by Baddeley.
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9
Q

What are the features of the Long term memory’s capacity?

A
  • It has a unlimited capacity.
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10
Q

What are the features of the Long term memory’s duration?

A
  • From many years up to forever.
  • Supported by research done by Bahrick (1975), ‘yearbook recall and recognition’.
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11
Q

What were the features of Peterson + Peterson’s experiment?

A
  • Aim was to investigate duration of STM.
  • Lab experiment where 24 participants had to recall trigrams.
  • To prevent rehearsal ppts were asked to count backwards from a number.
  • Ppts were asked to recall trigrams after intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 and 18 seconds.
  • Ppts were able to recall 80% of trigrams after a 3 second delay.
  • 50% after 6 seconds.
  • Less than 10% after 18 seconds.
  • Lacks population validity.
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12
Q

What were the features of Bahrick’s experiment (1975)?

A
  • Testing the duration of LTM.
  • Independent group design.
  • Concluded that LTM (duration) can be improved by cues.
  • Field experiment.
  • Independent variable was the recall and recognition groups.
  • Extraneous variable, material could have been revised by some Ppts.
  • 392 people shown high school yearbook pictures (7,14,25,34 and 47 years after leaving school).
  • Then had 2 groups: recall and recognition.
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13
Q

What 3 things Could Clive W do and 3 that he couldn’t do?

A
  • Could remember 10-30seconds
  • Writes in a diary.
  • Remembers how to play the piano.
  • Can’t make long term memory’s.
  • Can’t remember before 30 seconds.
  • Can’t recall his wedding.
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14
Q

What did the study on Clive W conclude?

A
  • Suggests that there are different types of LTM, this is because it is shown that he still has his procedural memory but not his episodic memory.
  • Goes against MSM because it suggests that memory stores are not unitary.
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15
Q

What 3 things could ‘HM’ still do and what 2 things could be not do?

A
  • Still had procedural memory.
  • Could remember everything from before surgery.
  • Had normal IQ.
  • Motor skills (can make new ones).
  • Couldn’t make new memory’s.
  • Can’t remember even minutes ago.
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16
Q

What happened to the case study patient ‘HM’.

A
  • His hippocampus was removed from the brain to help with his epilepsy.
  • Hippocampus plays a crucial role in memory, turns STM into LTM.
  • This study supports MSM, because it suggests that STM’s are needed to create LTM’s.
  • However it also goes against MSM because it suggests that memory stores are not unitary.
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17
Q

What were the features of Baddeley’s (1966 experiment)?

A
  • Aim was to explore the effects of acoustic and semantic encoding in STM and LTM.
  • Ppts were asked to order a list of words immediately after seeing them and then again 20 minutes after.
  • 4 categories: Acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar.
  • LTM (20mins) struggled the most with the semantically similar words (semantic confusion, in this case there was too much information). Concludes that LTM codes semantically.
  • STM (immediately) struggled the most with the acoustically similar words (acoustic confusion, amount of information in this case). Concludes that STM codes acoustically.
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18
Q

What did Tulving suggest in 1985?

A

He suggested that the multi store model was too simplistic and inflexible. Therefore, he presented the idea that there are 3 types of Long Term Memory.

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19
Q

What are the 3 types of long term memory (LTM)?

A
  • Episodic
  • Semantic
  • Procedural
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20
Q

What are the features of the Episodic LTM?

A
  • Our ability to recall events
  • They are time stamped
  • You can make a conscious effort to recall details from an event if asked.
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21
Q

What are the features of the semantic LTM?

A
  • Knowledge of the world
  • Not time stamped, we don’t remember when or how we learned about them
  • Have to deliberately recall these facts
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22
Q

What are the features of the procedural LTM?

A
  • Memory of actions, skills (how we do things/complete tasks)
  • Includes memory of previously learned skills
  • We can recall these without conscious awareness, we don’t have to actively think about it.
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23
Q

What is the role of the ‘frontal lobe’ in the brain?

A

To store semantic/ episodic memories.

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24
Q

What is the role of the ‘motor complex’ within the brain?

A

Stores procedural memories.

25
Q

What is the role of the ‘prefrontal cortex’ within the brain?

A

Stores Short Term Memory.

26
Q

What is the role of the ‘temporal lobe’ within the brain?

A
  • Stores semantic/ episodic LTM.
  • Also helps create more STM’s.
27
Q

What is the role of the ‘Amygdala’ within the brain?

A

Stores and creates New emotional memories.

28
Q

What is the role of the ‘Hippocampus’ within the brain?

A

Transfers STM into LTM.

29
Q

What is the role of the ‘Cerebellum’ within the brain?

A

Stores procedural memories.

30
Q

What is the ‘Working memory model?

A
  • A theory suggested by Baddeley and Hitch (1974).
  • Suggests that there are different components in different areas of the brain dealing with different types of information.
  • It includes: central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad and the episodic buffer (added in 2000).
31
Q

What is the role and the features of the ‘Central Executive’?

A
  • Diverts the information to the appropriate subsystem.
  • Deals with all incoming stimuli, in its origins form.
  • Has a limited capacity (can’t hold you attention to loads of things at once).
  • Has the capacity to ficus, divide and switch attention.
  • Sits in the prefrontal part of the brain.
32
Q

What is the role and the features of the ‘Visuospatial sketchpad’?

A
  • All visual info including images, spatial awareness, planning routes, following a map.
  • Has a limited capacity.
  • The VSS is in the occipital lobe.
  • Called the ‘inner eye’.
  • Stores and processes visual and spatial material.
33
Q

What axis the role and the features of the phonological loop?

A
  • Processes speech and language.
  • Left parietal
  • ‘inner voice’ and the ‘inner ear’
  • Has limited capacity
34
Q

What are the two explanation for forgetting?

A
  • Interference (Pro active and Retro active)
  • Retrieval failure
35
Q

What is ProActive interference?

A
  • New information being interfered with by old information.
  • Previously stored information prevents new information from being stored properly.
36
Q

What is RetroActive interference?

A
  • Old information being interfered with by new information.
  • Newly stored information prevents you from recalling/ remembering old information.
37
Q

What was the aim of the Postman (1960) study?

A

To investigate how Retroactive interference affects learning. In other words, to investigate whether info you have recently received interferes with the ability to recall something you learned earlier.

38
Q

What a were the results of the Postman (1960) experiment?

A

The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group because they were not given the second word paired list which meant no interference.

39
Q

What were the features of Baddeley and Hitch’s real life study into interference (1977)?

A
  • Asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they had played against earlier on in the season.
  • Most players had missed some games due to injuries etc.
  • They found that recall for the last game was equally as good whether the game was played some time ago or last week.
  • This shows that incorrect recall was not due to decay (passage of time) but was related to the number of intervening games.
40
Q

What were the features of Godden and Baddeley’s study into context dependant forgetting in 1975?

A
  • Their aim was to investigate the effect I’d environment on recall (took place in Scotland).
  • 18 divers from a diving club were asked to learn lists of 36 words of 2/3 syllables.
  • There were 4 conditions:
    learn on beach, recall on beach
    Learn on beach, recall under water
    Learn under water, recall on beach
    Learn under water, recall under water
  • Concluded that the environment that information was learnt acted as a cue to recall the correct information.
41
Q

What is state dependent forgetting?

A

SDF occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from the mood you were in when you were learning.

42
Q

What were the features of Goodwin et al, 1969?

A
  • 48 male medical students participated on day 1 in a training session and on day 2 in a testing
  • Randomly allocated to 4 groups:
    Sober both days (SS)
    Intoxicated on both days (AA)
    Intoxicated on day 1, sober on day 2 (AS)
    Sober on day 1, intoxicated on day 2 (SA)
  • They had to complete a variety of different tests (e.g avoidance tasks).
  • SS group performed best in all tasks.
  • However less errors were made in the AA group than the AS and SA groups.
43
Q

What 4 factors affect the accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony?

A
  • Misleading information
  • Leading questions
  • Post event discussion
  • Anxiety
44
Q

What were the features of Loftus and Palmer’s study into EWT?

A
  • Aim was to investigate how information provided to a witness after an event will influence their memory of that event.
  • 45 student ppts were shown short video clips, then split into groups and asked ‘how fast were the cars going when they [verb] each other’.
  • These verbs were ‘smashed, collided, bumped, hit and contacted’
  • How the question was phrased influenced the ppts speed estimates.
45
Q

What were the features of Loftus and Palmer study in 1974?

A
  • 150 students were shown a multi car accident and they were asked questions about it.
  • Split into 3 groups of 50, one group was asked how fast they were going when they hit, the second group was how fats they were going when they smashed and the third was not asked any questions.
  • One week later, all ppts returned and were asked did they see any broken glass
  • However, there was no broken glass in the film.
  • The results showed that the verb ‘smashed’ influenced the ppts answers.
46
Q

How do we become in a state where we can’t correctly recall details of an event?

A
  • Loftus and Palmer suggest that there are two types of information that go into a persons memory of an event, info obtained from perceiving the even and other info supplied to us after the event.
  • Over time the info from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled (all we have is one ‘memory’ of the event).
47
Q

What are the features of Yuille and Cutshall study in 1986?

A
  • Aim was to find out if EWT for real events can be influenced by misleading information and to see how reliable EWT is.
  • Witnesses to a robbery and murder were interviewed again 5 months after the crime.
  • Misleading questions had no effect on EWT and they all still had very accurate recall for the crime.
  • Witness accounts were proven to be very reliable and the most distressed eyewitnesses had the best recall.
  • Concluded that witnesses to real life incidents have remarkably accurate memories, even when the incident involved high levels of anxiety and weapons.
48
Q

What is Post Event discussion (PED)?

A
  • The original memory of an event might be distorted through discussion of this event with other people (conformity effect).
  • It can also be distorted by repeated interviews.
49
Q

What is memory conformity?

A

People being influenced by another persons report. This results in the individuals memory report becoming more similar to another.

50
Q

What is source monitoring theory?

A
  • Memories of the event are generally distorted.
  • Eyewitness can recall information about the event (accurate and inaccurate), but they can’t recall where it came from.
  • Was or from their own memory of the event or did they hear it from someone else? (This is called source confusion).
51
Q

What is conformity theory?

A
  • Eyewitness memories are not actually distorted by post event discussion.
  • Instead, eyewitnesses recall appears to change only because they go along with the accounts of co witnesses.
  • They do this either to win social approval, or because they genuinely believe other witnesses are right and they are wrong.
52
Q

What are the features of Gabbert et al study in 2003 (Post event discussion)?

A
  • The aim was to investigate the effect of post event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
  • 60 students and 60 older adults randomly selected.
  • Ppts watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet. The ppts were either tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group).
  • Ppts in the co witness group were told they watched the same video, however they saw different perspectives of the girl and 1 only saw her actually steal.
  • Ppts in the co-witness group discussed the crime together and then all ppts completed a questionnaire about what they had seen.
  • Found that 71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled info that they had not actually seen.
  • These results highlight the issue of post event discussion and the powerful effect this can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
53
Q

What were the features of weight et al study in 2000 (PED)?

A
  • Showed pairs of ppts an identical crime, except that half saw an accomplice with the thief and half did not.
  • Initial memories were very accurate, but after discussing the crime with the other person in the pair, who saw a slightly different sequence, 75% of the pairs exhibited conformity and said they saw the accomplice.
54
Q

What is Yerkes-Dodson’s law?

A

According to the Yerke-Dodson law, we all have an optimum level of stress, meaning our functionality and performance is going to be at its best (in terms of providing an eye witness testimony). Too much/ not enough stress will lead to poor functionality and performance. Performance increases as anxiety increases until the optimum level, after that performance decreases.

55
Q

Describe the Cognitive interview concept (ROPE)?

A
  • Designed to be used by police investigators to improve the accuracy of EWT.
    Reinstate context= Context dependant forgetting; other people, was it light/dark outside, weather).
    Order (change)= Changing order of events avoids schemas, we also don’t store info chronologically.
    Perspective (change)= Asked to attempt to tell the story from someone else’s point of view.
    Everything (recall)= You are required to report back any information about the event that you can remember, even if it doesn’t seem to have a significant part in the crime.
56
Q

What were the features of Geiselman et al in 1984 (Cognitive interview)?

A
  • The aim was to improve the effectiveness of interviews when questioning witnesses and to apply the results of psychological research that memory is not like a video camera but an active process.
  • A group of 89 students were shown a police training video of violent crimes.
  • 48 hours later, the students were interviewed individually by American enforcements (e.g detectives, CIA and private investigators).
  • Some used normal interview techniques and some used the cognitive interview schedule.
  • Results showed the cognitive interview to be a lot more effective.
57
Q

What are two disadvantages or the cognitive interview schedule?

A
  • Very time consuming, therefore not cost effective.
  • Won’t be able to be used on all people (e.g children) as their Brian’s wont be developed enough to change perspective.
58
Q

What is a strength of the working memory model?

A

It divides short term memory into different parts, e.g phonological loop and Visio-spatial sketchpad. (LTM had already been further explained, by Tulving).

59
Q

What is a weakness of the working memory model?

A

It doesn’t fully explain the whole of memory, it hasn’t been fully explained as the central executive can’t be comprehended (not explained).

A-Level Psychology (12 decks)

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